Court Opinion

ID: 9658308
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:55:01.528821+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:53.466836
License: Public Domain

Gordon, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent. Stanley Ferguson was at all times a resident of Walworth county, Wisconsin. Immediately after a Michigan marriage, which he entered into in contravention of sec. 245.10, Stats., he returned to Wisconsin to continue living in this state.
In furtherance of its public policies, Wisconsin has plenary control over the marital status of its own residents. Estate of Campbell (1952), 260 Wis. 625, 631, 51 N. W. (2d) 709; Peterson v. Widule (1914), 157 Wis. 641, 147 N. W. 966; Lanham v. Lanham (1908), 136 Wis. 360, 117 N. W. 787. In the latter case, this court said, at page 365:
“A state undoubtedly has the power to declare what marriages between its own citizens shall not be recognized as valid in its courts, and it also has the power to declare that marriages between its own citizens contrary to its established public policy shall have no validity in its courts, even though they be celebrated in other states under whose laws they would ordinarily be valid. In this sense, at least, it has power to give extraterritorial effect to its laws. The intention to give such effect must, however, be quite clear. So the question must be, in the present case, whether our legislature by the act quoted declared a public policy and clearly indicated the intention that the law was to apply to its citizens wherever they may be at the time of their marriage.” (Emphasis added.)
*82A similar view is taken in Restatement, Conflict of Laws, p. 197, sec. 132, wherein the following appears:
“A marriage which is against the law of the state of domicil of either party, though the requirements of the law of the state of celebration have been complied with, will be invalid everywhere in the following cases:
“(d) marriage of a domiciliary which a statute at the domicil makes void even though celebrated in another state.”
The statute in question, sec. 245.10, is clearly designed to have extraterritorial effect, since on its face it applies to a marriage “whether entered into in this state or elsewhere.” The majority’s circumvention of this explicit provision is incomprehensible to me. To support its view, the majority opinion examines the legislative history of sec. 245.10. However, there is no propriety in the court’s searching for the legislature’s meaning because the words of the statute (“in this state or elsewhere”) are unambiguous. There is simply no room for construction. Estate of Ries (1951), 259 Wis. 453, 459, 49 N. W. (2d) 483; State ex rel. U. S. F. & G. Co. v. Smith (1924), 184 Wis. 309, 316, 199 N. W. 954; United States v. Goldenberg (1897), 168 U. S. 95, 103, 18 Sup. Ct. 3, 42 L. Ed. 394.
Sec. 245.04 (1), Stats., provides as follows:
“If any person residing and intending to continue to reside in this state who is disabled or prohibited from contracting marriage under the laws of this state goes into another state or country and there contracts a marriage prohibited or declared void under the laws of this state, such marriage shall be void for all purposes in this state with the same effect as though it had been entered into in this state.”
In Lyannes v. Lyannes (1920), 171 Wis. 381, 397, 177 N. W. 683, the foregoing statute was deemed inapplicable where the particular Wisconsin statute which had been vio*83lated was not intended to have extraterritorial effect. However, in the case at bar, there can be no doubt that sec. 245.10, Stats., was so designed. The opinion of the majority denies extraterritorial effect to sec. 245.10, even though the statute itself expressly provides for it. The majority likens sec. 245.10 to secs. 245.02 and 245.06; this is wrong because the latter statutes do not call for extraterritorial effect but the former expressly provides therefor on its face. The legislature has said, in words almost of one syllable, that sec. 245.10 shall apply to marriages entered into “in this state or elsewhere;” the majority opinion states that the court cannot read such language as “requiring compliance with this section in another state.”
The learned trial judge held that in the instant case “void” means “voidable.” The legislature, using words incapable of doubt, had directed just the contrary. Sec. 245.002 (3), Stats., governs the case at bar and provides as follows: “In this title ‘void’ means null and void and not voidable.” Can words be any clearer? Nevertheless, the majority opinion has used a mysterious, restorative pharmacopoeia to resuscitate that which never lived.
I would reverse on the grounds that the purported Michigan marriage was wholly void under the Wisconsin statutes.