Bullock v. Bullock

• Decision Date: 25 January 1877
• Citation: 122 Mass. 3
• Parties: Alanson B. Bullock v. Jane E. Bullock
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

122 Mass. 3

Alanson B. Bullock v. Jane E. Bullock

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

January 25, 1877

Norfolk. Libel on the Gen. Sts. c. 107, § 4, for a sentence of nullity of marriage, setting forth that the ceremony of marriage was performed between the libellant and libellee in this Commonwealth on January 25, 1873, and that the marriage was void, because the libellee on August 5 1857, had been married to Daniel Lewis, of New London Connecticut, and that Lewis at a Superior Court, held in and for the county of New London in December, 1864, had been divorced from the libellee for the cause of adultery.

At the hearing, before Endicott, J., the record of the court in Connecticut was introduced in evidence, by which it appeared that the divorce was granted for the cause alleged. The libellee admitted that, prior to the commencement by Lewis of his suit for divorce, she removed from Connecticut and had resided ever since in this Commonwealth.

The libellant, admitting that, by the law of Connecticut, the libellee, upon regaining her residence in Connecticut, might lawfully marry there, contended that, under the Gen. Sts. c 107, § 26, and the St. of 1864, c. 216, the libellee, having her domicil in Massachusetts, was disabled to contract marriage again in this Commonwealth, without being authorized by this court, and that the marriage, having been contracted without such authority, was null and void. The judge ruled otherwise; and the libellant alleged exceptions.

Exceptions overruled.

E. Ames & T. E. Grover, for the libellant.

T. L. Wakefield, for the libellee, was not called upon.

Gray C. J. Morton & Endicott, JJ., absent.

OPINION

Gray C. J.

At the time of the divorce obtained against the libellee by her first husband in Connecticut, for her adultery, he appears to have been domiciled in Connecticut, and is not shown to have removed into that state for the purpose of procuring a divorce. The court of that state therefore had jurisdiction of the cause and of both the parties, and its decree dissolved the bond of matrimony absolutely and everywhere, even if the adultery was committed out of Connecticut, of which there is no evidence. Gen. Sts. c. 107, § 55. Burlen v. Shannon, 115 Mass. 438, and cases there cited.

The libellee, being thus divorced from the bond of matrimony, was free to marry again, unless restrained by local statute. The law of Connecticut did not so restrain her. Rev....