Court Opinion

ID: 9825747
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 14:03:59.648917+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:20.949678
License: Public Domain

RobiNS, J. (concurring). I concur in the finding of the majority that the evidence in this case is insufficient to authorize an annulment of the marriage of appellant and appellee; but I do not agree that the lower court had jurisdiction to award this relief. Both of these parties at the time of the filing of this suit were and had been for many years residents of the state of Missouri. Neither of them had ever lived in Arkansas. Therefore, it seems to me, only the courts of Missouri had jurisdiction to determine whether these Missouri citizens had properly assumed the status of husband and wife. The fact that the marriage ceremony was actually performed in Arkansas did not in itself confer jurisdiction on the Arkansas courts. If A and B, residents of Arkansas, while temporarily sojourning in Missouri, enter into a contract, and then return to Arkansas, certainly the courts of Arkansas would ordinarily have jurisdiction in an action between A and B to enforce' the contract or to determine whether in fact it had ever been executed; and, though the laws of Missouri might control a construction of the contract, or in determining whether the contract was legally entered into, the courts of Missouri would not be invested with any jurisdiction in the matter solely because it happened that the parties made the, contract in that state. Much of the deplorable conflict, confusion and uncer- ■ tainty as to the law of domestic relations has arisen from the tendency of courts of some states to interfere'with the marital status of citizens of other states. In my opinion, the rule announced, apparently by a majority of the courts in the United States, to the effect that only the courts of the state of the domicile of at least one of the parties have the power to dissolve or annul the marriage, is the better one and the one more in accord with sound public policy. The Supreme Court of Mississippi, in the case of Antoine v. Antoine, 132 Miss. 442, 96 So. 305, holding that the courts of Mississippi had no jurisdiction to annul a marriage between residents of Alabama solemnized in Mississippi well stated the rationale of the matter thus: “The reason for this rule is that every government or state is entitled to establish, and change from time to time, the status of its domiciled subjects, but not that of the subjects of any other government or state. .The courts of the domicile of married parties have the jurisdiction to determine, reverse, or modify the status, if married or single, of all persons domiciled therein, but not that of others. . . '. Both of these parties being domiciled in Alabama, that court, and not this one, has jurisdiction in this cause. ” This statement is made in a discussion of jurisdiction of actions to annul marriage at p. 1349, vol. 38, of Corpus Juris: “Jurisdiction of the marriage res depends upon the residence or domicile of plaintiff, and it is immaterial.where the marriage was solemnized.” In Restatement of the Law of Conflict of Laws (American Law Institute), pp. 167, 168, 173, it is said: “Marriage is a status. While it is an intangible thing and without situation in space, it is nevertheless of peculiar interest to the state in which the spouses have their domicil and where in the great majority of cases the family life is permanently carried on. The state of domicil is so peculiarly interested in the relation of marriage that it has jurisdiction over the status and may put an end to it for causes determined by its law. ... A state cannot exercise through its courts jurisdiction to dissolve a marriage when neither spouse is domiciled within the state. ... A state can exercise through its courts jurisdiction to nullify a marriage from its beginning under the same circumstances which would enable it to dissolve the marriage by divorce. A state can exercise through its courts jurisdiction to annul a marriage from the time of the decree under the same circumstances which would enable it to dissolve the marriage by divorce.” In my opinion the lower court had no jurisdiction and the decree ought to be reversed and the cause dismissed for that reason.