Farley v. Farley

• Decision Date: 29 April 1964
• Citation: 38 Cal.Rptr. 357,227 Cal.App.2d 1
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Barbara Ann FARLEY, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Ross E. FARLEY et al., Defendants and Respondents. Ross Edward FARLEY, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Barbara Ann FARLEY et al., Defendants and Appellants. Civ. 10599.

Page 357

38 Cal.Rptr. 357

227 Cal.App.2d 1

Barbara Ann FARLEY, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Ross E. FARLEY et al., Defendants and Respondents.

Ross Edward FARLEY, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Barbara Ann FARLEY et al., Defendants and Appellants.

Civ. 10599.

District Court of Appeal, Third District, California.

April 29, 1964.

Rehearing Denied May 25, 1964.

Hearing Denied June 24, 1964.

Elmer P. Delany, Charles W. Decker, San Francisco, for appellants.

Rowland & Paras, Sacramento, for respondents.

FRIEDMAN, Justice.

Plaintiff is the former wife of defendant. She brings this action to establish a Utah divorce decree as a California judgment. The trial court entered a judgment confirming all except paragraphs 7 and 8 of the Utah decree. Plaintiff appeals, contending that the California courts must give full faith and credit to these two particular paragraphs as well as the remainder of the decree.

The facts are not disputed. Plaintiff and defendant were married in Reno, Nevada, in 1947. At the time of marriage the husband owned as his separate property a 41-acre parcel of land located in Sacramento County. After brief sojourns in California and Texas, they became residents of Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1949. There they purchased a home and the husband engaged in business. One child was born in 1948, another in 1949.

In 1958 Mrs. Farley filed a divorce action in the District Court, Salt Lake County, which is a court of general jurisdiction in Utah. Mr. Farley contested her action and the case went to trial, both parties being represented by counsel. During the course of the proceedings Mrs. Farley testified that she intended to move to California with the children after the decree was entered. In October 1958 the Utah court entered findings and a decree awarding Mrs. Farley a divorce, granting her custody and control of the two minor children, and directing the husband to pay $100 per month for the support of each child and $175 per month as alimony. Mr. Farley's business assets were awarded to him. Paragraph 7 of the decree ordered the husband to execute all documents to convey to the wife, as trustee, the south half of the 41-acre tract in Sacramento County. Paragraph 8 of the decree declared: 'That the conditions of the aforesaid trust are and the plaintiff be and she hereby is declared to have received said property for the education and further support of the said minor children of the parties, and she shall convey the corpus of the trust estate and all accumulations and additions thereto in equal shares to said minor children, or to the survivor of them, when the youngest attains or would have attained the age of eighteen years, and plaintiff shall have the usual and ordinary power of a trustee in the premises, subject to the approval and further direction of this Court, and shall have the right to sell, mortgage, invest and reinvest the trust estate under such direction and approval.'

The husband did not appeal from the Utah judgment. In December, 1958, at the request of the husband, the court modified the decree by making the trust provisions applicable to the north half of the Sacramento County property instead of the south half. Plaintiff left Utah in December 1958 and returned to California with her children. Mr. Farley refused to execute a conveyance of half the 41-acre tract, as ordered by the Utah decree, and did not account to plaintiff for any income of the property. In 1959 she instituted Utah contempt proceedings because of his failure to convey the Sacramento County real estate. Pending these proceedings, defendant sold his Salt Lake City business and moved to Sacramento County in May, 1959. He failed to make support and alimony payments regularly, and substantial arrearages accumulated. When plaintiff brought the present suit seeking establishment of the Utah decree, defendant filed a separate action to quiet title to the 41-acre tract as his sole property.

The two actions were consolidated for trial. The trial court concluded that the provisions of the Utah decree awarding California real estate were subject to collateral attack in Utah, hence not enforceable in California. Thus it excluded these provisions from its decree and quieted defendant's title to the north half of the 41-acre tract but imposed a lien upon it as security for the payment of alimony and child support. Plaintiff appeals not only from the decree entered in the trial court, but also from the adverse judgment in the quiet title action.

Plaintiff relies primarily upon Sherrer v. Sherrer, 334 U.S. 343, 68 S.Ct. 1087, 92 L.Ed. 1429, and Heuer v. Heuer, 33 Cal.2d 268, 201 P.2d 385. These cases announce that the full faith and credit clause of the Federal Constitution (art. IV, sec. 1) bars a defendant from collaterally attacking a divorce decree on jurisdictional grounds in the courts of a sister state, where the defendant has participated in the divorce proceedings, has had full opportunity to contest the jurisdictional issues, and where the decree is not vulnerable to collateral attack in the courts of the state which rendered it. (Sherrer v. Sherrer, supra, 334 U.S. at pp. 351-352, 68 S.Ct. 1087, 92 L.Ed. 1429; Heuer v. Heuer, supra, 33 Cal.2d at p. 271, 201 P.2d 385.)

The Sherrer-Heuer rule deals with attacks on 'jurisdiction' in the fundamental sense, as an exercise of judicial power over the subject matter of the litigation and the persons of the litigants. It has particular application to interstate recognition of divorce decrees based upon temporary (sometimes simulated) residence or divided domicile. (See Barber v. Barber, 51 Cal.2d 244, 331 P.2d 628; Aldabe v. Aldabe, 209 Cal.App.2d 453, 26 Cal.Rptr. 208.) In the present case both husband and wife were bona fide residents of Utah and both fully participated in the Utah action. Thus the courts of that state had fundamental jurisdiction over the parties' marital status and their persons. (Sherrer v. Sherrer, supra, 334 U.S. at pp. 350-351, 68 S.Ct. 1087, 92 L.Ed. 1429; Williams v. North Carolina, 325 U.S. 226, 229-230, 65 S.Ct. 1092, 89 L.Ed. 1577; Crouch v. Crouch, 28 Cal.2d 243, 249-250, 169 P.2d 897; Rest., Conflict of Laws, sec. 110; Rest., Judgments, secs. 16, 33.) The husband cannot now question Utah's jurisdiction as a fundamental exercise of judicial power over the subject matter and parties. Rather, he now makes a collateral attack on the Utah court's 'jurisdiction' in the limited sense of the term, asserting lack of power to give the particular relief it did. (Abelleira v. District Court, 17 Cal.2d 280, 289-291, 109 P.2d 942, 132 A.L.R. 715.) Theoretically at least, the Sherrer-Heuer doctrine is only of oblique interest here.

Full faith and credit demands only that the Utah decree receive as much recognition in California as it would in Utah. (People of State of New York ex rel. Halvey v. Halvey, 330 U.S. 610, 614-615, 67 S.Ct. 903, 91 L.Ed. 1133; Herczog v. Herczog, 186 Cal.App.2d 318, 324, 9 Cal.Rptr. 5; Gilmer v. Spitalny, 84 Cal.App.2d 39, 44-45, 189 P.2d 744.) California will give res adjudicata effect to the decree of a court of another state which, with the parties before it, directs a conveyance of California real estate. (Rozan v. Rozan, 49 Cal.2d 322, 330-331, 317 P.2d 11; Riggs v. Riggs, 223 A.C.A. 634, 641-642, 35 Cal.Rptr. 793; cf. Worthley v. Worthley, 44 Cal.2d 465, 468, 283 P.2d 19.) Thus the portion of the Utah decree covering the Sacramento County property is entitled to full faith and credit in California if it is valid in Utah; if void for lack of jurisdiction and subject to collateral attack in Utah, it is not binding here. (Barber v. Barber, supra, 51 Cal.2d at p. 247, 331 P.2d 628.) Its vulnerability to collateral attack in Utah is controlled by Utah Law. (Gagnon Co., Inc. v. Nevada Desert Inn, Inc., 45 Cal.2d 448, 453-454, 289 P.2d 466.)

Utah is not a community property state. In dividing assets between a divorcing husband and wife, Utah courts may award property acquired before coverture. (Pinion v. Pinion, 92 Utah 255, 67 P.2d 265, 267.) Section 30-3-5, Utah Code Annotated, 1953, empowers a divorce court to 'make such orders in relation to the children, property and parties, and the maintenance of the parties and children, as may be equitable.' Utah statutes characterize this statute as broad and comprehensive, authorizing such decrees as the circumstances may warrant, including provisions for the support of children during their minority. (Murphy v. Moyle, 17 Utah 113, 53 P. 1010, 1012; see also Callister v. Callister, 1 Utah 2d 34, 261 P.2d 944.) The Murphy decision specifically upholds a decree directing sale of the husband's land and deposit of the proceeds with the court clerk with directions to pay the wife a fixed monthly sum for support of the minor children. In order to insure payment of future alimony (and inferentially to secure support of minor children), a husband may be enjoined from disposing of his property. (Anderson v. Anderson, 54 Utah 309, 181 P. 168.)

As we construe paragraph 8 of the Utah decree, it is designed in part to make the Sacramento real estate, its proceeds and its income, available during the minority of the two Farley children to finance their education, to meet support needs in addition to the monthly payments of $200, and to serve as secuity for payment of the $200 monthly allowance if defendant fails to pay. The Utah court also seems to have intended that, in the event of a court-permitted sale, use of either corpus or income for these purposes would be permitted, provided that Mrs. Farley, as trustee during the children's minority, secured advance court approval. The cited Utah cases convince us that the decree is valid to the extent that it serves the above purposes during the children's minority. The decree goes farther, however. It effectively divests Mr. Farley of all interest in the land for the purpose of vesting it, or its remaining proceeds, in the children when th...