CALVERT VS. CALVERT (DIVORCE)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

Appeal from a judgment dismissing, on a sustained general demurrer, the plaintiff wife's complaint to vacate her own 1939 divorce decree for duress and coercion. Held: to vacate a decree for fraud in Nevada, the fraud must be extrinsic (Confer v. Second Judicial District Court, 49 Nev. 18, 234 P. 688; Chamblin v. Chamblin, 55 Nev. 146, 27 P.2d 1061). Where the wife had the opportunity to consult counsel of her own choosing and to present the coercion to the court during the pendency of the divorce action, the fraud is intrinsic; her allegation that the husband's domination kept her from disclosing to counsel - despite being some 3,000 miles away and represented - does not reclassify the fraud (following Hendricks v. Hendricks, 216 Cal. 321, 14 P.2d 83; Kellett v. Kellett; Lanktree v. Lanktree, 42 Cal. App. 648, 183 P. 954). Cases granting relief were distinguished as ones in which the wife was denied counsel of her own choosing or the husband controlled the choice. Affirmed.

In plain language

A wife who had obtained a Nevada divorce in 1939 later sued to vacate that decree, claiming that her husband had coerced her - through years of cruelty, threats, and blackmail-like pressure - into going to Reno and getting the divorce against her will. The trial court dismissed her suit by sustaining a demurrer, and she appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. A divorce decree can be set aside for fraud only if the fraud is "extrinsic." Where the wife had the opportunity to consult counsel of her own choosing and to tell the court about the alleged coercion during the divorce case, the fraud is "intrinsic." Her claim that she was too dominated by her husband to disclose the truth to her lawyer - even though she was some 3,000 miles away from him and had counsel - did not change that. The cases she cited granting relief all involved wives who were denied counsel of their own choosing or whose counsel was controlled by the husband. The judgment of dismissal was affirmed. (The Nevada Supreme Court later relied on this decision in Mazour v. Mazour.)