Court Opinion

ID: 9545180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:07:52.209941+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:14:15.510618
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION OF
LEVINSON, J.
I dissent.
I believe that HRS § 580-1,1 which establishes a one-year residence requirement as a jurisdictional prerequisite to the granting of an absolute divorce, is unconstitutional under both the Federal and State Constitutions for the following two reasons: (1) The statute deprives persons, residents in Hawaii for less than one year, of due process of law by denying them access to the only forum capable of granting them a hearing and relief on their claimed right to a dissolution of their marriages. (2) The one-year residence requirement bears no reasonable relation to a legitimate government purpose and thus works an invidious discrimination in violation of the constitutional guarantee of the *319equal protection of the laws.2 Therefore I would hold that the family court properly took jurisdictioii of this case and that the decree of divorce should be affirmed.
I. HRS § 580-1 DENIES THE APPELLEE DUE PROCESS OF LAW.
A. The Appellee’s Right to a Judicial Hearing on Her Marital Grievances.
The legislation at issue in this case touches upon the institution of marriage, one of the most fundamental of human relationships. Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 12 (1967); Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541 (1942). New decisions are as important, or as personal to an individual as those which involve a change in marital status. Yet, as our society is presently organized, such basic decisions are totally dependent upon the sanction of the State for their legal significance; without the law’s imprimatur individuals may not validly covenant for or dissolve marriages. Because the State has chosen to monopolize the procedures for legally affecting this vital personal right, I believe that due process of law prohibits, in the absence of a countervailing state interest of overriding significance, restrictions on access to these procedures. This conclusion is supported by a recent United States Supreme Court decision, Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371 (1971).
The Boddie case, which the majority opinion says is irrelevant,3 involved issues directly analogous to those pres*320ently before this court. In that case, a Connecticut statute required the payment of certain fees as a condition for bringing an action for divorce. The appellants were welfare recipients who, unable to pay their fees, were precluded from bringing their divorce actions in Connecticut courts. Because of the judicial monopoly over the means of divorce, this denial, the Supreme Court noted, raised important issues of due process. Boddie v. Connecticut, supra at 376-77:
Resort to the judicial process by these plaintiffs is no more voluntary in a realistic sense than that of the defendant called upon to defend his interests in court. For both groups this process is not only the paramount dispute-settlement technique, but, in fact, the only available one. In this posture we think that this appeal is properly to be resolved in light of the principles enunciated in our due process decisions that delimit rights of defendants compelled to litigate their differences in the judicial forum.
Due process mandated that unless a “countervailing State interest of overriding significance” was established, the State could not deny indigents the right to be heard upon their claim for a dissolution of their marriages. Boddie v. Connecticut, supra at 377. The Court went on to examine the justifications advanced in support of Connecticut’s fee requirement and concluded that they were insufficient to override the appellants’ interest in having access to the only avenue open for dissolving their allegedly untenable marriages; therefore due process of law required that they be given a hearing on their divorce claims. Boddie v. Connecticut, supra at 383.
I believe that the above principles are dispositive of the issue presently before this court. As in Boddie, the appellee *321seeks access to the judicial process in order to free herself from the embrace of a dead marriage. Her freedom to remarry and establish a new home and family, both fundamental personal liberties, is entirely dependent upon her ability to gain a court hearing on her claim for divorce. HRS § 580-1 denies the appellee such a hearing and thus curtails her ability to pursue these essential human rights. It is immaterial that this imposition is predicated on insufficiency of residence rather than funds. What is important is that (1) the litigation at issue affects the appellee’s fundamental rights to marry and raise a family and (2) access to the judicial process is the only alternative for securing those rights. Once these elements are shown, an issue of due process of law arises and a denial of a judicial hearing may be justified only by a countervailing state interest of overriding significance. Boddie v. Connecticut, supra at 377.
Finally, it is worth noting that a three judge United States district court in Wisconsin has applied the due process principles of the Boddie case to strike down a Wisconsin two-year residency requirement which restricted access to the State divorce courts. Wymelenberg v. Syman, 328 F. Supp. 1353 (E.D. Wis. 1971). The Wymelenberg decision, supra, also held that the Wisconsin statute must fail as an impermissible attempt to deter the exercise of an individual’s constitutional right to travel interstate. Judge Reynolds, writing for the court concluded, Wymelenberg v. Syman, supra at 1356:
[WJhether judged by the Equal Protection Clause “compelling interest” test or by the Due Process Clause “overriding significance” test . . , [the] two-year waiting period requirement constitutes an unconstitutional impingement upon the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
In the instant case, I believe that Hawaii has failed to demonstrate a constitutionally sufficient interest to justify the one-year residency restriction imposed by HRS § 580-1.
*322B. The Lack of an Overriding State Interest in a One-Year Residency Requirement.
The argument for the one-year residency requirement, put forth by the appellant, although it is not discussed in the majority opinion, is that the State’s interest in the welfare of the children, affected by the divorce, is compelling and that the residency requirement is necessary to afford the family court an opportunity to gather accurate information on which to base a custody decision. While I agree that solicitude for the children’s interests should be a paramount State objective in divorce proceedings, this interest may not be used broadly to infringe the due process rights of persons seeking divorces. Less restrictive alternatives exist for the achievement of the State’s objectives and, where fundamental rights are involved, the State is under a duty to employ these other devices. Boddie v. Connecticut, supra at 381-82; Wymelenberg v. Syman, supra at 1355; Turner v. Fouche, 396 U.S. 346, 364 (1970).
The appellee in this case has no children by the marriage she seeks to dissolve. Yet she is imposed upon by HRS § 580-1 because that provision applies to all who seek a judicial dissolution of their marriage, regardless of whether minor children are involved in the litigation. Clearly the State’s declared purpose could be achieved by less restrictive means; HRS § 580-1 could have been narrowly defined so as to apply only to those divorces where custody of the children was in issue.4 By failing to do so the State has unnecessarily constrained the appellee in the exercise of her due process rights and therefore the restriction must fall.
Another State interest has been advanced by the majority opinion in an attempt to salvage the residency limitation of HRS § 580-1. It is contended that the one-year waiting period ensures that the family court has constitu*323tionally valid jurisdiction. In my opinion this consideration is insufficient to override the interest of the appellee in having access to the only avenue open for dissolving her allegedly untenable marriage.
The United States Supreme Court has consistently stated that jurisdiction over the marital status is dependent on one of the spouses being domiciled within the state. Sherrer v. Sherrer, 334 U.S. 343, 349 (1948); Williams v. North Carolina, 325 U.S. 226, 229 (1945); Bell v. Bell, 181 U.S. 175, 177 (1901). As the majority opinion recognizes, to acquire a new domicile there need be only physical presence in the new state and an intent to make it one’s home. Yamane v. Piper, 51 Haw. 339, 340, 461 P.2d 131, 132 (1969). The length of actual residence is immaterial so long as, at some point, physical presence coincides with an intention to establish a permanent place of abode. Anderson v. Anderson, 38 Haw. 261, 263 (1948); Restatement of Conflict of Laws § 15 (1934). Thus, the residency limitation of HRS § 580-1 is not jurisdictionally compelled and cannot be used to override the constitutional rights of the appellee.
Finally, the State may not justify its denial of access to the courts on the ground that the residency requirement is a necessary device to protect the courts from fraudulent allegations of domicile. The State has failed to make arty showing that the danger of perjured testimony is greater in divorce proceedings than in other proceedings in which testimony is elicited from interested parties. Even were such a showing to be made, as the Supreme Court pointed out in the Boddie case, supra at 381-82, other alternatives, such as penalties for false pleadings or affidavits, exist to achieve this goal. These devices serve the State’s interests without infringing upon the constitutionally protected rights of persons seeking a dissolution of the marital relationship. The State may not impose an irrebuttable presumption against residence or domicile under circumstances in which they may in fact exist merely to achieve the “remote administrative benefit” of providing a facile measure of their *324existence. See Carrington v. Rash, 380 U.S. 89, 96 (1965). Based on the foregoing analysis it is clear that the State has failed to advance sufficient countervailing justifications for the residency restrictions imposed by HRS § 580-1 and, therefore, I would hold that due process of law requires that the appellee be granted an opportunity to be heard on her claimed right to a dissolution of her marriage.
II. HRS § 580-1 DENIES THE APPELEE THE EQUAL PROTECTION OF THE LAWS
The majority opinion concludes that the residency requirement imposed by HRS § 580-1 does not infringe upon the constitutionally protected right of interstate travel and thus the State need not demonstrate a compelling State interest in order to sustain the statute. I disagree. The freedom to travel from state to state is a right hasic to our federal system. Durational residency requirements are inherently destructive of this right.5 They impede interstate mobility and foster parochial attitudes antagonistic to the concept of federalism. For these reasons I concur in the view expressed by Mr. Justice Brennan in Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112, 238 (1970):
By definition, the imposition of a durational residence requirement operates to penalize those persons, and only those persons, who have exercised their constitutional right of interstate migration. . . . [I]n such a case, governmental action may withstand constitutional *325scrutiny only upon a clear showing that the burden imposed is necessary to protect a compelling and substantial governmental interest.
In the instant case, the State has failed to show that the residency requirement serves a compelling state interest. Therefore the waiting-period requirement clearly violates the equal protection clause. This conclusion is not, however, dependent solely on the State’s failure to satisfy the compelling state interest test. Even under the less stringent standard of a rational relation to a legitimate state purpose the residency restriction must fail.
The guarantee of the equal protection of the laws does not prohibit the State from classifying its inhabitants in order to achieve legitimate legislative ends. What it does mandate, however, is that government shall not exercise its categorization powers arbitrarily. The classification of a particular group as a subject for regulation must be reasonable in relation to the purpose of the legislation. Rinaldi v. Yeager, 384 U.S. 305, 309 (1966); Hasegawa v. Maui Pineapple Co., 52 Haw. 327, 329, 475 P.2d 679, 681 (1970). This reasonableness requirement is violated when the State (1) imposes burdens on persons who stand in no rational relationship to the object of the regulation, or (2) penalizes only a few while others similarly situated are exempted. Rinaldi v. Yeager, supra at 309-10; Hasegawa v. Maui Pineapple Co., supra at 332-33; see Note, Developments—Equal Protection, 82 Harv. L. Rev. 1065, 1084-87 (1969). The one-year requirement in the instant case violates both of these principles.
As previously noted, the State argues that the purpose of the one-year requirement is to afford the family court an opportunity to gather information on which to base a custody decision. Given this goal then the residency classification is clearly unreasonable since it unavoidably burdens many divorce claimants who are childless. Imposing residency requirements on these people bears no relation to the purposes advanced by the State. Thus, the class distinction *326imposed by HRS § 580-1 is unconstitutionally arbitrary.
The one-year requirement of HRS § 580-1 is also unreasonable because in achieving its stated purpose the legislature has failed to burden all those who are similarly situated with respect to object of the law. Custody decisions arise not only in divorce actions but also in separation and annulment proceedings. HRS § 571-46. Yet HRS § 580-1 fastens a one-year durational residency on only a single class of marital actions. The prohlem of gathering custody information in separation and annulment cases can be no less compelling than in divorce actions. These actions, however, require only a three-month residency. The equal protection clause does not permit the State to burden only a few when others similarly situated are exempted.
Thus, even under the traditional equal protection tests a classification of divorce applicants according to whether they have lived in the State for one year is irrational. I would hold therefore that the one-year requirement works an unconstitutionally invidious class discrimination. The decree of divorce should be affirmed.

HRS § 580-1 provides:
Exclusive original jurisdiction in matters of annulment, divorce, and separation, subject to section 603-37 as to change of venue, and subject also to appeal according to law, is conferred upon the judge or judges of the family court of the circuit in which the applicant has been domiciled or has been physically present for a continuous period of at least three months next preceding the application therefor. No absolute divorce from the bond of matrimony shall be granted for any cause unless either party to the marriage has been domiciled or has been physically present in the State for a continuous period of at least one year next preceding the application therefor. A person who may be residing on any military or federal base, installation, or reservation within the State or who may be present in the State under military orders shall not thereby be prohibited from meeting the requirements of this section.

The due process and equal protection guarantees are found in article I, section 4 of the Hawaii Constitution and section 1 of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution.

The majority attempts to distinguish the Boddie case on the basis that Boddie merely involved the question of denial of the right of access to court of an applicant for divorce solely because of his indigency. The majority argues that Boddie “did not touch upon the constitutionality of state action with respect to the substantive requirements for divorce,” and that the residency requirement for divorce in the second sentence of HRS § 580-1, being essentially substantive, does not deny access to applicants for divorce. Vapid distinctions, however, cannot obscure the fact that the second sentence of HRS § 580-1 limits the subject matter jurisdiction of the family court to those divorce proceedings in which one of the parties has been domiciled or physically *320present in Hawaii for a continuous period of at least one year. Thus, the majority likewise fails in its attempt to distinguish Wymelenberg v. Syman, 328 F. Supp. 1353 (E.D. Wis. 1971), on the ground that the Wisconsin statute can be construed as limiting the jurisdiction of the court.

I do not wish to imply that this narrow application would solve all the constitutional problems raised by this residence restriction. As subsequently noted, the statute would still fail to satisfy the reasonable classification requirements of the equal protection clause.

The majority claims that the fact that “divorce can wait” precludes the conclusion that HRS § 580-1 unduly burdens the fundamental right to travel interstate. If this were true, it could be argued a fortiori that a durational residency requirement as to voting in local elections would likewise not chill the exercise of the constitutional right to travel. Yet several three-judge federal courts have found to the contrary. Burg v. Canniffe, 315 F. Supp. 380, 385 (D. Mass. 1970); Kohn v. Davis, 320 F. Supp. 246, 251 (D. Vt. 1970). In Keppel v. Donovan, 326 F. Supp. 15, 20 (D. Minn. 1970), the court said that although “[ajdmittedly the penalty that attaches in the instant case is less severe than in Shapiro v. Thompson, where the necessities of life were denied,” nonetheless “the Court’s reasoning there buttresses our decision in the instant case.”