Hooker v. Hooker

Decision Date20 April 1943
Citation32 A.2d 68,130 Conn. 41
CourtConnecticut Supreme Court
PartiesHOOKER et al. v. HOOKER et al.

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

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Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; Wynne, Judge.

Action by Edward Gordon Hooker and others against Roland Mather Hooker and others for an accounting and a decree that the defendant turn over certain sums to defendant bank as trustee in accordance with a separation agreement, wherein the named defendant filed a cross-complaint and the issues were tried to the court. Judgment for plaintiffs, and named defendant appeals.

Error in part, and case remanded with directions.

Louis M. Schatz, of Hartford (Nathan A. Schatz and Arthur H. Schatz, both of Hartford, on the brief), for appellant (named defendant).

Charles Welles Gross, of Hartford (Albert Stickney, of New York City, on the brief), for appellees (plaintiffs).

Reese H. Harris, Jr., of Hartford, for defendant Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co.

Before MALTBIE, C. J., and BROWN, JENNINGS, ELLS, and DICKENSON, JJ.

MALTBIE, Chief Justice.

Roland Mather Hooker, to whom we shall hereafter refer as the defendant, and his then wife, who is now Winifred von Mohrenschildt, entered into a separation agreement. It recited that, as a result of unhappy differences between them, they had separated and were living apart, and provided that it should be lawful for each of them to continue so to live, each free from any interference by the other, as though they were unmarried; it stated that $15,000 had been paid to her which she agreed to accept in full satisfaction of his obligation to support her; and it also recited that the defendant had created certain trusts primarily for the benefit of their two minor children and would thereafter increase the amount of these trusts or create similar additional trusts for them from amounts which he might receive from his mother during her life or from her estate at her death. One of the children has died, and the other, still a minor, and Mrs. von Mohrenschildt are the plaintiffs in this action. The trust company which is trustee of the trusts already created was also made a defendant. The defendant's mother has died and the purpose of this action is to compel him to carry out the terms of the agreement with reference to the additional funds to be placed in trust for the children. In a counterclaim he sought to have the trusts he had created set aside. From a judgment for the plaintiffs, the defendant has appealed.

Shortly after the making of the agreement, Mrs. von Mohrenschildt went to Nevada and there brought an action for a divorce. The defendant appeared by an authorized attorney, who filed an answer for him and took part in the trial of the case. The separation agreement was submitted to the court, and the defendant by his attorney expressly waived any objection to its introduction in evidence and offered no objection to its approval by the court. The court granted the divorce, and in its decree it is recited that the separation agreement is ‘ratified, adopted and approved in all respects, and with the same force and effect as if said agreement were annexed hereto and set out in full in haec verba as a part hereof; and said agreement is hereby declared to be fair, just and equitable to the plaintiff, to the defendant, and to the said minor children; and the plaintiff and the defendant are both ordered and directed to comply with all of the terms and conditions of said agreement.’

This action is brought to enforce the agreement. The defendant claims that, if the decree of the Nevada court is valid, the agreement was merged in it and no action could be brought upon the agreement as such. This contention was not, so far as the record shows, raised by him in the trial court. No doubt an action would have lain to enforce in our courts the provisions of that decree, German v. German, 125 Conn. 84, 3 A.2d 849; and had the claim now made been raised in the trial court the plaintiffs might have been permitted to amend their complaint. No reason appears why we should not apply our usual rule that we will not consider claims not raised at the trial; on the contrary, the application of that rule here has definite justification. Practice Book 1934, p. 108, § 363; Conn.App.Proc., § 44.

The issue most discussed before us arose out of a ruling on evidence. At the trial the plaintiffs claimed that the Nevada decree conclusively established the validity of the agreement. The defendant proposed to offer evidence designed, as stated in his brief, to establish that the agreement was invalid because made to facilitate a divorce under such circumstances as to be within the condemnation of the law, and he further claimed that as this action was brought to enforce the agreement its approval by the Nevada court was irrelevant, and that if he was wrong in this contention he was entitled to offer evidence to prove that the Nevada court was without jurisdiction of the divorce proceeding. The trial court ruled that the validity of the agreement could not be attacked without impugning the decree of the Nevada court, and that the defendant could not do this. It refused to hear any evidence of the nature of that offered.

The defendant does not contend that the approval and adoption of the agreement by the Nevada court were not properly within the issues before it in the divorce proceeding as constituting a settlement of property rights between the parties and as embodying provisions for the support of their children; nor does he claim that, if approved by it, there is any such difference between the public policy of the state of Nevada and this state with respect to such an agreement as would justify us in disregarding a decision of the Nevada court that the agreement was valid. See Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U.S. 287, 294, 63 S.Ct. 207, 87 L.Ed. 279. Under our law, contracts between husband and wife made in settlement of their property affairs in view of divorce proceedings instituted or determined upon, if submitted to and approved by the court with full opportunity for scrutiny before the decree is entered, are not against public policy. Lasprogato v. Lasprogato, 127 Conn. 510, 513, 18 A.2d 353. A determination that the agreement was valid was necessarily involved in the decree of the Nevada court approving and adopting it. LaFrance v. LaFrance, 127 Conn. 149, 154, 14 A.2d 739. The defendant does not claim that the fact that the minor child of the parties, beneficiary under the agreement, was a joint plaintiff with his mother in this action and the bank, as trustee, was joined as a party defendant produces such a change in parties that the Nevada decree would not in this action be res adjudicata as to that issue.

The plaintiffs claim that the decree of the Nevada court is not open to attack here upon the ground that the court lacked jurisdiction, relying mainly upon the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Williams v. North Carolina, supra. They misconceive the scope of that decision. The petitioners in that case had both been found guilty of bigamy in the North Carolina courts. Each had been married in North Carolina and had lived there for many years with his or her lawful spouse. Both went to Nevada and there secured divorces, upon notice in one case by publication and registered mail and in the other by a copy of the summons and complaint left with the defendant, but without personal appearance by the defendant in either case. The state of North Carolina contended that since neither defendant was served with process in Nevada or entered an appearance the divorce decrees were not entitled to full faith and credit in North Carolina. The Supreme Court overruled that claim. In doing so it held that, while the Nevada statute requires, as a condition for securing a divorce, only that a plaintiff ‘reside’ in Nevada a certain length of time, this meant that he or she must have a domicil there for that length of time; that there was no question presented as to the fact that the petitioners had had the requisite domicil in Nevada; that it was for Nevada to determine the conditions as to domicil which would be requisite to give its courts jurisdiction to grant a divorce; and that if those conditions were met a judgment of divorce granted by its courts would be entitled to full faith and credit in any other state; and it overruled Haddock v. Haddock, 201 U.S. 562, page 570, 26 S.Ct. 525, 50 L.Ed. 867, 5 Ann.Cas. 1, in so far as it held that, if one spouse left the other wrongfully and went into another state, that state does not become a new matrimonial domicil so as to give its courts jurisdiction to dissolve the marriage relationship, the court taking the position that if the plaintiff had the domicil which was required by the laws of the state where the divorce was granted the circumstances of his leaving his spouse were immaterial. In the Williams case the Supreme Court did not decide that a judgment of divorce secured in a state where neither party had a domicil was entitled to full faith and credit in other states. The decision was based on the assumption that the petitioners did have a domicil in Nevada; it was noted that the counsel for the state of North Carolina substantially conceded this to be so; the case was treated (page 292 of 317 U.S., page 210 of 63 S.Ct., 87 L.Ed. --) as if the petitioners had resided in Nevada for a term of years and had long ago acquired a permanent abode there’; and the court stated (page 297 of 317 U.S., page 213 of 63 S.Ct., 87 L.Ed. 279): ‘Domicil of the plaintiff, immaterial to jurisdiction in a personal action, is recognized in the Haddock case and elsewhere (Beale, Conflict of Laws, § 110.1) as essential in order to give the court jurisdiction which will entitle the divorce decree to extraterritorial effect, at least when the defendant had neither been personally served nor entered an appearance.’...

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25 cases
  • Bd.man v. Bd.man.
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • 5 Noviembre 1948
    ......1273) expressly overruled so much of the decision in the Haddock case as is stated at the end of the last paragraph above. See Hooker v. Hooker, 130 Conn. 41, 48, 32 A.2d 68. The court summed up its conclusion by saying 317 U.S. at page 301, 63 S.Ct. at page 214, 87 L.Ed. 279, 143 ......
  • Masters v. Masters
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    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • 12 Agosto 1986
    ...... See Hooker v. Hooker, 130 Conn. 41, 50-51, 32 A.2d 68 (1943). It is important to note that the plaintiff has never admitted an intent to deceive the court. ......
  • Bedrick v. Bedrick
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • 26 Abril 2011
    ......See Rifkin v. Rifkin, 155 Conn. 7, 9–10, 229 A.2d 358 (1967); Hooker v. Hooker, 130 Conn. 41, 47, 32 A.2d 68 (1943); Felton v. Felton, 123 Conn. 564, 568, 196 A. 791 (1938). “While contracts between husband and ......
  • Harmon v. Harmon
    • United States
    • Supreme Judicial Court of Maine (US)
    • 23 Agosto 1979
    ...... See Curtis v. Curtis, 40 Me. 24, 27 (1855); Hooker v. Hooker, 130 Conn. 41, 32 A.2d 68, 73 (1943). Protection of this interest from tortious interference comports with recognition of this valuable ......
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1 books & journal articles
  • After Beckwith: an Update on the Interference With Inheritance Tort in California
    • United States
    • California Lawyers Association California Trusts & Estates Quarterly (CLA) No. 27-2, January 2021
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    ...65 Stan. L. Rev. at p. 342, citing In re Estate of Henry (Ill.App.Ct. 2009) 919 N.E.2d 33, 40.63. See, e.g., Hooker v. Hooker (Conn. 1943) 32 A.2d 68.64. See Youst v. Longo (1987) 43 Cal. 3d 64, 71, describing the requirement of showing "the probability of future economic benefit" in establ......

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