Armstrong v. Armstrong , 76 S. Ct. 629 ( 1956 )

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. A divorce decree was granted petitioner by the Florida court, and he contends that that court also denied alimony to the respondent.

Later, the respondent wife instituted a suit in Ohio for divorce and for alimony. The petitioner appeared and set up the divorce obtained in Florida. The Ohio court found that the respondent had established grounds for divorce in Ohio but denied the divorce because Florida had already decreed a divorce to the petitioner. The Ohio court proceeded to pass on the question of alimony and granted the wife alimony, taking into account the total property owned by the petitioner. The petitioner appealed to the Court of Appeals, 99 Ohio App. 7, 130 N. E. 2d 710, and then to the Supreme Court of Ohio, which affirmed the judgments of the lower courts. 162 Ohio St. 406, 123 N. E. 2d 267. Petitioner argued and contends here that the Ohio courts have denied full faith and credit to the Florida decree. We granted certiorari. 349 U. S. 915.

The sole question presented by the petition for certio-rari was whether the Ohio courts were required to give full faith and credit to the ex parte Florida divorce decree, which petitioner alleges not only granted him a divorce but also decreed that the wife was not entitled to alimony. As we interpret the Florida decree, however, the Florida court did not purport to adjudicate the absent wife's right to alimony. The Ohio courts, therefore, in awarding alimony to the wife, did not in fact fail to give full faith and credit to the Florida decree. Accordingly, we do not reach the constitutional question sought to be presented. But even if there is doubt as to the meaning of the Florida decree, we should construe its action as a refusal to pass on the question of alimony and thus avoid the constitutional question as to its power to do so.

The Florida court found that Mrs. Armstrong “has not come into this court in good faith or made any claim to the equitable conscience of the court and has made no showing of any need on her part for alimony. It is, therefore, specifically decreed that no award of alimony be made to the defendant . . . Taken literally, that language means only that, for the reasons it gave, the court would refrain from making an affirmative award of alimony to the wife, not that it adjudicated in favor of the husband that his wife was not entitled to alimony. The husband's bill of complaint did not ask for greater relief. It offered to show that Mrs. Armstrong's interest in jointly held property was “ample to support the defendant and that she has no further need of alimony.” The purpose of this offer, however, was revealed by the next sentence of the complaint: “Nevertheless the plaintiff hereby offers to do equity and to abide by such orders or decrees, with reference to the settlement of the property affairs, as to this court may be deemed equitable.” Thus the husband did not seek a decree holding the wife not entitled to alimony but rather merely submitted to the court’s jurisdiction to condition its grant of divorce to him upon an award of alimony to his wife. The prayer for relief was fully satisfied by the decision that protection of the absent wife did not require the court to fix alimony before granting the divorce.

The Florida master’s report is confirmatory of the limited scope of the decree. The master stated that “the question of the wife’s alimony, if any, cannot be determined at this stage of the proceeding,” pointing out that most of the marital property was in the wife’s possession in Ohio and was the subject matter of litigation pending there. He accordingly found that “the defendant is not entitled to receive alimony . . . under the facts and circumstances presented in this case” and recommended “that no award of alimony be made.” The master’s recommendation meant no more than that the question of alimony should not be decided because the wife had in her possession property adequate to meet her immediate needs, and the unresolved litigation made it impossible to determine her future needs. Presumably, the court’s decree meant no more when it adopted in terms the master’s recommendation that “no award of alimony be made.” Like the master’s report, the decree expressly recognized that the parties’ property rights depended upon the outcome of the pending litigation in Ohio and that the wife had not shown any need for alimony.

When the Florida court said, “it is, therefore, specifically decreed that no award of alimony be made to the defendant,” it recognized that no issue of alimony should be decided by it. The court simply said that no award of alimony be made — a purely negative assertion that it would not pass on the question.

It is true that the decree “that no award of alimony be made” was followed in the same sentence by a declaration, based on the court’s and master’s view of Florida property law, quieting title in the husband to certain Florida real property. At most, however, the fact that both matters were dealt with in a single sentence suggests only that the court might have reserved alimony out of that specific property had it concluded that such action was necessary to protect the wife’s interests. That it did not do so is consistent with our conclusion that the Florida court did no more than refrain from awarding alimony at that time.

There was a valid decree in Florida dissolving the bonds of matrimony. There was no decree as to alimony. Ohio had personal service on both parties in a suit for divorce and alimony brought there by Mrs. Armstrong. The court denied her a decree of divorce because Florida had already dissolved the bonds of matrimony. The Ohio court found that, but for the decree in Florida, Mrs. Armstrong had established grounds for divorce in the Ohio suit. It considered that the matter before it was not a division of property, but an application for alimony, and it proceeded to hear evidence on that basis and finally entered a personal judgment against the defendant husband for alimony. The Ohio court, which had complete jurisdiction of both parties and the cause of action, entered a decree as to alimony only, which decree seems clearly authorized by the Ohio cases. Slapp v. Slapp, 143 Ohio St. 105, 54 N. E. 2d 153; Cox v. Cox, 19 Ohio St. 502. The Florida judgment was given full faith and credit by Ohio as far as the judgment in Florida went, and no other questions are presented here.

The judgment is

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice Frankfurter,

joining the opinion of the Court.

It is, of course, desirable to have a Court opinion, if one can be achieved without straining one’s conscience. I am sufficiently in agreement with Mr. Justice Minton’s construction of the Florida decree to be able to join him.

On my study of the record, I would dismiss the writ as improvidently granted. And for these reasons. After a case has been heard on the merits, it is to be disposed of on the precise issue that full study of the case discloses, and not on the basis of the preliminary examination of the questions that were urged in the petition for certio-rari. Due regard for the working of the certiorari system requires this. In view of the fact that about 1,300 applications were made last Term for leave to be heard (and this is a fair average of the volume of the Court’s business), determination during this sifting process of the jurisdictional merits in all these 1,300 cases can hardly be expected. Theory and practice alike reject any such notion. The inevitably cursory consideration that is normally given in a case on the preliminary round precludes the assumption that a tentative finding of a federal question will survive the thorough study of the record which consideration of a case on the merits implies. Therefore, it is that cases have again and again been dismissed for want of jurisdiction, i. e., a substantial federal question was found wanting; on the contrary, it became clear that the state court judgment rested on an adequate state ground.

The petition for writ of certiorari in this case vigorously-argued that

“The sole question is whether the courts of Ohio, under Article IV of the Constitution of the United States, are compelled to give full faith and credit to the entire decree, granting a divorce, and denying alimony, rendered by the court in Florida, the matrimonial domicile of the parties, following the decision of Thompson v. Thompson, 226 U. S. 551.”

The references to the Florida decree in the opinion of the Ohio Supreme Court — the two documents are hardly to be deemed conspicuously lucid — warranted, without more, a belief that the case did present the question formulated by petitioner. Such a question would, no doubt, raise an important problem in the construction of the Full Faith and Credit Clause.

But the course of the oral argument, for such is one of its functions, and an exacting scrutiny of the record, for such is the requirement of plenary consideration of a case, put in a very different light the decree of the Florida court and thereby the significance of the litigation in Ohio.

A study of the Florida decree, a portion of which is set out in the margin,¹ in conjunction with Florida case law² demonstrates, I believe, that Florida expressly disavowed any adjudication regarding claims to and in property situated in Ohio, the very properties which are the subject matter of the challenged Ohio decree.

Thus, the sole question that survives is the power of Ohio, as a matter of its own policy, to define rights in property situated in Ohio in the circumstances of this case. A question of due process might be raised, though not successfully. (Both the real property and securities which had their locus in Ohio were subject to Ohio's control in that both items constituted “property within the State.” Pennington v. Fourth National Bank, 243 U. S. 269, 271.) In any event, it was not raised, and the claim under the Full Faith and Credit Clause has evaporated, because Ohio merely dealt with property within its borders which Florida had not purported to affect.

Of course we have to go through all this reasoning to determine whether a substantial federal question was raised by reason of Ohio’s disregard of Florida’s decree. The Court not infrequently is required to find its way through a tangled or confused record in order to determine whether a state court judgment turned on a state ground or on a federal ground. In short, the Court has jurisdiction to decide whether it has jurisdiction. But when adequate analysis discloses that a state judgment amply rests on a state ground, we are barred from proceeding to the merits of the alleged federal question. The appropriate disposition is to dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction.

[For concurring opinion of Me. Justice Black, joined by The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Clark; see next page.]

1 “This court takes recognition of the fact that litigation is now pending in the state of Ohio relative to the recovery of . . . stocks and bonds as well as the settlement of other matters concerning property rights between the parties. This court recognizes that the courts of Ohio will have the ultimate determination of the question of property rights where the property itself is in the state of Ohio . . .

2 Compare Burkhart v. Circuit Court, Eleventh Judicial Circuit, 146 Fla. 457, 1 So. 2d 872, and Lucian v. So. Ohio Savings Bank & Trust Co., 156 Fla. 370, 23 So. 2d 674, with Pawley v. Pawley, 46 So. 2d 464 (Fla.), and Sorrells v. Sorrells, 82 So. 2d 684 (Fla.).