Hernstadt v. Hernstadt

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit
• Writing for the Court: MEDINA, ANDERSON and FEINBERG, Circuit
• Citation: Hernstadt v. Hernstadt, 373 F.2d 316 (2nd Cir. 1967)
• Decision Date: 15 February 1967
• Docket Number: No. 311,Docket 30944.,311
• Parties: William H. HERNSTADT, Appellant, v. Sharon S. HERNSTADT, Appellee.

373 F.2d 316 (1967)

William H. HERNSTADT, Appellant, v. Sharon S. HERNSTADT, Appellee.

No. 311, Docket 30944.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued January 18, 1967.

Decided February 15, 1967.

Henry Mark Holzer, New York City, (Phyllis Tate Holzer, New York City, on the brief), for appellant.

Cherry S. Krassner, White Plains, N. Y. (Ruth C. Tachna and Tachna & Krassner, White Plains, N. Y., on the brief), for appellee.

Before MEDINA, ANDERSON and FEINBERG, Circuit Judges.

MEDINA, Circuit Judge:

William H. Hernstadt, the former husband, appeals from the dismissal of his complaint against Sharon S. Hernstadt, his former wife, seeking a construction of those provisions of the Connecticut divorce decree which provide for the custody of the minor children and the former husband's rights of visitation. Judge Cooper concluded that the presence of the requisite amount in controversy to establish diversity jurisdiction had not been shown and further that the federal courts had no jurisdiction over matrimonial disputes. We affirm the dismissal as the District Court was clearly without subject matter jurisdiction.

Since the very early dicta In re Burrus, 136 U.S. 586, 10 S.Ct. 850, 34 L. Ed. 500 (1890), it has been uniformly held that federal courts do not adjudicate cases involving the custody of minors and, a fortiori, rights of visitation. See 1A Moore's Federal Practice, Para. 0.201; Vestal & Foster, Implied Limitations on the Diversity Jurisdiction of Federal Courts, 41 Minn.L.Rev. 1, 31-36 (1956).

Appellant seeks to avoid the impact of this sound and long-standing rule by raising a constitutional claim of full faith and credit to the Connecticut decree. When a pure question of constitutional law is presented, this Court has suggested that the District Court may assume jurisdiction even if the question arises out of a domestic relations dispute, provided the obstacle posed by the jurisdictional amount is surmounted. Southard v. Southard, 305 F.2d 730 (2 Cir. 1962). However, where the constitutional claim is frivolous, as here, the suit should be dismissed as an impermissible attempt to embroil the federal courts in matrimonial matters best left to the states.

The Supreme Court has declined to hold that custody decrees are entitled to full faith and credit, Ford v. Ford, 371 U.S. 187, 83 S.Ct. 273, 9 L.Ed.2d 240 (1962), Kovacs v. Brewer, 356 U.S. 604, 78 S.Ct. 963, 2 L.Ed.2d 1008 (1958), and the New York courts have adopted the position that the "full faith and credit clause does not apply to custody decrees." Bachman v. Mejias, 1 N.Y.2d 575, 154 N. Y.S.2d 903, 136 N.E.2d 866 (1956). Moreover, it is clear that, consistent with the full faith and credit clause,

the State of the forum has at least as much leeway to disregard the judgment, to qualify it, or to depart from it as does the State where it was rendered. People of State of New York ex rel. Halvey v. Halvey, 330 U.S. 610, 615, 67 S.Ct. 903, 906, 91 L.Ed. 1133 (1947).

Thus if the original judgment is subject to modification, the demands of full faith and credit may be satisfied whether or not the terms of the original decree are obeyed. In Connecticut a custody decree may be modified by the courts of that State, Conn. Gen. Stat. Section 46-23; and the Connecticut court has a continuing jurisdiction over custody matters whether the child is in the state or elsewhere, Fagan v. Fagan, 131 Conn. 688, 42 A.2d 41 (1945). Furthermore, jurisdiction was expressly reserved in the case of the divorce of the spouses now before us. Consequently, there is no full faith and credit issue in the case, Kovacs v. Brewer, supra, and the complaint was properly dismissed.

It is proper also to observe that the rule of the So...