Adams v. Adams

• Decision Date: 14 January 2005
• Docket Number: No. 2003-524,2003-524
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court
• Parties: Susan Adams v. Reuben Adams.

869 A.2d 124

Susan Adams v. Reuben Adams.

No. 2003-524, September Term, 2004

Supreme Court of Vermont

January 14, 2005

John R. Durrance, Jr. of Gaston, Durrance & Fairbanks, Montpelier, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Kurt M. Hughes of Murdoch & Hughes, Burlington, for Defendant-Appellant.

PRESENT: Dooley, Johnson and Skoglund, JJ., and Allen, C.J. (Ret.), Specially Assigned

SKOGLUND, J.

¶ 1. In this divorce action, husband appeals the Washington Family Court's rulings (1) denying his motion to dismiss and granting wife a divorce, and (2) directing him to pay one-half of wife's attorney's fees. Husband argues on appeal that the court should have dismissed the action because the parties had already divorced in Honduras, and that the court erred in granting attorney's fees in the absence of expert testimony concerning the reasonableness of the fees. The family court rejected both arguments after a three-day trial, and we now affirm.

¶ 2. The core issue in this case is whether the family court should have recognized an alleged divorce of the parties that husband claimed took place in Honduras in 1979. The parties first met in 1967, when husband's family bought property from wife's grandfather on an island off the coast of Honduras where wife had lived since birth. Prior to marrying appellant, wife had married, and obtained a divorce from, another man. When she divorced her first husband, appellant's father helped her obtain a lawyer. During those divorce proceedings, wife appeared in court and had to have the questions regarding the divorce read to her, as she had only a third-grade education and could not read or write. After wife's divorce, the parties married in Honduras on May 17, 1977. The oldest of their three adult children was born while they were living in Honduras.

¶ 3. In 1979, the parties visited the United States, and had conflicts as a result of staying with husband's mother as well as wife's concerns about husband's flirtatious behavior. Wife testified that because of husband's behavior, she had a one-night affair after they returned to Honduras. When she told husband about the affair, he told her he could divorce her because of her actions. However, neither party took any action based on this incident, and the parties continued to live as a married couple.¹

¶ 4. Months later, husband told wife that a woman would be coming to their home with divorce papers for her to sign, and that if she did not sign them, he would take their son to the United States and she would never see him again. When the woman showed up with the papers, wife signed them even though she could not read them and nobody read or explained them to her. She testified that based on her first divorce, she was aware that she had to go to court in order to have a divorce. The family court credited her testimony that she never went to court regarding the divorce husband sought to enforce in this action.

¶ 5. In any event, the parties lived together continuously as a married couple for approximately the next twenty years. They had two more children after moving to the United States in 1980, and always referred to each other as spouses. They filed income taxes jointly as spouses, and husband signed the returns each year. The deed to their property in Woodbury, Vermont states that it belongs to "Reuben and Susan Adams, husband and wife, joint tenants by the entireties." Husband prepared and signed naturalization papers for wife in 1983, in which he acted as her sponsor and described her as his wife. Their wills also refer to them as husband and wife. In sum, all of the parties' legal documents reviewed by the family court referred to them as husband and wife, and most, if not all, were prepared and executed by husband.

¶ 6. Moreover, the family court found that the parties consistently held themselves out as husband and wife in their social interactions with others. They always celebrated their wedding anniversary, sometimes with friends who were married on the same date. In 1997, on their twentieth anniversary, husband bought wife an anniversary band with three diamonds and bought himself a new gold band. Additionally, husband did not raise the alleged Honduran divorce until after the parties had met to discuss the instant divorce in 2000, and wife had obtained counsel. Indeed, the court found that husband "did not mention the alleged divorce documents that [wife] had signed for almost twenty years."

¶ 7. Husband adduced testimony from a social friend that during a visit to the parties' home, after consuming alcohol, husband had once stated that the parties were not actually married. The family court did not find the witness credible.

¶ 8. Husband also introduced into evidence certified divorce documents and statutes from Honduras, along with testimony from a Honduran attorney that the documents were true and valid. As reflected by those documents, the basis for the divorce request included the assertion that "it has become impossible for us to continue together for reasons that [are] our own concern, at the present time we are distanced from one another to such an extent that there is no bond between us after two years of marriage." While the court found the documents to be authentic and therefore received them into evidence, it also found that "[t]he evidence was not clear" that the parties had actually appeared before the Honduran court prior to the divorce decree's issuance. Specifically, the court noted that the documents do not indicate that the parties themselves appeared, and they suggest that an attorney appeared for both of them. Further, the Honduran attorney who testified at trial had not spoken with the person who allegedly represented both parties before the Honduran court.

¶ 9. The essence of defendant's argument in this case is that the family court erred by denying his motion to dismiss because it should have recognized the Honduran divorce as a matter of comity. The Full Faith and Credit Clause, U.S. Const. art. IV, 1, does not apply to judgments obtained in a foreign country, Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Tremblay, 223 U.S. 185, 190 (1912), and so a U.S. court may, but is not required to, recognize a divorce decree from a foreign country under the doctrine of comity. See Office of Child Support v. Sholan, 172 Vt. 619, 620, 782 A.2d 1199, 1202 (2001) (mem.) (recognizing that a Vermont court may give effect to foreign child support orders under the doctrine of comity). The question of whether the family court correctly applied the doctrine here turns on the court's factual determinations regarding the nature of the Honduran documents and proceedings and the conduct of the parties, and its legal determination as to whether or not to recognize the Honduran divorce decree in light of those facts. Thus, this case presents a mixed question of law and fact. See, e.g., Luneau v. Peerless, Ins. Co., 170 Vt. 442, 445, 750 A.2d 1031, 1033 (2000) (holding that an inquiry that requires the court to determine the nature of a party's conduct and whether that conduct fit an insurance policy exclusion was a mixed question of law and fact).

¶ 10. We will uphold a trial court's conclusions concerning a mixed question of law and fact if the court applied the correct legal standard and its conclusions are supported by its factual findings. Stannard v. Stannard Co., 2003 VT 52, 8, 175 Vt. 549, 830 A.2d 66 (mem.). We review the factual findings of a trial court in the light most favorable to the prevailing party. Cloutier v. Blowers, 172 Vt. 450, 452, 783 A.2d 961, 963 (2001). We will not disturb the trial court's factual findings unless they are clearly erroneous, even if the record contains inconsistencies or substantial evidence to the contrary. Pion v. Bean, 2003 VT 79, 15, 176 Vt. 1, 833 A.2d 1248. This follows because "[a]s the trier of fact, it [is] the province of the trial court to determine the credibility of the witnesses and weigh the persuasiveness of the evidence." Id. 17 (quotation omitted). Our review of the court's legal determinations, however, is nondeferential and plenary. Thompson v. Dewey's S. Royalton, Inc., 169 Vt. 274, 276, 733 A.2d 65, 67 (1999).

¶ 11. As the family court correctly recognized, this Court has applied the standards laid out in the Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law of the United States to determine whether a trial court properly recognized a foreign judgment. In Sholan, we noted that "[a]s a general matter, under principles of comity, final judgments of courts of foreign nations . . . are conclusive between the parties to the action and are entitled to recognition in United States courts." Sholan, 172 Vt. at 621, 782 A.2d at 1203 (citing Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law of the United States 481 (1987) [hereinafter Restatement]). We then summarized the Restatement's general standards for recognizing a judgment from a foreign nation as follows:

For a court to recognize and give effect to a foreign order, the judgment must have been rendered under a judicial system which provides impartial tribunals and procedures compatible with due process of law, and the issuing court must have had jurisdiction over the defendant sufficient to support rendering such a decision in the state in which the order is sought to be enforced. [Restatement] 482(1). If these prerequisites have been met, the state court may still decline to recognize the foreign order, if the issuing court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the action; the defendant was not accorded adequate notice of the proceeding; the judgment was obtained by fraud; the original action or judgment is in conflict with state or federal public policy; the judgment conflicts with another judgment entitled to recognition; or the foreign proceeding was contrary to an agreement by the parties to submit the controversy to another forum for resolution. Id. 482(2).

Sholan, 172 Vt. at 622, 782 A.2d at 1203-04.

¶ 12. In addition to these...