Rediker v. Rediker

• Decision Date: 18 August 1950
• Citation: 20 A.L.R.2d 1152,221 P.2d 1,35 Cal.2d 796
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 20 A.L.R.2d 1152 REDIKER v. REDIKER et al. L. A. 20704.

Page 1

221 P.2d 1

35 Cal.2d 796, 20 A.L.R.2d 1152

REDIKER v. REDIKER et al.

L. A. 20704.

Supreme Court of California, in Bank.

Aug. 18, 1950.

William Ellis Lady, Los Angeles, for appellant.

Hahn, Ross, Goldstone & Saunders and Philip Gordon, all of Los Angeles, for respondents.

TRAYNOR, Justice.

Plaintiff appeals from a judgment annulling as bigamous her marriage to defendant and awarding her $15,000 as a putative spouse for her share of the community property and as compensation for her services to defendant during the purported marriage. She seeks to abandon her appeal from the award of $15,000, but that award is based on the decree of annulment and is inseparable therefrom. The appeal must therefore be taken from the entire judgment. Milo v. Prior, 210 Cal. 569, 571, 292 P. 647; Bailey v. Bailey, 60 Cal.App.2d 291, 293, 140 P.2d 693.

Defendant and Bessie Yalkut were married in New York in 1922. The following year they moved to Havana, Cuba, where defendant entered the manufacturing business and registered with the American consul as a Cuban resident. They lived together in Havana until 1930 when Bessie and their minor daughter returned to the United States. Defendant remained in Havana, and on January 27, 1939, in the Court of First Instance of the Southern District of Havana, he obtained a default divorce decree from Bessie. Bessie was awarded custody of their daughter. On November 28, 1939, defendant married plaintiff and lived with her as her husband until January 26, 1956, when he left plaintiff and came to Los Angeles. She followed him and discovered that he had married Josefina Valle, a former employee in his Havana factory.

Defendant was charged with bigamy because he married Miss Walle while still married to plaintiff. He was convicted of the charge but was granted probation upon payment of a $2,500 fine.

Plaintiff brought this action in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County for separate maintenance on the grounds of adultery and extreme cruelty. Defendant was personally served in the sction and cross-complained for an annulment of their marriage on the ground that at the time of their purported marriage plaintiff was still the wife of one Reinhold Graf. The trial court found that plaintiff was divorced from Graf six years before her marriage to defendant. The court also found, however, that at the time of her marriage to defendant he was still the husband of Bessie Yalkut Rediker and that the marriage of plaintiff and defendant was therefore bigamous and void. It found defendant's Cuban decree invalid for want of jurisdiction in that 'said Bessie Rediker was never served with process in any such proceedings or purported proceedings, if any were had, and no trial or hearing was had in connection with any such proceedings or purported proceedings for the purpose of divorcing defendant from Bessie Rediker,' and that defendant was lawfully married to Bessie Rediker until she obtained a divorce decree on August 28, 1944 in the Circuit Court of Dade County, Florida.

Defendant introduced the Florida decree over plaintiff's objection for the purpose of establishing that he and Bessie were lawfully married until the entry of the decree dissolved their marriage. The trial court, holding that the decree was conclusive of that fact stated: 'Now, the Constitution of the United States specifically places upon this Court the duty to give full faith and credit to that judgment of the Court of the State of Florida. * * * Consequently I am not in a position to ignore it. I have to accept it and as I pointed out in my notice of decision that judgment carried the absolutely necessary implication that up to the time that it was rendered Abraham and Bessie were married and that at the time Abraham married Alicia he was married to Bessie. * * * You say that you were not a party to the divorce action. That is not a fully correct statement because we are all parties to every divorce action because a divorce action is an action in rem and that divorce action was presented in this Court for the purpose of proving not any of the issues that were involved in the case but simply for the purpose of proving itself, namely, that she was given a decree of divorce as of a certain date and in my judgment it was very properly admissible in this case.'

The trial court concluded that in 'proving itself' the Florida decree proved the 'absolutely necessary implication' that defendant and Bessie were married until the date it was entered and that it was res judicata on that issue. It therefore found that the marriage of defendant and plaintiff was bigamous and granted the prayer of the cross-complaint for an annulment.

On this appeal plaintiff contends that the Florida decree is res judicata in this action only insofar as it adjudicated the parties' lack of marital relationship to each other from then on, that the trial court's finding that the Cuban divorce is invalid is not supported by the evidence, and that defendant, having initiated the Cuban action and having taken advantage of the decree therein by remarrying, is estopped to deny its validity.

Defendant contends that an existing valid marriage is a condition precedent to the entry of a divorce decree under Florida law, Keener v. Keener, 152 Fla. 13, 11 So.2d 180, and that the entry of the decree imports a finding that defendant and Bessie were lawfully married at the time of its entry, five years after the purported marriage of defendant to plaintiff. He urges that, since a divorce decree is a judgment in rem, the essential finding that the parties thereto were lawfully married is res judicata in this action, and that, since the Florida court had jurisdiction to enter the decree and plaintiff does not contend that it was procured by fraud or collusion, this court must accord full faith and credit to the decree and to the finding of a lawful marriage necessarily implied therein. U.S.Const. Art. IV, § 1; Williams v. State of North Carolina, 317 U.S. 287, 299, 63 S.Ct. 207, 87 L.Ed. 279, 143 A.L.R. 1273; Estin v. Estin, 334 U.S. 541, 546-547, 68 S.Ct. 1213, 92 L.Ed. 1561, 1 A.L.R.2d 1412. He alleges that 'a judgment in a divorce case must be treated as dealing with status prior to divorce as well as after, and the one independently of the other,' and that the res in divorce action 'is not only the subsequent singleness of the parties, but also their prior marital status a determination which is 'immune from collateral attack'.'

That contention, however, is opposed to the prevailing rule in most of the jurisdictions of the United States and to several decisions of this court. It is an oversimplification to state that a divorce proceeding is a proceeding in rem, and to proceed from that statement to the assumption that a decree entered therein is res judicata in an action between a party and a stranger thereto, not only as to the subsequent status of the parties with relation to each other, but also as to all issues decided or that might have been decided in the proceeding. The weight of authority holds that a decree of divorce is a judgment in rem only to the extent that it adjudicates the future status of the parties in relation to each other. Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U.S. 287, 298, 63 S.Ct. 207, 87 .l.Ed. 279, 143 A.L.R. 1273; Williams v. North Carolina, 325 U.S. 226, 232, 65 S.Ct. 1092, 89 L.Ed. 1557, 157 A.L.R. 1366. As between parties or privies, the decree is res judicata not only of their status with relation to each other but also of all issues that were litigated or that could have been litigated therein. Blumenthal v. Blumenthal, 97 Cal.App. 558, 561, 275 P. 987; Petry v. Petry, 47 Cal.App.2d 594, 595, 118 P.2d 498; Borg v. Gorg, 25 Cal.App.2d 25, 29, 76 P.2d 218; 2 Freeman, Judgments, § 906, p. 1904. Estate of Lee, 200 Cal. 310, 314, 253 P. 145, on which defendant relies, has been properly interpreted in Blumenthal v. Blumenthal, supra, as stating the rule applicable between parties and their privies. As between strangers or strangers and parties, however, the decree is res judicata only in that it conclusively determines that the parties are thereafter free to remarry so far as any relation to each other is concerned. It does not establish the previous validity of their marriage against third persons who were not and had no right to be heard thereon. 2 Freeman, Judgments, § 910, p. 1913; 3 Freeman, Judgments, § 1524, pp. 3131-3132; Restatement, Judgments, § 74, p. 335; Hunter v. Hunter, 111 Cal. 261, 266, 43 P. 756, 31 L.R.A. 411, 52 Am.St.Rep. 180; Estate of James, 99 Cal. 374, 379, 33 P. 1122, 37 Am.St.Rep. 60. 'We may lay on one side, then, any argument based on the misleading expression that all the world are parties to a proceeding in rem. This does not mean that all the world are entitled to be heard; and, as strangers in interest are not entitled to be heard, there is no reason why they should be bound by the findings of fact, although bound to admit the title or status which the judgment establishes.' Holmes, J., in Brigham v. Fayerweather, 140 Mass. 411, 413, 5 N.E. 265, 267; see also, Wilson v. Mitchell, 48 Colo. 454, 469, 111 P. 21, 30 L.R.A.N.S., 507; Oborn v. State, 143 Wis. 249, 267, 126 N.W. 737, 31 L.R.A.N.S., 966; Williams v. Williams, 63 Wis. 58, 75, 23 N.W. 110, 53 Am.Rep 253; Pollard v. Ward, 289 Mo. 275, 284, 233 S.W. 14, 20 A.L.R. 936; American Woolen Co. v. Lesher, 267 Ill. 11, 17-18, 107 N.E. 882; Willey v. Howell, 168 Ky. 466, 470, 182 S.W. 619; Matter of Holmes' Estate, 291 N.Y. 261, 269-270, 271, 52 M.E.2d 424, 150 A.L.R. 447; 44 Col.L.Rev. 442, 444-445; 16 Cal.L.Rev. 146.

The decisions of this court have estabished that a divorce decree is res judicata as to strangers thereto only to the extent that is establishes the future status of the parties. Thus, in Hunter v. Hunter, 111 Cal. 261, 43 P. 756, 31 L.R.A. 411, 52 Am.St.Rep. 180, plaintiff, suing to annul as bigamous his marriage to the defendant,...