CHAMBLIN VS. CHAMBLIN (DIVORCE)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

Appeal by the husband (defendant) from a decree of the district court annulling and setting aside a prior decree of divorce he had obtained, and from the order denying a new trial. The wife's suit alleged the divorce decree was procured by perjured testimony constituting a fraud on the court. Rather than reach the pending motion to strike the bill of exceptions, the court held the complaint failed to state a cause of action. Following Confer v. District Court, 49 Nev. 18, 234 P. 688, the court reiterated that a court of equity's power to relieve from a judgment obtained by fraud reaches only fraud that is extrinsic or collateral to the matter tried - fraud whose effect prevents a party from having a trial or from presenting all of the case, or which operates upon the manner in which the judgment is procured - and not intrinsic fraud in the matter on which the judgment was rendered. Perjury going to the matters actually tried is intrinsic. Because the wife had been personally served in the divorce action and had every opportunity to appear and defend, and was charged with knowledge that the plaintiff would produce the assertedly perjured testimony, the alleged fraud was not extrinsic and furnished no ground for setting the decree aside. The court noted that a contrary rule would encourage endless litigation and destroy the finality of decrees and the marketability of titles. Reversed with directions to dismiss.

In plain language

A woman brought a lawsuit to set aside a divorce decree that her husband had previously obtained against her, claiming he had won it using perjured (false) testimony, which she said was a fraud on the court. The trial court agreed and annulled the earlier divorce decree. The husband appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed and ordered the case dismissed. It held that the wife's complaint did not state a valid claim. A court of equity can set aside a judgment obtained by fraud, but only when the fraud is 'extrinsic' or collateral - that is, fraud that kept a party from getting a trial or from presenting her case at all - not 'intrinsic' fraud like perjury about the very matters that were tried. Here the wife had been personally served in the divorce case and had every chance to appear and defend, and she was charged with knowing the husband would offer the testimony she now calls perjury. So the alleged fraud was intrinsic, not extrinsic, and could not support setting the decree aside. The court warned that a contrary rule would invite endless litigation and destroy the finality and reliability of court judgments, including decrees affecting title to property.