Mehrstein v. Mehrstein

FLEMING, J.

Appeal from a judgment terminating a husband’s support obligation under the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act. (Code Civ. Proc., §§ 1650-1692, 9C U.L.A.)

[648]

The parties married in Florida in 1953 and separated in New York in 1958. They had no children. In 1963 the wife, a resident of New York, brought suit for support in New York under the uniform act against her husband, a California resident. After certification of the case by New York, the initiating state, to California, the responding state (Code Civ. Proc., § 1680), the Los Angeles Superior Court found the husband owed a duty of support to the wife and ordered him to pay her $40 a month. (Code Civ. Proc., §§ 1655,1670,1683.)

Subsequently, the husband filed a complaint for divorce in the Los Angeles Superior Court and obtained service of the summons and complaint on his wife by publication. On February 11, 1965, he secured by default an interlocutory judgment of divorce on the grounds or desertion and extreme cruelty under a decree which declared that the wife was not entitled to any sums for her support and maintenance. On February 16, 1965, the husband filed a motion in the Los Angeles Superior Court, presumably served on the District Attorney of Los Angeles County, for an order terminating the support payments previously ordered in the reciprocal proceedings. Under his motion he argued that the divorce decree established the fact of his wife’s desertion, that a husband has no duty to support a wife who deserts him, and that consequently he was no longer obliged to support his former wife. The trial court granted his motion on the basis of this argument, and the wife, represented by the California Attorney General, appeals.

The Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act provides a means for enforcing the support obligations of obligors located outside the jurisdiction in which the dependent spouse or children are present. (See, generally, 2 California Family Lawyer (Cont.Ed. Bar) pp. 1495-1538; Ehrenzweig,

Interstate Recognition of Support Duties,

42 Cal.L.Rev. 382.) Enforceable support obligations are those “imposed or imposable under the laws of any state where the alleged obligor was present during the period for which support is sought or where the obligee was present when the failure to support commenced, at the election of the obligee.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 1670.) In the present case, the laws of both California and New York imposed an obligation of support on the husband, an obligation properly enforced by the California court in its original order. The question before us is the effect of the subsequent divorce decree on the earlier reciprocal support order, the wife contending that the husband’s duty of support could not be terminated in a divorce