PLUNKETT VS. PLUNKETT (DIVORCE)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The sole issue was jurisdictional: whether the record supported the district court's finding that the plaintiff husband was a bona fide Nevada resident and domiciliary for the statutory period preceding suit. Domicile of at least one party is a prerequisite to jurisdiction to grant a divorce. Barber v. Barber, 47 Nev. 377, 222 P. 284. The residence finding rested on the parties' approximately eight-month presence in Clark County in 1941 (terminated by the husband's induction into military service) and the husband's testimony that he intended to return to Nevada as soon as his service ended and had retained that intent ever since. The court held that the undisputed facts overwhelmed and destroyed the evidentiary value of that testimony of intent. The husband's sworn statements in an unsuccessful 1951-1952 Colorado divorce action that he was then a bona fide Colorado resident (confirmed by the wife's affidavit) neutralized his claimed Nevada intent; and the parties' Colorado upbringing, Colorado marriage, first matrimonial domicile in Colorado, purchase of a Denver home, Colorado car registrations, and complete failure to return to or maintain a home in Nevada showed any Nevada domicile had been abandoned for a Colorado one. Concluding the finding of Nevada residence was without support, the court held the district court was without jurisdiction to grant a divorce to either party and reversed with instructions to dismiss.

In plain language

A husband sued his wife for divorce in Nevada. The trial judge refused to grant the husband a divorce but granted one to the wife instead. Unhappy with even that result, the wife appealed, arguing that the Nevada court had no power to grant a divorce to anyone because neither spouse actually lived in Nevada when the suit was filed. To grant a divorce, a Nevada court needs at least one spouse to be a genuine Nevada resident - meaning physically present in the state and intending to make it home - for the time the law requires. The trial court had found the husband met that test, relying mainly on the couple's roughly eight-month stay in Clark County back in 1941 (which ended when the husband was inducted into military service) and on the husband's own testimony that he always intended to return to Nevada. The Nevada Supreme Court found that the surrounding facts completely destroyed the value of the husband's claimed intent. The couple were raised in Colorado, married in Colorado, and made their first home there. Their brief Nevada stay was just to finish a construction job. In a failed 1951-1952 Colorado divorce case, the husband had sworn under oath that he was a Colorado resident, and his wife's affidavit agreed. The couple bought a home in Denver, licensed their cars in Colorado, and never returned to Nevada or kept a home there. The husband showed no interest in Nevada until his Colorado divorce failed. Because the finding of Nevada residence had no support in the record, the court held that the district court lacked jurisdiction to grant a divorce to either spouse. It reversed the decree and ordered the case dismissed.