Adams v. Adams
| Decision Date | 02 September 1891 |
| Parties | ADAMS v. ADAMS et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
M.F. Dickinson, Jr., and H.R. Bailey, for plaintiff.
R.M Morse, Jr., and Jabez Fox, for defendants.
This is a bill in equity, by which the plaintiff seeks to establish his right to a share in a fund left by the will of Seth Adams of Newton, Mass., to the "present wife" of his brother, Charles W. Adams, "for the benefit of herself and all the children of said Charles in equal proportions." The question is whether the plaintiff is one of the children within the meaning of the will. The wife referred to is admitted to be the defendant Anne T. Adams who was married to Charles in Maine in 1854, he then being a resident of New York. The plaintiff is the child of Charles W. Adams and Hannah Phillips, was born in California on August 28, 1881, and was then illegitimate. At that time Charles Adams' domicile was in Texas. In October, 1881 Charles Adams changed his domicile to California, and on December 3, 1881, he began an action there for divorce against the above-mentioned Anne, and got a decree on April 13, 1882. It is found that he had not been a resident of the state for six months next preceding the commencement of the action, as required by the California Civil Code, § 128, and that for this reason the court had no jurisdiction of the action, but that the court was imposed upon by Adams. We may also mention that it is found that Adams' wife was then residing in Massachusetts, and had no actual notice of the action, and that it might be a question, if material, whether her domicile followed that of her husband. Civil Code Cal. § 129; Burlen v. Shannon, 115 Mass. 438, 447, 448. On April 20, 1882, Charles Adams married Hannah Phillips in California, then having his domicile there, and after the marriage recognized the plaintiff as his son. By the law of California a child born before wedlock becomes legitimate by the subsequent marriage of its parents. Civil Code, § 215. The law of Texas is similar if the child is recognized by the father. Rev.St. 1879,§ 1656.
The word "children," in a Massachusetts will, means legitimate children. Kent v. Barker, 2 Gray, 535, 536. Probably the meaning would be the same even if the parents referred to and the child were domiciled in a state where illegitimate children were recognized as children for some purposes. Lincoln v. Perry, 149 Mass. 368, 373, 374, 21 N.E. 671. But we do not need to consider this at length, as it does not appear that the law of California or of Texas would recognize the plaintiff as the child of Charles Adams for the present purposes unless he were legitimated, as Charles Adams in any case was only domiciled in California for a short time, long after the testator's death, and after the birth of his child, and died domiciled in Massachusetts. The plaintiff's case is put wholly upon his having been legitimated. We assume for the purposes of our decision that if he has been legitimated he is entitled to a share under the will. Loring v. Thorndike, 5 Allen, 257; Sleigh v. Strider, 5 Call, 439; In re Andros, 24 Ch.Div. 637. We may as well add here that, if the Texas domicile of Charles Adams at the time of the birth of his son was material, (Ross v. Ross, 129 Mass. 243, 256; In re Grove, 40 Ch.Div. 216,) no difference based on that fact and favorable to the plaintiff has been called to our attention. We shall speak only of the law of California in dealing with this part of the case. We shall not consider whether, if it were necessary to satisfy the requirements of the Texas statute, a marriage in California would do so.
It may be assumed that the California statute to which we have referred (Civil Code, § 215) requires a valid marriage to legitimate an earlier-born child. Loring v. Thorndike, 5 Allen, 257, 263, 269; Greenhow v. James, 80 Va. 626, 641. For Charles Adams' marriage to be valid it was necessary that he should have obtained a valid divorce. But if we should assume that the decree of divorce was valid in California, so that Charles Adams had a capacity to marry there, and that his marriage conferred the status of a legitimate child upon his son by the law of that state, we should encounter doubts like those expressed by Lord COLONSAY in Shaw v. Gould, L.R. 3 H.L. 55, 97, whether at any distance of time we were to reopen the inquiry into the circumstances of Charles Adams' resort to the California court. The California record shows that the court there found that Charles Adams had been a resident of the state for the necessary time. There is color in the California decisions put in evidence for the argument that this finding could not be impeached collaterally in California, and thus that the case supposed is the case before us.
Taking the case this way for a moment, we still are unable to decide it in favor of the plaintiff. The rule that the status of the domicile is the status everywhere must yield when the status is constructed on principles which are contrary to those which are generally recognized, or which can be admitted by the law of the forum resorted to. See Ross v. Ross, 129 Mass. 243. We should agree with the English decisions so far as this: that the fact that a marriage has taken place on the faith of a previous divorce does not preclude an inquiry by the courts of another state into the capacity of the divorced party and thus into the validity of the divorce, or a denial of the validity of the marriage if the divorce is one which would be decreed void if it were directly in issue. A purely voluntary contract of marriage cannot be allowed to impart a conclusive character to a decree which before could have been examined. Smith v. Smith, 13 Gray, 209, 210; Shaw v. Gould, L.R. 3 H.L. 55; Shaw v. Attorney General, L.R. 2 Prob. & Div. 156; Briggs v. Briggs, 5 Prob.Div. 163.
The present case offers remarkably little ground for hesitation in going into this inquiry. Marriage in California is, or may be, a pure matter of private contract entered into without intervention of the state except for purposes of registration. Civil Code, §§ 55, 75, 78; Graham v. Bennet, 2 Cal. 503. The mother's rights are not in question; and, if they were, she did not stand at all in the position of a purchaser for value without notice. She is found to have known all the facts, and her belief in Charles Adams' capacity to contract marriage was simply an opinion about California law. The plaintiff is claiming a purely gratuitous benefit as an incidental result of the proceedings in California, at the expense of other children who were not parties to any of those proceedings or entitled to be heard at any stage of them but who nevertheless are to be precluded from denying their validity.
If the validity of the divorce were immediately in issue it could be impeached here for want of jurisdiction, notwithstanding the recitals in the record, and those recitals could be contradicted by parol evidence. Sewall v. Sewall, 122 Mass. 156, 161; Cummington v. Belchertown, 149 Mass. 223, 225, 21 N.E. 435; Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457. See Bowler v. Huston, 30 Grat. 266; Mitchell v. Ferris, 5 Houst. 34; Eager v. Stover, 59 Mo. 87. For instance, if Charles Adams had married Hannah Phillips in this state, and had been indicted for polygamy. People v. Dawell, 25 Mich. 247; Van Fossen v. State, 37 Ohio St. 317, 320. See People v. Baker, 76 N.Y. 78. Or even in a proceeding between the parties to the divorce, if the one raising the objection had not appeared in that cause, and was not domiciled in the state where it was granted. Reed v. Reed, 52 Mich. 117, 121, 17 N.W. 720; Cross v. Cross, 108 N.Y. 628, 15 N.E. 333. See Chaney v. Bryan, 15 Lea, 589; Leith v. Leith, 39 N.H. 20, 41. So, a fortiori, where the question is raised, as here, by third persons, whose rights are concerned, and who were not parties to or entitled to be heard in the divorce suit. See Gregory v. Gregory, 78 Me. 187, 190; 1% N Neff v. Beauchamp, 74 Iowa, 92, 94, 36 N.W. 905; O'Dea v. O'Dea, 101 N.Y. 23, 4 N.E. 110; Cummington v. Belchertown, 149 Mass. 223, 21 N.E. 435; Shaw v. Gould, L.R. 3 H.L. 55. In Hood v. Hood, 11 Allen, 196, the fact of domicile was tried between the original parties for the purpose of determining the jurisdiction of an Illinois divorce and in Hood v. Hood, 110 Mass. 463, it was the Massachusetts, not the Illinois, decree which was held conclusive on third persons they offering evidence only to impeach the Illinois decree. See, also, Burlen v. Shannon, 115 Mass. 438, 445, 449; Pub.St. c. 146 § 41.
There is no doubt that the requirement of six months' residence goes to the jurisdiction of the court. The finding of the judge on this point is confirmed not only by the plain effect of the California statute, but by the express statement of the supreme court of that state, and by its intimation that a divorce granted without that prerequisite would not be binding in any other state. Bennett v. Bennett, 28 Cal. 599, 601; People v. Dawell, 25 Mich. 247, 263, 264.
But although we have made the assumption for a moment, we by no means are prepared to concede that, if the present case arose in California under a California will, it would be decided differently there. The universal effect of a judgment in rem in establishing or changing a status or title, whether given to it by statute or by the tradition of the courts, rests on the practical necessity of the...
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