Opinion · Supreme Court of the United States

Armstrong v. Armstrong

Armstrong v. Armstrong, 350 U.S. 568 (1956)

Type
Opinion
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction
Federal
Date
1956-05-21
Topic
general

Mr. Justice Minton delivered the opinion of the Court. The petitioner, while residing in Dade County, Florida, filed a suit for divorce from his wife, who had separated from him and gone to Ohio, where she had established her residence. The wife was not personally served, nor did she appear in person or by attorney in the Florida suit. Service on her was constructive only.

Citator

Armstrong v. Armstrong has been questioned or limited by later authorities: relies on overruled authority: 24 L. Ed. 565 (overruled by Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U.S. 186 (1977)). Read them before relying on it. 75 later decisions cite it.

Authority status
caution
Cited by
75 opinions

Headnotes

  1. Civil Procedure — Choice of Law Where a court of one state, lacking personal jurisdiction over an absent, nonresident spouse, enters a divorce decree purporting to deny alimony, the decree will be construed as declining to adjudicate the absent spouse's right to alimony rather than as an affirmative adjudication against her, thereby avoiding the constitutional question of the rendering court's power to decide that issue. 350 U.S. at 569-570
  2. Civil Procedure — Choice of Law An ex parte divorce decree that dissolves the marriage but makes no adjudication of the absent spouse's right to alimony does not bar a second state, which has personal jurisdiction over both parties, from granting alimony to the spouse, and that state does not deny full faith and credit to the divorce decree by doing so. 350 U.S. at 572
  3. Constitutional Law — Personal Jurisdiction A court lacks power to render a binding personal judgment affecting a nonresident who was not personally served with process and did not appear in the action; a state may dissolve a marriage on constructive service without thereby acquiring authority to adjudicate the absent spouse's personal rights, including claims to alimony. 350 U.S. at 573-574 (Black, J., concurring) (citing Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714)
  4. Civil Procedure — Choice of Law A valid ex parte divorce decree does not cut off the absent spouse's right to alimony in another state having personal jurisdiction over both parties; a judgment granting or denying alimony is a personal judgment requiring personal jurisdiction over the party against whom it runs. 350 U.S. at 573-575 (Black, J., concurring) (citing Estin v. Estin, 334 U.S. 541)
  5. Civil Procedure — Choice of Law The fiction that a wife cannot acquire a separate domicile from that of her husband, and the competing concept of the "matrimonial domicile," do not determine a state's power over an alimony claim; the question of which spouse was at fault in leaving the other has no bearing on the existence of state power. 350 U.S. at 576-577 (Black, J., concurring)
  6. Civil Procedure — Choice of Law A domicile finding made in an uncontested, ex parte divorce proceeding is open to challenge in a later action in another state; where the issue is tried with both parties present, the second state's finding that the absent spouse was in fact a resident of that state controls, and the rendering court's contrary ex parte finding is not conclusive. 350 U.S. at 577-578 (Black, J., concurring) (citing Williams v. North Carolina, 325 U.S. 226)