Rubinstein v. Rubinstein

• Citation: 319 Mass. 568,66 N.E.2d 793
• Parties: RUBINSTEIN v. RUBINSTEIN.
• Decision Date: 14 May 1946
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

319 Mass. 568

66 N.E.2d 793

RUBINSTEIN

v.RUBINSTEIN.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Worcester.

May 14, 1946.

Suit by Rea Rubinstein against Benjamin Rubinstein for divorce and custody of the parties' minor child. From a decree dismissing the libel, libelant appeals.

Reversed, with directions.Appeal from Probate Court, Worcester County; Atwood, Judge.

Before FIELD, C. J., and QUA, DOLAN, WILKINS, and SPALDING, JJ.

L. Rubin, of Quincy, for libellant.

P. J. Murphy, of Worcester, for libelee.

WILKINS, Justice.

This libel for divorce, filed February 20, 1945, in the Probate Court for Worcester County, alleges desertion and other grounds and seeks custody of a minor child. The answer contains a denial and sets up that on that date the libellant was not the wife of the libellee, because he had obtained a decree of divorce at Reno, Nevada, on March 28, 1938. At the hearing it was agreed that the libellant was entitled to a decree for desertion unless the Nevada divorce was a bar. From a decree reciting that the parties ‘are not now husband and wife, having been divorced in another jurisdiction,’ and dismissing the libel, but awarding custody, the libellant appealed. The judge made a report of the material facts found by him. G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 215, § 11. The evidence is reported. It is our duty to examine the evidence and to decide the case on our own judgment. Questions of fact as well as of law are open for our consideration. Vergnani v. Guidetti, 308 Mass. 450, 455, 32 N.E.2d 272. We can find facts not expressly found by the judge, and if we are convinced that he was plainly wrong, we can find facts contrary to his findings. Lowell Bar Association v. Loeb, 315 Mass. 176, 178, 52 N.E.2d 27;Malone v. Walsh, 315 Mass. 484, 490, 53 N.E.2d 126;Jurewicz v. Jurewicz, 317 Mass. 512, 513, 514, 58 N.E.2d 832.

The parties were married in Boston on August 22, 1926, and lived together in Worcester until 1933. They have one child, a daughter born April 5, 1928. In 1934, at a time when a cause of divorce for desertion had not accrued under G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 208, § 1, the wife filed a petition for separate support in the Probate Court for Worcester County, alleging desertion and ‘cruelty,’ and on May 1, 1934, a decree was entered to the effect that she was living apart from the husband for justifiable cause, and orders relating to custody and payment for support were made. That decree, which did not set forth the grounds on which it was based, was never modified, but a petition for modification was heard and dismissed on March 25, 1935, while a ‘motion to rehear case’ was filed by the husband in March, 1937, but never heard.

On January 29, 1938, the husband filed a complaint for divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty in the Second Judicial District Court of the State of Nevada in and for the County of Washoe. It alleged that the husband ‘is now, and has been, for more than six weeks immediately preceding the commencement of this action, a bona fide resident of Washoe County, Nevada, and that he is now and has been during all of the aforesaid time, actually, physically and corporeally present and residing in said County and State.’ The complaint also contained prayers that custody of the daughter be awarded to the wife, and that the husband be ordered to pay $5 a week for the support of the child. In an ‘affidavit for publication of summons' signed and sworn by the husband, the wife was alleged never to have resided in Nevada, and was described as residing in the ‘City of Roxbury, State of Massachusetts.’ The wife was served with a copy of the complaint and summons in Boston by a deputy sheriff of Suffolk County. Thereupon through her Massachusetts attorney she filed a special appearance, which was accompanied by a prayer that the action be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, or in the alternative that she be ‘given an opportunity to get in touch with an attorney in Reno, to protect’ her ‘rights' and to present ‘said matter to the Court.’ Also accompanying the special appearance were allegations that the husband was a resident of Worcester; that ‘if he was in Reno, Nevada, on the date of the filing of the complaint in this action, he was there for the sole purpose of obtaining a divorce in the State of Nevada’; that on May 1, 1934, the Probate Court for Worcester County found that the wife was living apart from the husband for justifiable cause, and ordered the husband to pay $7 a week for the support of the wife and child; that that order was still in force; that on December 4, 1937, the husband was served in hand in Worcester with a summons on a contempt petition for failure to comply with that order; that since January 29, 1938, the date of the Nevada complaint, several envelopes addressed to the wife bearing the return address, ‘B. Rubinstein, 19 Mendon Street, Worcester, Mass.,’ had been received; and that the husband had fraudulently concealed his domicil to obtain a divorce in Nevada. On March 28, 1938, the wife was defaulted in Nevada in open court ‘for failing to appear,’ and on the same date a decree was entered there granting a divorce and making orders in conformity with the prayers respecting custody and support. That decree recited that ‘she has failed to appear and answer within the time allowed by law, or at all.’

‘In general, it is well established that jurisdiction to grant a divorce must be based upon the domicil of at least one of the parties, and that the jurisdiction of a State which has undertaken to grant a divorce may be made the subject of inquiry elsewhere.’ Cohen v. Cohen, 319 Mass. 31, 34, 64 N.E.2d 689, 691, and cases cited. The husband contends, however, that the wife cannot question the jurisdiction of the Nevada court, because the filing of the special appearance brought the case within the principle of Davis v. Davis, 305 U.S. 32, 59 S.Ct. 3, 83 L.Ed. 26, 118 A.L.R. 1518. We are not impressed with this contention. We have interpreted the Davis case ‘as resting on the basis that the jurisdictional facts were actually litigated and determined to exist in the court granting the divorce.’ Cohen v. Cohen, 319 Mass. 31, 35, 64 N.E.2d 689; Bowditch v. Bowditch, 314 Mass. 410, 416. The filing of the special appearance followed by nothing more than the entry of a default ‘for failing to appear’ was not an actual litigation and determination of the jurisdictional facts. See Davis v. Davis, 305 U.S. 32, 42, 59 S.Ct. 3, 83 L.Ed. 26, 118 A.L.R. 1518;Schaeffer v. Schaeffer, 128 Conn. 628, 633, 25 A.2d 243.

The main question is presented by probate judge's findings as to domicil. He found ‘as the most material fact in this case that he [the husband] actually acquired a domicil in Reno from December 15, 1937, to the time of filing the complaint and for some months later (until April 3, 1938).’ The judge found, ‘as basis for the above facts, that he left Massachusetts with no intention to return, but to stay away indefinitely and perhaps permanently. This is borne out by the fact that he never returned to Massachusetts until February, 1940, and then for a special reason and not because he intended to return. While in Reno he intended to make it his home for some time-principally because he thought the law so required-but having no intention at that time to live elsewhere. He had some idea of looking for business in his line, the purchase and sale of wool, or rather brokerage of contracts therefor on which he received a commission. There was large wool growing areas in this part of the west, and he sought and did some business. I find, if material, that his purpose and intent in leaving Massachusetts and going to Reno and acquiring a domicil, as above found, were not laudable, but the contrary. He went for the purpose of evading his obligation to support his wife and child and [in order not] to obey the decree of this court for such support, and for the further purpose of obtaining the divorce. He left soon after being served with process from this court on a complaint for contempt for not making payments ordered by said decree.’

We summarize other findings of the probate judge. The husband left Worcester about December 12, 1937, and arrived in Nevada ‘on or about’ December 15, 1937. About ten days after he left, a capias for his arrest was issued in the separate support case. He left Reno on or about April 3, 1938, and went to New York city, where he lived until February, 1940. He then returned to Worcester to ‘his father's home’ and has lived there since. Late in 1939 his aged father urged him to return to Worcester to be with him in his declining years. A brother also urged him to return. ‘An apparent reason for the absence of the libellee is the fact that he was then paying his wife nothing, the contempt petition was pending, and a capias outstanding.’ On or about December 6, 1939, the father for $700 obtained a release of all demands for arrearson the separate support decree and a surrender of the capias, and agreed that thereafter $7 a week would be paid. ‘I think the above facts material as some indication of the libellee's reasons for leaving Worcester and for his return, which in turn have a bearing on the finding of domicil in Nevada. I find that the libellee had no intention of paying anything or returning to Massachusetts and would not have done so except for the fact that the father urged him and made this settlement with the libellant.’ ‘I do not find that the testimony of either one [of ...