Court Opinion

ID: 9714997
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:51:14.183351+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:30.397826
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Adlen M. Stearne:
I do not concede that “defendant established the fact that he is a bona fide Florida domiciliary”. Curiously *10enough, while his true motives are sharply in issue, he never testified in court even by deposition. He relies upon what he is alleged to have told others who, in turn, testified as to defendant’s intent. And all of this testimony, so injected, as to his Florida domicile consisted of self-seiwing declarations and acts manifestly set up to give semblance of verity to his claim of changed domicile. Voting, paying taxes, joining clubs, etc., were all matters within defendant’s exclusive control. I think we should give vital effect to the majority’s observation that “. . . since motive may reflect on a person’s intent to change domicile . . . evidence of that intent must be subjected to close and careful scrutiny”. In truth and in fact the testimony adduced by the defendant discloses that his chief interest in trying to obtain a new domicile in a foreign jurisdiction was that he might be able thereby to secure a divorce for which he had no grounds in the marital domicile. The question of domicile was but incidental to his main purpose. In my opinion, defendant’s pretended change of domicile from Pennsylvania to Florida, in the circumstances of this case, constitutes a fraud and a sham. It appears of record without contradiction from the defendant that he said that if he Avas prevented from going ahead with the Florida divorce proceedings, he Avould go into another State and begin another action.
Of course, I do not dispute that a decree of divorce granted by a State where the complaining party has recently acquired a domicile, if procedurally valid according to the law of the jurisdiction, must be given full faith and credit throughout the other forty-seven States: Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U. S. 287; Williams v. North Carolina, 325 U. S. 226; Esenwein v. Commonwealth, 325 U. S. 279. The Williams cases and others of like import are not germane to the point on Which this Pennsylvania equity suit should turn. To *11my mind, the ruling of the majority in the instant case mistakenly extends the effect of the United States Supreme Court cases on divorce far beyond their intendment.
I would reverse for want of competent evidence to support any finding of the defendant’s bona fide change of his established Pennsylvania domicile.
Mr. Justice Jones joins in this dissent.