Court Opinion

ID: 9782451
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 18:33:39.217875+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:12:37.120244
License: Public Domain

OPALA, J.,
concurring in result.
11 At issue and still undecided at the end of this original action is the constitutionally permissible outer limit of the Tulsa County District Court's subject-matter jurisdiction in the divorce case now pending below.
12 Upon this proceeding's conclusion the trial court must decide if its jurisdiction of the subject matter is only in rem, e. confined to adjudicating the plea for divorcee and for determining the child's custody, both issues allowable in a so-called action for "divisible divorcee," 1 or may be extended to other (or to all remaining) issues incidental to the litigation for dissolution of marriage. The latter issues call for an exercise of the court's in personam jurisdiction over the nonresident (out-of-state) husband.
T 3 The trial court's decision, directed here to be made, is to deal with its personal jurisdiction's limit. Its disposition of this issue must conform to the XIVth Amendment's due process norms of federal jfurispru-dence for the constitutionally permissible outer reach of state judicial jurisdiction over a nonresident individual defendant in a suit brought for dissolution of marriage2 See *1082Kulko v. California Superior Court, 436 U.S. 84, 98 S.Ct., 1690, 56 L.Ed.2d 132 (1978).
4 I write separately to express both my concern and fear that today's pronouncement is very likely to invite trial judges to extend Oklahoma's settled jurisprudence on judicial jurisdiction in divorcee cases brought against nonresident spouses who were not personally served within the state beyond the extant due-process boundaries currently set by the U.S. Supreme Court. Pressing our law a step farther by following recent decisions of a few bold state courts would be fraught with great risk of embarrassment if the wished-for changes did not occur and a return to reality should subsequently force a hasty retreat. I must counsel against taking an activist posture on any unsettled point of federal constitutional law. Instead of pressing today for desired changes in the current state of the law I would much rather await further developments in the U.S. Supreme Court's jurisprudence. The risk of having to retreat later because federal law has failed to. follow the anticipated course appears neither appealing nor prudent.3

. Federal constitutional due process norms stand firmly settled that in a proceeding for divorce against a nonresident defendant who was not served personally within the state both the marriage status and the custody of the children present within the court's jurisdiction may be considered as issues well within the state court's in rem jurisdiction. If the first lawsuit secures only an in rem adjudication, a second is needed for an in personam adjudication of the remaining issues.

. The due process clause of the XIVth Amendment affords protection to both individuals and corporations from having to defend lawsuits *1082brought against them in distant fora arbitrarily chosen by their advantage-seeking opponents. International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945); Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U.S. 457, 61 S.Ct. 339, 85 L.Ed. 278 (1940).

. The current constitutional test a state court must meet before it may assume personal jurisdiction over a nonresident individual or foreign corporation is based on the presence of "minimum contacts". See International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945). The meaning of "minimum contacts" is explained in Kulko v. Superior Court of Cal. etc., 98 S.Ct. at 1697, in these words: Like any standard that requires a determination of "reasonableness," the "minimum contacts" test of International Shoe is not susceptible of mechanical application; rather, the facts of each case must be weighed to determine whether the requisite "affiliating circumstances" are present. Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235, 246, 78 S.Ct. 1228, 1235, 2 L.Ed.2d 1283 (1958). We recognize that this determination is one in which few answers will be written "in black and white. The greys are dominant and even among them the shades are innumerable."