Davis v. Davis

• Decision Date: 08 November 1934
• Citation: 119 Conn. 194,175 A. 574
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: DAVIS v. DAVIS.

175 A. 574

119 Conn. 194

DAVIS v. DAVIS.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

November 8, 1934

Appeal from Superior Court, New, Hares County; Edwin C. Dickenson Judge.

Action by Robert Francis Davis against Ann Smoley Davis, to annul a marriage. Judgment was entered dismissing the complaint on trial to the court, and plaintiff appeals.

Error and case remanded, with direction to enter judgment for plaintiff.

Michael J. Galullo and Theodore V. Meyer, both of Waterbury for appellant.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HAINES, HINMAN, BANKS, and AVERY JJ.

MALTBIE, Chief Justice.

Plaintiff brought this action seeking an annulment of his marriage to the defendant or a divorce. The defendant made default of appearance, but upon the hearing the trial court refused the plaintiff relief. It has found the following facts: The plaintiff and the defendant went on an automobile ride with several young people. It was a joyous occasion, and to add to the excitement the defendant dared the plaintiff to marry her. The plaintiff accepted the dare, a license for the marriage was procured in New York state, and the ceremony was at once performed by a justice of the peace there. Neither party intended at the time to enter into the marriage status. They returned to their respective homes after the ceremony and have never cohabited. Each was nineteen years old at the time. They were at the time of the marriage and still are residents of this state.

" Marriage is that ceremony or process by which the relationship of husband and wife is constituted. The consent of the parties is everywhere deemed an essential condition to the forming of this relation. To this extent, it is a contract. But, when the relation is constituted, then all its incidents, as well as the rights and duties of the parties resulting from the relation, are absolutely fixed by law. Hence, after a marriage is entered into, the relation becomes a status, and is no longer one resting merely on contract." Allen v. Allen, 73 Conn. 54, 55, 46 A. 242, 49 L.R.A. 142, 84 Am.St.Rep. 135. Where parties have entered into a valid marriage, it may be dissolved only where one of the grounds of divorce specified in the statutes is present and only in accordance with the procedure established by the statutes. Dennis v. Dennis, 68 Conn. 186, 197, 36 A. 34, 34 L.R.A. 449, 57 Am.St.Rep. 95. All the grounds of divorce specified, except fraudulent contract, are of such a nature that they can come into existence only after the marriage. While fraudulent conduct of a certain kind will render a marriage voidable, such fraud differs from that which vitiates ordinary contracts, in that the party defrauded may not at his own election avoid the marriage, but it is held to be voidable only by a decree of the court. Guilford v. Oxford, 9 Conn. 321; Gould v. Gould, 78 Conn. 242, 247, 61 A. 604, 2 L.R.A. (N. S.) 531. Divorce, therefore, is a means provided for the dissolution of a marriage which is valid until the court has decreed otherwise But, in addition to the right given to the superior court to grant divorces, the statutes contain a broad provision that, " whenever from any cause any marriage shall be void, the superior court may, upon complaint, pass a decree declaring such marriage void." Gen. St. § 5188.

The essential claim of the plaintiff is that the parties never were in fact married, despite the ceremony which was performed, because of the lack of real consent on the part of either to enter into that relationship. We interpret the finding of the court that the parties were at the time of the marriage and still are residents of this state to mean that at and before the bringing of the action they had their domicile here. Both parties were properly before the court. The power which the court was called upon to exercise was not to nullify a marriage which had in fact taken place, but to declare void a purported marriage, which, if the plaintiff's contention is correct, never did come into existence. We have no doubt that, if sufficient ground existed, the trial court had jurisdiction to pass such a decree. Amer. Law Institute Restatement, Conflict of Laws (Proposed Final Draft No. 4), § 122; Cunningham v. Cunningham, 206 N.Y. 341, 99 N.E. 845, 43 L.R.A. (N. S.) 355; Hanson v. Hanson (Mass.) 191 N.E. 673, 93 A.L.R. 701; Haddock v. Haddock, 201 U.S. 562, 570, 26 S.Ct. 525, 50 L.Ed. 867, 5 Ann.Cas. 1; Foss v. Foss, 105 Conn. 502, 136 A. 98.

There is, however, a distinction between a proceeding to secure such a decree and an action for a divorce. In the latter, whether a cause of divorce exists is to be determined by the law of the domicile of the parties. Torlonia v. Torlonia, 108 Conn. 292, 302, 142 A. 843. As regards the former, it is the generally accepted rule that, except in certain extreme cases, a marriage valid where the ceremony is performed is valid everywhere; Amer. Law Institute Restatement, Conflict of Laws (Tentative Draft No. 3; Proposed Final Draft No. 4), § 128; 38 C.J. 1276; and hence in this case, before a court in this state would be justified in decreeing a purported marriage performed in another state void, upon such ground as that here advanced, it would be necessary first to determine whether it was void by the laws of that state. Amer. Law Institute Restatement (Proposed Final Draft Nos. 1 and 4), § 144; Levy v. Downing, 213 Mass. 334, 100 N.E. 638; Hanson v. Hanson, supra. It is true that in Cunningham v. Cunningham, supra, the New York Court of Appeals held that, where two persons domiciled in New York went to New Jersey to be married, immediately returned to New York, and continued their domicile there, the courts of New York could nullify the marriage, though it was valid in New Jersey, under a provision of the statutes permitting such relief where one party was under the age of consent. The statute (Domestic Relations Law [Consol. Laws, c. 14] § 7), quoted in the opinion, provided that such a marriage should be " void from the time its nullity is declared by a court of competent jurisdiction" ; and the situation presented was substantially similar to that where a divorce is granted upon the ground of fraudulent contract. Whether the marriage of the parties to this action is to be declared void because of a lack of consent to the contract, we hold must depend upon the law of New York, in which state the marriage ceremony was performed.

The New York courts of chancery early exercised a jurisdiction, apart from any statutory authority, to nullify marriages. Hoadley v. Hoadley, 244 N.Y. 424, 426, 155 N.E. 728, 51 A.L.R. 844; Walter v. Walter, 217 N.Y. 439, 441, 111 N.E. 1081, 1082; Di Lorenzo v. Di Lorenzo, 174 N.Y. 467, 473, 67 N.E. 63, 63 L.R.A. 92, 95 Am.St.Rep. 609. But for many years the statutes of that state have governed the exercise of such a power by its courts. They now provide that marriages between persons within certain degrees of consanguinity or, with certain exceptions, where a husband or wife by a former marriage is still living, shall be void, and that certain other marriages shall be void from the time their nullity is declared by a court of competent jurisdiction, in an action which may be brought only as provided in the Civil Practice Act and Rules of Civil Practice. McKinney's Consolidated Laws of New York, c. 14, Domestic Relations Law, § § 5 to 7 (amended 1934 Cumulative Supplement). Under these provisions, the Court of Appeals has said that " an action to annul a marriage is purely statutory" (Stokes v. Stokes, 198 N.Y. 301, 304, 91 N.E. 793, 794); " when the statutes expressly state the powers of the courts, define how actions to annul marriages may be brought, and prohibit such actions to be brought otherwise, the court may no longer assert its original jurisdiction and add to those *** authorized by statute to maintain such actions" (Walter v. Walter, supra). But these statements do not quite reach the question before us. There may be no power in the courts of New York to grant relief to parties who have gone through a marriage ceremony which was so lacking in some essentials as not to constitute a real marriage, yet that marriage may be in fact void. This distinction is well illustrated by the fact that until recently in most jurisdictions a form of contract between two parties might so fail to meet some requirement of law as to be in reality no contract, yet the courts were without power so to declare until one party or the other brought an action claiming a breach of its provisions or seeking other affirmative relief. We must ask then not whether the courts of New York could nullify such a marriage as the one we are considering, but whether it was under the law of that State in fact void.

While the New York statute states among the causes for which the courts of that state may nullify a marriage, one where either party is incapable of consenting to a marriage for want of understanding, such a situation as that before us is not included in any of the causes enumerated. The first question which confronts us is, then, Are the provisions of the New York statute such that under them, in every case not mentioned by them as making a marriage void or voidable, a valid marriage results wherever the parties go through a marriage ceremony? Such a case as that before us differs from that presented by the statutes providing the grounds upon which a divorce may be granted, because, where the parties have once entered into a valid marriage, an enumeration in a statute of the grounds upon which that marriage may be dissolved is naturally to be taken as an exclusion of all other grounds Allen v....