MIZNER VS. MIZNER (DIVORCE PROPERTY & ALIMONY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

Thompson, C.J. The husband appealed a partial summary judgment according full faith and credit to an alimony award in a California interlocutory divorce decree entered upon extraterritorial personal service. The court affirmed. The husband conceded California's jurisdiction to grant the interlocutory divorce and award California property, but attacked the alimony award as beyond in personam jurisdiction under Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714 (1877). The court held that Pennoyer has been substantially eroded and that the minimum-contacts standard of International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945), is peculiarly suited to matrimonial support cases, because strict application of Pennoyer encourages migratory divorce and shields a spouse seeking to avoid financial responsibility. Accordingly, in personam jurisdiction may be acquired over a non-resident defendant in a divorce action by extraterritorial personal service where (1) a statute of the support-ordering state authorizes such acquisition and (2) there exist sufficient contacts between the defendant and the forum relevant to the cause of action to satisfy 'traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.' California Code of Civil Procedure sec. 417 authorized the service, and California courts have construed it to support jurisdiction over an absent defendant personally served outside the state if domiciled there when suit was commenced or when the cause of action arose (Soule v. Soule, 14 Cal.Rptr. 417 (Cal.App. 1961), held squarely on point). The parties were domiciled in California until separation, the wife's cruelty cause of action arose from the husband's conduct there, and the interlocutory judgment carried a presumption of validity (Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U.S. 457 (1940)). Nevada was bound to honor California's construction of sec. 417, and the judgment was entitled to full faith and credit. (A dissent contended the result was contrary to May v. Anderson, 345 U.S. 528 (1953), which the majority distinguished.)

In plain language

The Mizners lived together in California from 1947 until they separated in 1965, when the husband moved to Nevada. He filed for divorce in Nevada; a month later the wife filed in California and won an interlocutory (not-yet-final) divorce there, which gave her California property and $300 a month in alimony. To bring him into the California case, she had him personally served with the papers at his home in Reno. Back in Nevada, the wife asked the Nevada court to honor the California alimony award. The Nevada court agreed and entered partial summary judgment for her, and the husband appealed. He accepted that California could grant the divorce and divide California property, but argued California had no power to order him to pay alimony because he was served outside California - relying on an old 1877 U.S. Supreme Court rule (Pennoyer v. Neff) that a person must be served inside the state. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. It explained that the old Pennoyer rule has been greatly weakened by later cases holding that a state may exercise power over an out-of-state person who has enough connection with the state ('minimum contacts'). This idea fits support cases well, because a strict rule lets a spouse dodge financial responsibility by moving away. The court held a state may reach an absent spouse by out-of-state personal service if (1) a state statute allows it and (2) the spouse has enough contacts with the state relating to the case. California's statute allowed it, California courts had applied it to divorce and alimony, and the parties had lived in California when the wife's claim arose. So the California alimony award was valid and entitled to full faith and credit.