ROBERT M. ARNOLD, APPELLANT,
v.
KATHERINE C. ARNOLD, APPELLEE
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The appellate court affirmed a lower court's decision to enforce a California divorce decree. The husband, who initially participated in and benefited from the decree, later challenged its validity based on alleged lack of California residency, but was estopped from doing so.
Yes, the husband was estopped from challenging the California divorce decree's validity. The court applied the rule of pari delicto, preventing a party from voiding a decree based on jurisdictional objections when those objections arise from their own fault or connivance.
[1] A party who affirmatively espouses a foreign judgment and relies on it to his detriment, such as in remarrying, may be estopped from later challenging its validity based…
[2] A court may refuse to set aside a presumptively valid decree based on jurisdictional objections brought to its attention for the first time after substantial equities hav…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“apply the rule in pari delicto melior defendentis est and leave the original record closed to correction, where no positive rule of law, or consideration of public policy, requires the presumptively valid decree to be rendered void ab initio by setting it aside for jurisdictional objections shown to lie dehors the record and brought to the attention of the court for the first time after other substantial equities have arisen on the strength of the record as it was originally made through the fault, connivance or fraud of the subsequently complaining party in occasioning the false record in the first instance.”
This quote establishes the equitable principle the court used to prevent the husband from challenging the decree.
Previewing 1 of 2 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceThe husband participated in California divorce proceedings that resulted in an unappealed decree. He later sought to prevent Florida from domesticatin…
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DANIEL S. PEARSON, Judge.
Mr. Arnold, indisputably a willing participant in 1984 California proceedings ultimat-ing in an unappealed divorce decree awarding, inter alia, alimony and other sums to the wife, contended below that the California judgment, the validity of which he affirmatively espoused in connection with his 1985 remarriage, was not entitled to be domesticated in Florida because the former Mrs. Arnold had not met California residency requirements, and the California court was thus without jurisdiction. Following the lower court’s receipt of abundant — although, as will be seen, unnecessary— proof establishing Mrs. Arnold’s 1984 California residency, it rejected Arnold’s offer of proof to establish his former wife’s non-residency. Although this ruling, about which Arnold complains on appeal, was seemingly made on grounds of expediency, it is, nonetheless, correct because it was well within the trial court’s equitable power to
“apply the rule in pari delicto melior defendentis est and leave the original record closed to correction, where no positive rule of law, or consideration of public policy, requires the presumptively valid decree to be rendered void ab initio by setting it aside for jurisdictional objections shown to lie dehors the record and brought to the attention of the court for the first time after other substantial equities have arisen on the strength of the record as it was originally made through the fault, connivance or fraud of the subsequently complaining party in occasioning the false record in the first instance.”
Bemis v. Loftin, 127 Fla. 515, 525-26, 173 So. 683, 688 (1937).
Thus, even if, arguendo, Arnold might have proved his claim of non-residency, he was plainly estopped from doing so. See Edelson v. Edelson, 58 So. 2d 148 (Fla.1952); Carpenter v. Carpenter, 93 F.Supp. 225 (S.D.Fla.1950). Accordingly, the Final Judgment to Enforce Foreign Decree as Florida Judgment and the ensuing order denying Mr. Arnold’s motion to quash a writ of garnishment are
Affirmed.
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Keller v. Keller, 521 So. 2d 273 (Fla. 5th DCA 1988)…ty by the wife in the dissolution proceeding. The trial court’s determination that appellant should be estopped from raising this defense was proper and, thus, affirmed. See also Seoane v. Seoane, 514 So. 2d 430 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987); Arnold v. Arnold, 500 So. 2d 739 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987). We reverse the award of appellant’s interest in the Cocoa restaurant and real property used in connection with it, and the award of the Mercedes to appellee. Appellant claims that the award of the restaurant is improper, since h…
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Lambertini v. Lambertini, 655 So. 2d 142 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995)…ng the validity of the marriage, and annulment was improper. See McMichael v. McMichael, 158 Fla. 413, 28 So. 2d 692 (1947); Keller v. Keller, 521 So. 2d 273 (Fla. 5th DCA 1988); Seoane v. Seoane, 514 So. 2d 430 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987); Arnold v. Arnold, 500 So. 2d 739 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987). Each party also claims that the other was the active procurer of the invalid Mexican marriage. However, there is no evidentiary support in the record for the argument that one of the parties is innocent while the other is necess…
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Lambert v. Lambert, 524 So. 2d 686 (Fla. 4th DCA 1988)…ntends that even if the 1974 Dominican Republic divorce is invalid, ap-pellee is estopped from now challenging the validity of that decree. We agree, and therefore need not address appellant’s additional issue raised on appeal. In Arnold v. Arnold, 500 So. 2d 739 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987), the court held that a husband was estopped from challenging the validity of a divorce decree where he had participated in the divorce proceeding and had previously asserted the validity of the divorce decree in connection with hi…
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- Bemis v. Loftin, 127 Fla. 515 (Fla. 1937)