Webb v. Webb, 79-6853

• Decision Date: 18 May 1981
• Docket Number: No. 79-6853,79-6853
• Citation: 451 U.S. 493,101 S.Ct. 1889,68 L.Ed.2d 392
• Parties: Leah Lynn Parrish WEBB, Petitioner, v. James Thomas WEBB
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

451 U.S. 493

101 S.Ct. 1889

68 L.Ed.2d 392

Leah Lynn Parrish WEBB, Petitioner,

v James Thomas WEBB.

No. 79-6853.

Argued March 23, 1981.

Decided May 18, 1981.

Syllabus

This case involves a custody dispute between the mother (petitioner) and father (respondent) of a minor child. A Florida state court awarded custody to petitioner. In a subsequently filed action, a Georgia state court awarded custody to respondent, and the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. Petitioner then filed a petition for certiorari in this Court, raising the question whether Art. IV, § 1, of the Federal Constitution required Georgia to give full faith and credit to the Florida decree, and certiorari was granted.

Held: Where the record discloses that petitioner failed to raise her federal claim in the Georgia courts and that the Georgia Supreme Court failed to rule on a federal issue, this Court is without jurisdiction to decide that issue, and accordingly the writ of certiorari is dismissed. Pp. 494-502.

Certiorari dismissed. Reported below: 245 Ga. 650, 266 S.E.2d 463.

Mary R. Carden, Gainesville, Ga., for petitioner.

Manley F. Brown, Macon, Ga., for respondent.

Justice WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case involves a custody dispute between the mother and father of a minor child. Their dispute has reached this Court because the state courts of Florida and Georgia have reached conflicting results in assigning custody of the child.

On March 8, 1979, petitioner, the mother, filed an action in Florida state court seeking custody of her son. On April 18, 1979, the Florida court entered a judgment granting her custody. On March 23, 1979, respondent, the father, filed an action in Georgia state court also seeking custody. On June 21, 1979, he was awarded custody by the Georgia court. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed that decision. 245 Ga. 650, 266 S.E.2d 463.

The mother then filed a petition for writ of certiorari in this Court, raising just one question: "Does Article IV, § 1 of the United States Constitution, demand that Georgia . . . give full faith and credit to a Florida decree rendered immediately prior to Georgia's acceptance of unqualified jurisdiction?" Petitioner alleged that she had properly raised this federal question in the Georgia courts. Respondent filed a brief in opposition to the petition for certiorari in which he argued that the Full Faith and Credit Clause must give way to the "best interests" of the child in a child custody proceeding.¹ At no point in his brief in opposition did respondent dispute petitioner's contention that the federal issue had been properly raised below, nor did respondent contend that there was some other jurisdictional bar that would prevent this Court from reaching the question raised in the petition.

Under our Rule 19.1, we no longer require, and in fact disfavor, the filing of the lower court record prior to action by this Court on a petition for certiorari. We are, therefore, largely dependent upon the assertions made by the parties as to what that record will demonstrate concerning the manner in which a federal question was raised below. Because petitioner forthrightly asserted that the federal question had been raised and this assertion was not disputed by respondent, we assumed that there would be no jurisdictional problem in reaching the issue raised by the petition, and we granted certiorari.² 449 U.S. 819, 101 S.Ct. 70, 66 L.Ed.2d 21. It has become clear, however, that the federal question was not raised below and that we are without jurisdiction in this case. We must therefore dismiss without reaching the merits.

Because this case comes to this Court from a state court, the relevant jurisdictional statute is 28 U.S.C. § 1257. As applied to the circumstances of this case, that statute requires that in the state courts petitioner have "specially set up or claimed under the Constitution . . . of . . . the United States" that right which she now seeks to have this Court enforce. 28 U.S.C. § 1257(3). Similarly our Rule 21.1(h) requires the petitioner to "specify the stage in the proceedings, both in the court of the first instance and in the appellate court, at which the federal questions sought to be reviewed were raised; the method or manner of raising them and the way in which they were passed upon by the court." Our examination of the record convinces us that petitioner failed properly to raise or preserve a claim under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Federal Constitution in the Georgia courts.

We note first that nowhere in the opinion of the Georgia Supreme Court is any federal question mentioned, let alone expressly passed upon. Nor is any federal issue mentioned by the dissenting opinion in that court. This Court has frequently stated that when "the highest state court has failed to pass upon a federal question, it will be assumed that the omission was due to want of proper presentation in the state courts, unless the aggrieved party in this Court can affirmatively show the contrary." Street v. New York, 394 U.S 576, 582, 89 S.Ct. 1354, 1360, 22 L.Ed.2d 572 (1969); see also Fuller v. Oregon, 417 U.S. 40, 50, n. 11, 94 S.Ct. 2116, 2123, n. 11, 40 L.Ed.2d 642 (1974); Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 290, n. 3, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 1043, n. 3, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973); Bailey v. Anderson, 326 U.S. 203, 206-207, 66 S.Ct. 66, 68, 90 L.Ed. 3 (1945). Petitioner argues that the record of this case rebuts this assumption because it demonstrates that she did raise the federal question. Therefore, in her view the State Supreme Court must be understood as having implicitly rejected her federal claim.

Although petitioner did use the phrase "full faith and credit" at several points in the proceedings below, nowhere did she cite to the Federal Constitution or to any cases relying on the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Federal Constitution. In her amended motion to dismiss in the Georgia trial court, petitioner added the following contention: "Plaintiff herein continues to act contrary to the order of the Superior Court of Berrine County, entered September 22, 1977, and also is acting in violation of the April 18, 1979, order of the circuit court of Alachua County, Florida . . . which order should be accorded full faith and credit by this court, as it was made pursuant to relevant Florida law, as stated above." Also, in petitioner's enumeration of errors to the Georgia Supreme Court, she stated that "the [c]ourt erred in failing to find a Florida decree of April 18, 1979, a valid order in a prior pending action, give such full faith and credit, enforce it by ordering Plaintiff to comply with it in all respects, and dismiss this action." ³

It is a long-settled rule that the jurisdiction of this Court to re-examine the final judgment of a state court can arise only if the record as a whole shows either expressly or by clear implication that the federal claim was adequately pre- sented in the state system. New York ex rel. Bryant v. Zimmerman, 278 U.S. 63, 67, 49 S.Ct. 61, 63, 73 L.Ed. 184 (1928); Oxley Stave Co. v. Butler County, 166 U.S. 648, 655, 17 S.Ct. 709, 711, 41 L.Ed. 1149 (1897). Petitioner argues that since the Georgia Constitution has no full faith and credit clause, there can be no doubt that the above references in the record were to the Federal Constitution and therefore that her federal claim was properly presented. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 4. We are unpersuaded. In fact, we find it far more likely that petitioner was referring to state law.

The Georgia Supreme Court understood this case to concern primarily the requirements of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act: "This case calls for an interpretation of certain provisions of Georgia's Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act, Code Ann. § 74-501 et seq." That Act has been adopted by both Georgia and Florida. Section 74-514 of that Act, as codified by Georgia, states:

"The courts of this State shall recognize and enforce an initial or modification decree of a court of another state which had assumed jurisdiction under statutory provisions substantially in accordance with this Chapter, or which was made under factual circumstances meeting the jurisdictional standards of the Chapter, so long as this decree has not been modified in accordance with jurisdictional standards substantially similar to those of this Chapter." Ga.Code § 74-514 (1979).

Interpreting the meaning of this section is obviously a matter of Georgia state law, but a litigant could plausibly refer to it as a statutory full faith and credit requirement. The record supports the view that it was so understood in this case, by both the courts and the parties.

At the trial court hearing, petitioner discussed the Florida decree but did not invoke the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Federal Constitution. Rather, petitioner argued that in failing to make the Georgia court aware of the previous decree, respondent had violated the terms of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act: "[W]hile all this was going on in Florida, [respondent] turned right around and filed an action here, never informed the [c]ourt here that he had done it; never made any of the disclosures that he's supposed to make under Georgia law [the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act], and never made any response to that whatsoever." Tr. 8. The appellate briefs of the parties to the Georgia Supreme Court similarly argued the application of the Act to the facts of this case. As noted above, the State Supreme Court apparently did not believe that any federal issue was presented. Finally, petitioner did not claim in her petition for rehearing before the Georgia Supreme Court that the court's failure to reach the federal claim, which petitioner now contends was raised before that court, was error. She did, however, argue that the failure of the Georgia courts to dismiss the action was error under the Act.⁴

We cannot conclude on this record that petitioner raised...