Nevada family-law case summaries

This is the main appeal in the same divorce case (the earlier decision had only dealt with the wife's appeal-money request). The husband sued for divorce on the ground that the couple had lived apart for more than five years without living together as spouses. The wife challenged the complaint, and she also raised five defenses accusing the husband of misconduct: desertion, adultery, bigamy, failure to provide, and extreme cruelty. The trial court threw out all five defenses and granted the husband his divorce. The wife appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court first held, following its Herrick decision, that a five-year-separation complaint does not have to say the plaintiff was blameless, so the wife's challenge to the complaint failed. But the court held it was error to knock out the wife's defenses. Even though those accusations did not cause the separation, they were the kind of recriminatory misconduct that could reasonably influence the discretion the statute gives the judge - and a divorce is discretionary under this ground. So the wife was entitled to plead and prove them. The court explained that a spouse who wants to rely on such misconduct must actually allege it, to give fair notice and a chance to respond; if proven and serious enough to persuade the judge to withhold the divorce, it becomes a complete defense. Because the trial court had wrongly cut off these defenses, the Supreme Court reversed and sent the case back.

A woman brought a lawsuit to set aside a divorce decree that her husband had previously obtained against her, claiming he had won it using perjured (false) testimony, which she said was a fraud on the court. The trial court agreed and annulled the earlier divorce decree. The husband appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed and ordered the case dismissed. It held that the wife's complaint did not state a valid claim. A court of equity can set aside a judgment obtained by fraud, but only when the fraud is 'extrinsic' or collateral - that is, fraud that kept a party from getting a trial or from presenting her case at all - not 'intrinsic' fraud like perjury about the very matters that were tried. Here the wife had been personally served in the divorce case and had every chance to appear and defend, and she was charged with knowing the husband would offer the testimony she now calls perjury. So the alleged fraud was intrinsic, not extrinsic, and could not support setting the decree aside. The court warned that a contrary rule would invite endless litigation and destroy the finality and reliability of court judgments, including decrees affecting title to property.

A husband filed for divorce in Nevada in March 1932, claiming he had been a Nevada resident for the required six weeks. His wife, who lived in Illinois, answered and eventually asked for her own divorce on the ground of adultery, plus a division of property. Early in the case the court ordered the husband to pay her travel money, temporary support, and attorney fees; he paid nothing and left the state, and his whereabouts were unknown by the time of trial. At trial the husband did not appear. His own lawyer then asked the court to dismiss the wife's claim, arguing she had not proven the husband was really a Nevada resident (a fact the court needed in order to have power over the case). The trial judge dismissed the case on that ground. The wife appealed, saying the evidence proved the husband's residence. The Nevada Supreme Court explained that the husband's physical presence in Reno for six weeks was not disputed; the real question was whether he intended to make Nevada his home. The wife's proof - hotel testimony, his Nevada car license and tax payments, statements that he meant to live in Reno, and his own verified complaint - was proper and was the best evidence she could get given that he had vanished. But the court held that whether that evidence was strong enough to grant the wife a divorce was a matter left to the trial judge's judgment and discretion, and the appellate court would not override it, especially in a divorce case where the court represents the state's interest. Although it condemned the husband's conduct as reprehensible, the court affirmed the dismissal.

A husband sued his wife for divorce claiming she was, and would remain, incurably impotent. The wife raised several defenses: that he had forgiven the condition by continuing to live with her, that he had waited too long (laches), that he himself had deserted her (recrimination), and that two earlier California judgments had already denied him a divorce and so the issue was settled (res judicata). The trial court dismissed all her defenses, then, after a trial, granted the husband a divorce but ordered him to pay her $75 a month for life or until she remarried. Years later her motion for a new trial was denied, and she appealed the judgment and that denial. The Nevada Supreme Court declined to review whether the trial court was right to throw out her defenses. It explained that a motion for a new trial is a re-examination of issues of fact, and that errors in rulings on demurrers (which are legal rulings on the pleadings) cannot be reviewed through a new-trial motion. Reversing to reinstate her defenses would create new issues rather than re-examine facts already tried. The same reasoning barred review of the court's refusal to admit copies of the California case records. That left only whether the evidence supported the trial court's findings. The wife's lawyers deliberately chose not to analyze or argue the evidence, so the court reviewed only whether there was any substantial evidence to support the findings. Finding such evidence after a careful reading of the record, the court affirmed the denial of a new trial.

This is the decision on the merits of the same venue dispute. The husband had filed his divorce suit in Lander County. The wife asked to move the trial, saying she lived in Washoe County (Reno) and that a fair trial could not be had in Lander County, and she backed her request with a sworn statement and, at the hearing, live testimony. The husband did not appear at the hearing, in person or through a lawyer. The trial court granted the change of venue, and the husband appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The key problem for the husband was that the testimony the wife gave at the venue hearing was not included in the record brought up on appeal. Because the appellate court could not see that testimony, it had to presume the testimony was sufficient to justify the trial court's decision to move the case. The court affirmed the order and directed that the case be returned to the lower court immediately.

An Army captain sued his wife for divorce in Nevada, claiming she had treated him with extreme cruelty after January 1929, the month a Florida court had granted her a separate-maintenance decree. He described her nagging, refusing to move out of their military quarters, embarrassing him, opening his mail, threatening him, and even physical violence. The wife denied it all, pointed to the Florida decree, and said he had deserted her. The trial court believed the husband and granted him the divorce. The wife appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed, finding the husband's evidence worthless. Although courts usually will not second-guess findings based on conflicting testimony, that rule requires a genuine, substantial conflict; here the husband's story was uncorroborated and repeatedly contradicted by his own signed writings, by the wife, and by several neutral witnesses who testified the couple lived in separate apartments and that he, not she, was the aggressor. The court detailed how he had pursued another woman, told her he was single, given his wife stacks of that woman's letters to try to push her into divorcing him, falsely accused the wife of adultery and threatened to have her declared insane, then signed a retraction three days later. The court held a spouse cannot provoke the other's misconduct and then win a divorce based on it, and that the husband's vague claim of an "adverse effect" on his health was too indefinite and, given his own character, unconvincing. It reversed and directed the trial court to enter a decree finding the cruelty charges untrue and ruling for the wife, with costs.

After a husband won a divorce against his wife in the Clark County district court, the wife appealed. Because she said she had no money to pursue the appeal, she asked the Nevada Supreme Court to order the husband to pay her a $1,000 attorney fee plus filing fees and costs so she could go forward. The wife's sworn statement said her only income was $80 a month, that the husband could earn more than $750 a month as a salesman, and that he held community property she could not describe. The husband's sworn statement said he owned nothing, owed his employer $3,500, was paid only on commissions, and had been running at a loss. The court held that a husband's poverty is no defense to the wife's right to get from him the money she needs to prosecute her appeal in a divorce case, though his finances do bear on how much to award. It viewed the wife's claim that he earned over $750 a month as overly optimistic - a salesman earning more than $9,000 a year in the depression would be a genius - and her claim about community property as too vague and denied. The court awarded a $200 attorney fee and $25 filing fee, and denied further costs for lack of any showing.

A husband sued his wife for divorce in Nevada, relying on a then-new Nevada law that let a court grant a divorce when a married couple had lived apart for five straight years without living together as spouses. This couple had separated in June 1923. Before the Nevada case, they had fought through three lawsuits in California: the wife won a separate-maintenance order (support of $200 a month), and two divorce suits the husband filed there were dismissed. The Nevada trial court granted the husband his divorce. The wife appealed. She argued the California rulings had already found the husband at fault for the breakup, and that a person at fault should not be allowed to use the five-year-separation law to get a divorce. She also argued that ending the marriage wrongly wiped out the California support order. The Nevada Supreme Court disagreed on every point. It held that the five-year-separation statute does not require the person asking for the divorce to be free of fault - either spouse can bring the case no matter who caused the separation. The law gives the trial judge discretion, and the fault of a spouse is just one circumstance the judge may weigh, not an automatic bar. The court also held that once a marriage is dissolved, there is nothing left for a separate-maintenance order to operate on, so the divorce did not improperly impair the California support decree. Because the wife put on no evidence of her own, the court found no abuse of discretion and affirmed the divorce.

In a divorce case, the wife asked to have the trial moved to a different county, and the trial court granted her request and transferred the case to Washoe County. The husband appealed that order. Before the appeal was decided on its merits, the wife made two requests to the Nevada Supreme Court: to strike certain sworn statements the husband had submitted that had never been filed in the trial court, and to award her an attorney fee for the appeal. The court granted both requests. On the affidavits, it held that on an appeal it can look only at the record actually made and considered by the trial court, because its job is to review claimed errors by that court; it cannot consider material outside that record. The challenged affidavits (which tried to explain why the husband's lawyer could not attend the venue hearing) had not been filed below, so they were stricken. On the fee, the court noted the husband admitted he was worth $20,000 and had already earned $3,000 that year, while the wife's income was only $30 a month. It ruled that $150 was a reasonable attorney fee and ordered the husband to pay it to the wife or her attorney within ten days.

Lester Herrick won a divorce from his wife in Washoe County. She appealed, and while the appeal was pending she asked the Nevada Supreme Court to order her ex-husband to pay a $500 attorney fee so she could afford to prosecute the appeal. Her affidavit said his property exceeded $20,000 and his income exceeded $1,000 a month, and noted he had remarried right after the judgment. He responded that he had essentially no income since 1927 (except $2,500 earned in 1928), that his 170 shares in the Herrick Development Company were pledged to secure a debt over $47,000, and that his new wife, a schoolteacher, was supporting them both. The Supreme Court held it has the power to order a husband to pay the wife's attorney fee for an appeal in a divorce case even when the wife lost below - otherwise a wife without money could never get appellate review. The husband's claimed poverty does not excuse him from paying, but it is properly considered in setting the amount. Weighing his circumstances, the court set the fee at $250 rather than $500, and, because the wife's lawyers said they would accept it, gave the husband the alternative of assigning her his equity in the 170 shares of stock instead.

A husband sued his wife for divorce in Washoe County, claiming desertion and extreme cruelty. The wife denied everything, argued he was not a real Nevada resident, and asked for separate maintenance instead of a divorce. A jury returned a general verdict for the husband and the court granted him a divorce without making its own findings of fact. The wife appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court first rejected her argument that the divorce statute's 'three months' residence requirement means three full calendar months - Nevada courts had construed the statute otherwise for nearly seventy years, and unsettling that construction would upset property rights and the legitimacy of many marriages and children. It also held there was substantial evidence supporting the jury's finding that the husband was a bona fide resident. But the court reversed anyway because of trial errors: the trial court wrongly admitted a deposition taken in a California case (Nevada courts cannot take judicial notice that a California superior court even exists, and the deposition was never shown to be part of any court record), wrongly allowed a witness to be asked about a specific observation of the husband's 'quarrelsome disposition' (character traits can only be proved by general reputation), and gave two jury instructions about a wife's duty to live in a home provided by the husband when there was no evidence he ever provided one. The case was sent back for a new trial. A rehearing was denied in December 1932.

A husband and wife each filed for divorce in different states. The wife sued first in Los Angeles, California in January 1931, and after the husband failed to respond she won a default 'interlocutory' judgment of divorce - a California-style ruling that only becomes a final divorce after a year passes. Meanwhile, in February 1931, the husband filed his own divorce case in Reno, Nevada, claiming cruelty, and the Nevada court granted him a divorce. The wife appealed, arguing that the Nevada court should have treated her California judgment as already deciding the issues (the doctrine of res judicata), and that the husband had not really proved he lived in Nevada. The Nevada Supreme Court ruled against her on both points. Res judicata only applies to final judgments, and the California interlocutory judgment said on its face that a final divorce judgment would not be entered until a year later, so it was not final and did not bar the husband's Nevada case. Because the wife claimed the interlocutory judgment had the force of a final ruling, it was her burden to prove California law gave it that effect, and she offered no such proof. As for residence, testimony from a Y.M.C.A. official, a Reno landlady, and the husband himself showed he lived continuously in Reno from November 1, 1930 with the intent to make it his permanent home, which was enough. The divorce granted to the husband was affirmed.

A wife won a divorce on the ground that her husband, though able-bodied, had failed for more than a year to provide her with the common necessities of life. The husband appealed, arguing the evidence did not show the kind of nonsupport the statute requires - he said he was willing to support his wife and had always met any demand she actually made. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The undisputed facts showed the husband gave his wife nothing after October 1925 (the suit was filed in October 1926), her only income was $65 a month from her own separate property, and he was an able-bodied man earning a $150 monthly salary. The court held that the statute does not require the neglect to be willful: simple neglect is enough, whether it comes from shiftlessness or intention. If a husband is able to provide and fails to do so, his good intentions are immaterial.

Herbert and Annie Bates, an English couple married in 1908, separated in Scotland in 1919 and never lived together again. In 1926 Annie obtained a decree of judicial separation from the English High Court of Justice on the ground that Herbert had deserted her for over two years; Herbert, then in Toronto, was served by mail and never appeared. Later that year Herbert moved to Reno, and in 1927 he sued Annie in Nevada for divorce based on extreme cruelty, describing years of alleged nagging, coldness, and insults. Annie denied the charges, pleaded the English separation decree as a defense, and counterclaimed for separate maintenance. The Nevada trial court granted Herbert the divorce. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. Guided by deposition testimony from two English barristers, it concluded the English separation decree was rendered by a court of the parties' domicile with jurisdiction over both spouses, and that so long as it remains in force in England it would bar Herbert from getting a divorce there for cruelty that happened before the decree - and an equivalent Nevada decree would receive the same effect in England. As a matter of comity (and, in the view of two concurring justices, res judicata), the English decree therefore barred Herbert's Nevada divorce action based on pre-decree cruelty. The lead opinion also concluded the conduct alleged did not amount to legal cruelty in any event. A rehearing was denied in March 1931.

This is the second Nevada Supreme Court decision in the D'Errico divorce fight, issued after the court granted the husband a rehearing of its 1929 ruling (reported at 51 Nev. 363). Joseph D'Errico had lost a divorce case against his wife Maria in Ohio, where the court instead awarded her separate maintenance. He then moved to Reno and sued for divorce again. The Nevada trial court found that the Ohio judgment barred the claims in his original complaint, but granted him a divorce anyway based on a 'supplemental complaint' describing his wife's harassment of him in Cleveland after the Nevada suit was filed. The Supreme Court had reversed, and on rehearing it reversed again. The court adhered to its original holding: while a supplemental complaint alleging misconduct occurring after the original filing may be permitted in a proper case, a plaintiff cannot use it to win a divorce on an entirely new, after-arising cause of action once the original complaint has been defeated. Here the supplemental complaint itself said the new conduct was just 'a continuation' of the wife's attitude over fifteen years, so it stood or fell with the original complaint, which the Ohio judgment barred. The lead opinion added that if the case were instead viewed as presenting an independent new claim, the other justices were right that both spouses were guilty of marital offenses, and under the recrimination rule announced in Blankenship v. Blankenship neither could get a divorce. The judgment was again reversed and the case sent back.

Morris Silverman sued his wife Jennie for divorce in Ohio, claiming extreme cruelty and gross neglect of duty. The Ohio court found against him, dismissed his petition, found him guilty of gross neglect of duty on Jennie's cross-petition, and awarded her alimony of $150 per month plus custody of their younger son. Morris then moved to Reno and, after three months, sued Jennie again - this time claiming her conduct amounted to 'constructive desertion.' The Nevada trial court granted him the divorce, essentially retrying the same story the Ohio court had rejected. Jennie appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. It rejected each of the husband's arguments: the Ohio decree was adequately pleaded as a defense; it was final even though he had filed a 'petition in error' in Ohio, because under Ohio law that is a separate review proceeding that does not suspend the judgment; and the wife did not waive her reliance on the Ohio decree by also defending on the merits. Most importantly, the issues were identical: the Ohio decree legally established that Jennie's separation from Morris was justified and not her fault, which necessarily meant the same separation could not be a willful desertion of Morris by Jennie. By granting the divorce anyway, the Nevada court failed to give the Ohio judgment the full faith and credit required by the United States Constitution. The judgment was reversed and the case remanded.

A husband obtained a default divorce in Nevada against his wife, who lived in Massachusetts and was served only by publication of the summons in a Reno newspaper plus a mailed copy. She later moved to set aside the default and the judgment, arguing the court never had jurisdiction because the proof of service was defective: the mailing affidavit said the summons was sent to 'Hanover, Mass.' when the court's order required 'North Hanover, Mass.,' and the newspaper affidavit of publication was signed by the 'manager of the publisher,' who is not one of the people the statute authorizes to make that affidavit. The trial court refused to set the judgment aside, and she appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court agreed the proof of service did not comply with the statute. The mailing problem was fixable and fixed - a later affidavit showed the summons actually went to North Hanover, and the court properly allowed the original affidavit to be amended. But the publication affidavit was made by an unauthorized person and did not show he had knowledge of the publication, so entering the default and judgment on that defective proof was error. The judgment was not automatically void, though: what gives a court jurisdiction is the service itself, not the paperwork proving it. The court therefore reversed the order and sent the matter back so the husband could supply proper statutory proof of publication if he could, with the motion to be reheard.

A wife filed for divorce in Nevada while her husband lived in Norfolk, Virginia. Because the husband was outside the state, she filed a sworn affidavit and obtained a court order allowing the summons to be served by publication. The husband asked the court to throw out (quash) the service, arguing that her affidavit stated bare conclusions and did not show she had diligently tried to find him. The trial court refused, heard testimony, and granted the wife a divorce. The husband appealed only the ruling refusing to quash service. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The purpose of the affidavit is to let the court determine where the defendant lives, if known, so that notice will most likely reach him. This affidavit gave the husband's exact address - 4202 Granby Street, Norfolk, Virginia - so there was no occasion for any exercise of diligence. The additional statement that he could not be found in Nevada, which standing alone would have been insufficient, was mere surplusage. The court distinguished its earlier Perry decision, where the affidavit had merely claimed due diligence without stating supporting facts, and explained that a 1923 amendment to the statute covers the different situation where a defendant's present address is unknown, which was not this case.

A husband sued his wife for divorce in Nevada, alleging extreme cruelty, part of it occurring after May 9, 1927. The wife's defense rested on two California judgments: a 1925 judgment granting her separate maintenance after finding the husband guilty of extreme cruelty, and a May 9, 1927 judgment in which the California court found both spouses guilty of extreme cruelty and denied a divorce to either. The Nevada trial court found the wife had committed new acts of cruelty after the California rulings and granted the husband a divorce. The wife appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed under the doctrine of recrimination: when each spouse has been guilty of misconduct that is a ground for divorce, neither is entitled to one. The California judgments conclusively proved the husband's own extreme cruelty, and the fact that the wife's misconduct came after the California adjudication did not matter. The court expressly refused to adopt the competing doctrine of 'comparative rectitude,' under which the less guilty spouse can still get a divorce - divorce in Nevada is a remedy for an innocent party. The case was sent back with directions to dismiss the husband's action, and a rehearing was later denied.

Joseph D'Errico sued his wife for divorce in Ohio in 1925, claiming her misconduct forced him to leave. He lost: the Ohio court dismissed his petition and instead granted the wife separate maintenance, effectively determining that he was the one who wrongfully deserted her in April 1925. He then moved to Reno and in January 1927 filed a Nevada divorce suit based on essentially the same facts, framed as 'constructive desertion.' While the case was pending he went back to Cleveland temporarily, where (he alleged) his wife followed him around, chased him in and out of buildings, and harassed him. He returned to Reno and filed a supplemental complaint describing that new conduct. The Nevada trial court found that the Ohio judgment barred his original complaint, but granted him a divorce anyway based on the supplemental complaint. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. A supplemental complaint is just an addition to the original one - the two make a single record - so the new Cleveland allegations could not create a fresh cause of action independent of the original complaint that the Ohio judgment barred. By the supplemental complaint's own words, the new conduct was merely 'a continuation' of the wife's attitude over fifteen years, pleaded to give color to the barred claims. And a brand-new cause of action arising after a suit is filed cannot be prosecuted by supplemental complaint, because a cause of action must exist when suit is brought. Two justices also concurred on the ground that both spouses were guilty of marital offenses, so under the recrimination rule of Blankenship v. Blankenship (decided the same day) neither could obtain a divorce. The case was remanded with directions to dismiss - though the court later granted a rehearing, and in 1930 again reversed (52 Nev. 353).

A husband sued for divorce in Douglas County, Nevada, alleging he had lived there continuously for more than three months before filing, and the trial court granted him a divorce. The wife appealed on a single ground: the evidence did not establish that the husband's Nevada residence was genuine (in good faith). The trial judge had candidly stated that he did not find the husband's residence was in good faith, only that he had been physically present in Douglas County for three months, and asked whether more was required, adding that if more was required the plaintiff should not have his decree. The Nevada Supreme Court held that more is indeed required. In 1927 the legislature shortened the divorce residence period from six months to three, but it kept the same word, 'resided,' which the court had already interpreted to mean physical presence plus a present intention to make the county one's home, at least for an indefinite period. When a legislature reuses words the courts have already construed, it is presumed to adopt that construction. Because the trial court applied the wrong legal standard and never found the husband to be a bona fide resident, it had no jurisdiction to grant him a divorce. The judgment was reversed. A petition for rehearing was denied on May 16, 1929.

A wife sued her husband for divorce in Nevada on the ground of nonsupport. The couple had married in Indiana in 1898 and lived together until March 1926. The wife had inherited money in 1911 and owned a farm she bought for $14,900 plus a furnished home in Brookeville, Indiana, worth $8,000 unfurnished; the husband was a cigar maker whose trade collapsed when the local cigar business declined, and after an illness in late 1923 he could not find steady work despite real effort. In early March 1926 the wife told him they could not live together any longer and that he must go. She then sued him for divorce in Indiana (where judgment went in his favor) and later filed this Nevada suit in September 1927, claiming he had failed to support her after she sent him away. The Nevada Supreme Court held she could not win. A spouse cannot complain of nonsupport after ordering the other spouse to leave - the husband had no choice in the matter - and it is well settled that a person cannot obtain a divorce on grounds occasioned by his or her own misconduct. The court also noted that neighbors uniformly spoke highly of the husband's character and that his 15-year-old daughter testified he was good to her. The judgment for the wife was reversed, and the trial court was ordered to enter judgment for the husband, with costs against the wife.

A wife filed for divorce in Nevada. Because her husband lived out of state, he was personally served with the summons in another state after an affidavit of nonresidence was filed. He appeared 'specially' - only to challenge jurisdiction - and moved to quash the summons and its service. The court denied the motion, immediately entered his default when he asked for no time to plead, took the wife's testimony, and granted her a divorce the same day. The husband appealed, and the wife moved to dismiss his appeal. The Nevada Supreme Court refused to dismiss. First, the wife argued the husband should have appealed directly from the order denying his motion to quash; but Nevada statutes list the rulings that can be appealed, and an order denying a motion to quash a summons is not one of them (unlike an order granting such a motion, which ends the case). Since he could not have appealed that order by itself, its correctness can be reviewed on his appeal from the final judgment. Second, the wife argued no appeal lies from a default judgment; the court explained its precedents do not go that far where, as here, an issue of law - the jurisdictional challenge - was actually raised, heard, and decided. The husband's appeal was allowed to proceed.

A husband sued for divorce on the ground of cruelty. His wife denied the charges and counterclaimed, accusing him of cruelty and adultery and asking for separate maintenance. The husband replied that she had already filed an earlier, still-pending separate maintenance suit raising the same claims, so her counterclaim should be 'abated' (paused or thrown out as duplicative). The trial court ruled for the wife and awarded her $200 per month in separate maintenance. The husband appealed from the judgment only. The Nevada Supreme Court rejected the husband's abatement argument: the rule against duplicative suits applies when the same person is the plaintiff in both cases, not when a defendant who was dragged into court raises the same matters to defend herself. But the court agreed with his second argument - the wife's counterclaim never properly pleaded a case for separate maintenance. Her pleading simply asserted that she lacked sufficient income and 'needed' $500 per month; the court held these were bare conclusions, not facts. A party seeking separate maintenance must plead the underlying facts showing necessity, such as age, health, and station in life. Because the counterclaim failed to state a cause of action, the separate maintenance judgment was reversed.

A wife sued for divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty, alleging among other things that in August 1922 her husband beat her with his fist until her body was black and blue and that he later attempted and threatened to choke her. She won a divorce, and the husband appealed from the judgment only - he did not appeal the denial of his new-trial motion, so the evidence itself was not before the Supreme Court, which could review only the judgment roll and a bill of exceptions covering one motion. The court rejected all three of the husband's arguments. First, the complaint plainly stated a cause of action for extreme cruelty, and because the husband answered without first attacking the complaint, it had to be read in the light more favorable to the wife; any claimed condonation did not appear on the face of the complaint and is an affirmative defense in any event. Second, the trial court properly refused to strike from the wife's reply her allegations of additional acts of cruelty (including that the husband threw iodine on her, burning her leg) - such matter is neither irrelevant nor improper in a reply. Third, the findings were in accord with the complaint and amply supported it. The judgment was affirmed.

A husband sued his wife in Nevada for divorce on the ground of desertion, and a jury found in his favor. Years earlier, in Washington, D.C., the wife had won a decree of separate maintenance of $65 per month. The couple later signed a written settlement agreement on November 4, 1920: the husband conveyed her a house free of liens, promised to support her and be a true and loving husband, and she agreed to resume marital relations and dismiss the Washington suit. The husband alleged that he provided a suitable home and invited her back, but she refused to come - and that her refusal was desertion. The wife countered that he had behaved so badly she was justified in staying away, and she tried to introduce evidence of his misconduct from before the Washington settlement. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the divorce. The settlement agreement amounted to condonation - a forgiveness of past offenses on condition they not be repeated - and condonation can be express; it does not require the parties to have resumed living together. Once the earlier wrongs were forgiven, evidence of them was properly excluded, and it was the wife's burden to show the condonation had been undone by repeated misconduct. The court also rejected the argument that a divorce suit is a quasi-criminal proceeding importing criminal evidence rules, holding that in Nevada divorce actions are equitable in character - a classification the court traced to Nevada's own constitutional convention debates. The wife's claim of fraud in the settlement failed because fraud was never pleaded, and the jury's finding that the husband was a bona fide Nevada resident was supported by substantial evidence.

A husband whose marriage was based in Connecticut first sued his wife there for divorce on the ground of 'intolerable cruelty' and lost - the Connecticut Supreme Court decided against him and the suit was dismissed. He then moved to Reno, lived there the statutory six months, and sued for divorce in Nevada on a different ground: willful desertion, based on the theory that his wife's conduct had forced him to leave (called 'constructive desertion'). The Nevada trial court granted him the divorce, and the wife appealed from the judgment, arguing among other things that the Connecticut case barred the new suit. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. Because the wife appealed only from the judgment (her separate appeal from the denial of her new-trial motion was never perfected), the court could not weigh the sufficiency of the evidence; it could only ask whether there was any evidence supporting the judgment, and there was. On the former-judgment defense, the court explained that cruelty and desertion are separate and distinct grounds for divorce, so losing a cruelty case does not bar a later desertion case. And although a party who knows of several existing grounds must ordinarily assert them together, the husband's desertion claim had not yet ripened when the Connecticut suit was begun, so the earlier judgment was no bar.

A husband sued to annul his marriage, alleging that when he went through a marriage ceremony at Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada, in April 1921, he was so intoxicated that he lacked the understanding to consent, and (in a second claim, later abandoned for lack of proof) that the wife had fraudulently persuaded him into the marriage for financial advantage. It was undisputed that the parties never lived together afterward - he left for New York the same day on his family's and a solicitor's advice, and the parties did not meet again until the trial in Reno. The trial court, sitting without a jury, annulled the marriage on September 20, 1924, and the wife appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. Under the statute, a marriage may be annulled when a party, for want of understanding, was incapable of assenting to it, provided there was no subsequent voluntary cohabitation. The only question was whether substantial evidence supported the finding of incapacitating intoxication, and the court held it did: the husband testified he had been drinking heavily and had only a dim, hazy recollection of the ceremony; the steward of the London Hunt Club described him as very drunk at 1:30 a.m. the night before; and his three brothers, the family accountant, and a solicitor who saw him within hours after the noon ceremony all described him as stupid, dazed, and reeking of liquor. Conflicts in the evidence - the wife's witnesses said he was not drunk - were for the trial court to resolve. One justice concurred separately and one dissented, both without opinion.

A wife was granted a divorce from her husband on the ground of extreme cruelty. As part of the decree, the trial court ordered the husband to sign over to her, by quitclaim deed, all his interest in the couple's community real estate - four adjoining lots with buildings in Sparks, Nevada. The husband appealed only that property portion of the decree. He argued the court should have first provided for payment of community debts, that the court wrongly modified an earlier determination that the wife pay him $350 (half of what he had spent improving the property), and that giving the wife all the community real estate in place of alimony was excessive. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The husband appealed on the 'judgment roll' alone - the bare court file, with no record of the evidence. On such a record, the Supreme Court could ask only whether the complaint supported the findings and the findings supported the judgment, and they did. The trial court had jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter, and nothing in the record showed it abused its discretion or exceeded its powers in awarding the community property to the wife.

Harry Wallman, who had married Catherine Wallman in New Jersey and then established residence in Nevada, sued her for divorce. She contested the case and won - judgment went in her favor - and the husband appealed. The wife, who lived in Newark, New Jersey, had no property, and earned only $64 per month, asked the Nevada Supreme Court to order the husband to pay $200 for an attorney to defend the appeal, plus her deposition expenses from the trial, and to halt the appeal until he paid. The husband answered that he was an out-of-work musician who had earned only $269.10 in the past year and was $1,450 in debt. The Supreme Court granted the fee request anyway. When the husband is the one suing for divorce, his poverty is no ground to resist the wife's application for suit money: he must either furnish his wife the funds to make her defense or submit to a stay of his own case. Quoting decisions from Colorado, Missouri, New York, and Pennsylvania, the court observed that a husband who 'desires the luxury of a divorce' must pay his wife's expenses of the litigation. The husband's counsel did not dispute that $200 was reasonable. The court had no authority, however, to award the deposition expenses incurred in the trial court - that was for the trial court. It ordered the husband to pay $200 to the court clerk for the wife's attorney fee and stayed the appeal until he complied.

Harry Guardia sued his wife Myra for divorce in Washoe County on August 16, 1923, on the ground of desertion. Because she lived in California, he had her personally served there (in place of publication) on September 1, 1923. She never formally appeared, and on October 13, 1923 her default was entered and the husband was granted a divorce that same day; the decree gave the wife custody of their infant child and ordered the husband to pay $30 per month for the child's maintenance and education. Two days later the wife moved to set aside the judgment, blaming surprise, inadvertence, and excusable neglect: her Reno attorneys had miscalculated the deadline and had failed to file an affidavit she sent them for a motion for suit money. The trial court refused, and she appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. Although statutes allowing courts to set aside defaults are remedial and liberally construed, especially in divorce cases, an attorney's mere miscalculation of the time to appear is not enough - otherwise virtually no default would stand - and the attorneys' failure to file the affidavit was plain negligence, which is generally imputed to the client. The court also saw little real harm: both parties apparently wanted a divorce on desertion grounds; there was no community or separate property involved; the wife already had custody and $30 per month for the child (with the husband's mother arranged to guarantee payment); and reopening the case could affect only her incidental claim to alimony. On those facts the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in letting the default judgment stand.

After a husband won a divorce in the trial court, the wife appealed and asked the Nevada Supreme Court to order him to pay $2,500 for her lawyers on the appeal. The court refused. Requiring a husband to fund his wife's litigation is based on necessity - preventing a failure of justice when the wife is destitute - and this wife was not destitute: she admitted having about $900 in the bank and an income from a trust estate normally around $8,000 a year. Even though she claimed heavy debts, $600 monthly living expenses, and litigation costs that had eaten into her income, the court found no such inroads on her estate as to leave her in need of the husband's help; she had assets on which to raise money. The affidavits also showed the parties were on roughly equal footing financially, but the court said the husband's ability to pay did not matter because the wife had not shown necessity. In a later opinion in the same case (October 7, 1925), the court affirmed the divorce itself. The wife had objected to testimony from the superintendent of the state mental hospital that a key witness of hers was a pronounced morphine addict, offered to undercut the witness's credibility; the court held that testimony properly admitted. It also held that where a statute gives divorce litigants the right to a jury trial, the jury's findings are binding rather than merely advisory, and the trial court had adopted the jury's findings in the husband's favor.

James and Belle McLaughlin were Rhode Island spouses whose divorce fight moved to Nevada. In Rhode Island, the wife had won an interlocutory divorce decree with $20,000 in lieu of alimony under a stipulation, but before it could become final she withdrew (discontinued) her petition with the court's permission. Days later the husband left for Reno, arrived October 9, 1922, and two days after six months had passed he filed a Nevada divorce suit charging extreme cruelty (based largely on the wife's alleged morphine addiction) and desertion. The trial judge decided for the husband but withheld the decree until he deposited $20,000 - adjudged to be half the value of his property - with the court clerk. The wife's motion for a new trial was denied and she appealed. In the first reported opinion (August 30, 1924), the Supreme Court granted the wife's motion for allowances to prosecute her appeal: $50 per week for her support pending the appeal (raising the trial court's $32 per week), plus agreed sums of $360 for transcripts, $750 for her lawyers, and $40 for court fees - with the support payments to be deducted from her $20,000 judgment if the divorce survived the appeal. In the later merits opinion (August 5, 1925), the court reversed. It held that habitual, excessive use of morphine, standing alone, is not extreme cruelty under Nevada's statute; that the discontinued Rhode Island interlocutory decree did not bar the husband's Nevada suit; but that the trial judge committed reversible error by blocking cross-examination of the husband about whether his Nevada residence was genuine - questions about his Rhode Island property and bank account went to whether his Reno stay was merely colorable. The case was sent back, and a rehearing was denied.

A wife who had left her husband in Washington, D.C. and moved to Reno obtained a Nevada divorce for extreme cruelty. The husband had pleaded, as a bar to her suit, a decree he had already won in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia on May 9, 1922: a legal separation 'from bed and board' based on the wife's desertion and cruelty. At trial the wife tried to undermine that decree with testimony that the attorney who appeared for her in Washington had acted without her authority. The trial court found the husband's prior-decree defense unproven, granted the wife a divorce, and denied his motion for a new trial. He appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. First, the wife's attempt to attack the D.C. decree in this proceeding was a collateral attack, and against a collateral attack an attorney's authority to appear for a client is conclusively presumed; admitting her contrary testimony was error, and the D.C. court had complete jurisdiction. Second, and decisively: a wife may acquire a domicile separate from her husband only when it is necessary or proper - for instance, when the husband has given cause for divorce. Here the D.C. court had adjudicated the marital wrongs in the husband's favor, and the legal effect of its separation decree was to prevent the wife from acquiring her own Nevada domicile for divorce purposes. Because domicile of a party is essential to a Nevada court's power to dissolve a marriage, the district court lacked jurisdiction, and the judgment was reversed. A petition for rehearing was denied.

A wife won a divorce from her husband in the Washoe County district court, and the husband appealed. While the appeal was pending, the wife asked the Nevada Supreme Court to order the husband to pay $250 so she could pay her attorneys to defend the appeal. She filed an affidavit saying she had no means and depended on her father; the husband answered with his own affidavit and excerpts of the trial testimony. The supreme court refused the request. It found the husband had no property and lived entirely on his $225 monthly salary as an investigator in the Anti-Trust Division of the Department of Justice in New York, out of which he was already paying $50 a month for the couple's two minor children and had borrowed all he could on his life insurance to defend the suit. The wife, by contrast, had been self-supporting since the 1917 separation, was receiving $100 a month from her father as his housekeeper, and her father - who owned a $20,000 home in Washington and drew a railroad pension - had shown he was able and willing to finance her litigation, having already paid for her six-month stay in Reno and her lawyers. The court explained that fees are awarded out of necessity to prevent a failure of justice, not automatically, and that granting the order here might force the husband to abandon his appeal. The motion was denied.

A husband obtained a default divorce on February 17, 1922, after serving his wife only by publication in a Winnemucca newspaper and by mailing copies to her address in Illinois. On August 15, 1922 - within six months of the judgment - the wife's attorney served and filed a notice that she would move to set the decree aside because she had never been personally served. The court heard the motion on September 15 and, on October 10, 1922 (after the six months had run), vacated the judgment and let her file an answer. The husband appealed, arguing the court lost power once six months passed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The statute lets a defendant who was never personally served answer to the merits at any time within six months after judgment, and the court held that serving and filing the notice of intention to move within that window was enough - the court could grant the relief after the window closed. The court also rejected the husband's attacks on the supporting affidavit: the wife's attorney could make it if familiar with the facts, it sufficiently showed a meritorious defense (and an answer was actually tendered at the hearing), and the wife did not have to show she lacked actual notice of the suit, because the statute imposes no such condition where there was no personal service.

A husband sued his wife for divorce in Nevada, claiming extreme cruelty committed after an Illinois court (Sangamon County) had already granted the wife a separate maintenance decree against him on May 3, 1919. The wife denied the cruelty and raised the Illinois proceedings, nonsupport, and desertion as defenses. The trial court found the cruelty charges untrue but, instead of entering judgment for the wife on the merits, dismissed the case without prejudice so the husband could sue again on the same grounds if the couple could not reconcile. The wife appealed, arguing she was entitled to a judgment on the merits. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The Illinois separate maintenance record could not decide the case as res judicata because the cruelty the husband alleged supposedly happened after that decree. A recriminatory defense - the idea that a plaintiff whose own misconduct would justify a divorce cannot get one - only operates when the defendant was actually guilty of the misconduct charged, and here the court found the wife guiltless, so there was nothing to bar. Since the wife pleaded her matters purely as defenses and asked only for dismissal, not for a divorce of her own, the trial court could do nothing but dismiss once the husband failed to prove his case, and a dismissal for failure of proof is effectively a nonsuit, which the statute allows.

Dr. Vickers sued his wife in Nevada for an absolute divorce on the ground of cruelty. The problem: his wife had already sued him for separate maintenance in Cabell County, West Virginia, where he appeared and pleaded the very same cruelty facts as his defense - and on April 15, 1920, that court ruled against him and awarded the wife $250 a month. When the wife raised that decree as res judicata in the Nevada case, the husband's reply admitted the same facts had been pleaded there. The district court entered judgment for the wife on the pleadings, and the husband appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. Under both West Virginia law (Kittle v. Kittle) and Nevada's separate maintenance statute (Stats. 1913, c. 97), a wife at fault cannot win separate maintenance - so the West Virginia award necessarily decided that Mrs. Vickers was not guilty of cruelty. A fact issue actually decided by a competent court cannot be relitigated between the same parties, even in a suit on a different cause of action; it does not matter that one case sought maintenance and the other a divorce. The court relied on U.S. Supreme Court authority, including Harding v. Harding, which reached the same result on nearly identical facts. Because the husband's reply admitted the decisive facts, judgment on the pleadings was proper. A rehearing was sought and denied in a second opinion reaffirming the res judicata analysis.

Lena Lombardi won a divorce from Samuel A. Lombardi for extreme cruelty, along with alimony for the support of their two children and a decree that the family home at 461 Vine Street in Reno was her separate property. She had inherited a one-tenth interest in the property from her father, Louis Yori, before the 1907 marriage, and acquired the other nine-tenths from the co-heirs in the family's 1912 division of the estate. The husband did not challenge the divorce itself, but he had spent about $2,900 of his own money in 1909 and earlier rebuilding the brick house and making other improvements, and he claimed the property should not have been declared entirely hers. After the trial court denied his motion for a new trial on his cross-complaint's property issues, he appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. When a husband spends his own or community money improving his wife's separate property without any agreement, the title to the improvements follows the land - the law presumes he intended to advance the money for the benefit of her estate. The husband's story that the couple had an understanding they would hold the property jointly rested entirely on his own testimony, which merely created a conflict in the evidence; the trial court's finding that there was no such agreement was conclusive. Nor does a wife's knowledge and approval of improvements imply a promise to repay their value.

Wellesca Pollock Allen sued in Washoe County for a divorce from Wilfred P. Allen on the ground of nonsupport, serving him only by publication. He never appeared, and the circumstances looked suspicious enough that the trial court asked attorneys to participate as friends of the court. After a trial generating a thousand pages of evidence, the court denied the divorce, concluding either that no such person as Wilfred P. Allen existed at all - that Dr. Harrison G. Dyar, a government entomologist with whom the plaintiff had been intimately connected for years, or someone else had impersonated the groom at the 1906 Richmond, Virginia ceremony - or that the plaintiff had been living in adultery with Dr. Dyar for years before the claimed nonsupport. No relative or friend of the plaintiff had ever seen the supposed husband; Dr. Dyar had financed her home, her bank-account fiction in Allen's name, and the births of her three children, and had followed her to Reno where both simultaneously filed divorce suits. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. Most of the roughly 250 claimed errors failed because objections made during depositions were never renewed at trial. On the merits, the evidence was conflicting, and under settled Nevada law a trial court's judgment supported by substantial evidence will not be disturbed. Reviewing the long chain of circumstances, the court concluded not only that substantial evidence supported the judgment but that no other judgment could properly have been rendered. A rehearing was denied.

A wife sued for divorce for extreme cruelty, and a jury found in her favor. There was no community property, but the husband owned separate property worth $5,000 to $6,000, including the Winnemucca home (worth about $2,000) where the couple lived. Finding the wife unable to support herself and the husband able to pay, the court awarded her $65 a month in permanent alimony, $250 in cash plus another $250 within six months, and the use of the home and furniture for life or until remarriage - and ordered the husband to convey a life estate in the home to her, with an escrow deed passing the full title to her if the second $250 went unpaid. The husband appealed only from the part of the judgment ordering him to convey his separate property, arguing the court had no power to take title to a husband's separate property and give it to the wife. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. Under the divorce statute as long construed in Lake v. Bender and Powell v. Campbell, the district court did not exceed its jurisdiction or authority in making the orders. And because the husband appealed on the judgment roll alone, without a bill of exceptions bringing up the evidence, the supreme court could not review whether the award was just and equitable - only errors appearing on the face of the roll, and there were none.

Phoebe Boswell Clark sued Allen L. Clark for divorce on the ground of adultery: in February 1910 he had gone through a marriage ceremony with Emily James and lived openly with her as his wife. Allen's defense was that Phoebe was never his lawful wife at all - when they married in Winnemucca on August 6, 1892, he still had a living wife, Mary E. Clark, whose California divorce was not entered until 1893. Phoebe replied that she knew nothing of the first wife, that the impediment was removed by the 1893 divorce, and that the couple's continued life together as husband and wife for roughly eighteen years made her his wife. The district court granted Phoebe the divorce, and Allen appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. It adopted the general rule that when parties marry in good faith but one is under a disability, their continued matrimonial cohabitation after the disability is removed makes them husband and wife from that moment - even if they never expressly renewed consent and even if they did not know the impediment was gone. A finding that the parties made a new express marriage agreement was outside the pleadings and treated as a nullity, but the remaining findings supported the judgment. On rehearing the court affirmed again, emphasizing that both parties learned of the 1893 divorce years before Allen left in 1910, that the trial court was entitled to believe Phoebe's testimony, and that Allen's conduct estopped him from denying the marriage. The alimony portion of the decree ($125 per month) was left for the wife's separate appeal.

While a husband's divorce suit was pending, the couple signed a written contract on August 30, 1915: the wife agreed not to ask the divorce court for any alimony, costs, or attorney fees and to make no demand for the parties' property, and in exchange the husband would pay her $3,000 in $50 monthly installments, with the whole unpaid balance falling due if he defaulted for thirty days. The husband then obtained a default divorce. Beyond the initial $100 acknowledged in the contract, he paid $75 more and stopped. But instead of suing on the contract, the wife first moved on February 28, 1916 to set aside the divorce decree, filing a proposed answer asking for attorney fees, travel money, maintenance during the action, and equitable relief, and alleging the community property was worth many thousands of dollars. With that motion still pending, she then sued on the contract for the $2,825 balance. The trial court gave judgment for the husband, and she appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. Her attempt to reopen the divorce and litigate support and property was itself a demand for exactly what she had promised not to seek, so she breached the contract. Independently, the two remedies were inconsistent - she could not both reclaim her share of the community property in the divorce case and collect the $3,000 that was the agreed price for giving up that share - and having chosen the first remedy with full knowledge of the facts, she was barred from the second. Her renunciation also released the husband from his covenant limiting him to the defense of full payment.

Ruth Phillips had been awarded $50 a month in alimony along with her absolute divorce, payable until she died or remarried. When her former husband stopped paying, she filed an affidavit in the divorce case and the court ordered him to show cause why he should not be punished for contempt. He raised legal defenses and claimed he could not pay. After a full hearing, the court found he owed $2,575 in arrears and ordered him to pay $500 immediately and the remaining $2,075 at $15 a month on top of the continuing $50 monthly alimony. He appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. His main argument was that the divorce court never had power to award alimony together with an absolute divorce at all, so he should be relieved of all payments past and future. The court found it unnecessary to decide that question in this proceeding, but remarked that it had a strong impression that Nevada and courts under similar statutes were committed against his position, citing Lake v. Bender and related cases recognizing that the divorce statute's object includes providing support for the wife and minor children. The court's only criticism was of the order's form - as written it was toothless as an enforcement device, leaving the wife to pursue enforcement if he disobeyed - but that was not reason to vacate it. His claim that he was unable to pay was a factual matter for the lower court, whose finding would not be disturbed.

Mabel Viola Sweeney's December 30, 1914 divorce decree ordered James G. Sweeney to pay $25 a month for their minor daughter Alice Louise until majority and $50 a month in alimony until Mabel remarried. James died on July 7, 1917, leaving an estate of roughly $30,000 and a will giving $2,000 to the daughter and the rest of his property to his executors. On October 13, 1917, Mabel petitioned in the old divorce case to substitute the executors as defendants, to convert the monthly payments into a present-value lump sum, and to make that sum a lien on the estate dating back to the original decree. The district court did exactly that, fixing the value at $10,022.13 ($1,214.13 for the child, $8,808 for the wife) and decreeing it an allowed claim against the estate. The executors appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. A final divorce decree can be altered later only where a statute allows it or the decree itself reserves the power - Nevada had no such statute and this decree reserved nothing. Nearly three years after final judgment, the court had no power to revive the case, substitute a dead man's representatives, and enter a fundamentally different judgment; otherwise, the court asked, when would divorce litigation ever end? The parties' stipulation to treat the proceeding as a claim suit against the estate could not create jurisdiction, since litigants can never stipulate jurisdiction to suit their convenience. The alimony judgment, which charged no specific property, was not a lien on the deceased husband's estate.

A husband and wife had lived together in Chicago. Around May 1, 1914, the husband came west, eventually settling in Reno, and after about a year's residence he sued for divorce on grounds of extreme cruelty and desertion. The trial court granted him the divorce. The wife appealed, arguing that the couple was never domiciled in Nevada, that everything complained of happened in Illinois, that the conduct would not be grounds for divorce under Illinois law, and that the desertion had not lasted long enough under either state's law. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. In American courts a divorce case is essentially a proceeding about status - an action in rem, with the marriage status as the thing decided - so a court where one spouse is genuinely domiciled can dissolve the marriage even if the other spouse never set foot in the state. Nevada's statute (Rev. Laws 5838) allows a resident plaintiff to sue in the county where the plaintiff has resided six months, and it contains no requirement that the cause of action arise in Nevada. The law of the forum controls: it did not matter that extreme cruelty as Nevada defines it is not the same under the laws of Illinois where the acts occurred. Whether the husband's Nevada residence was genuine was a question of fact for the trial court, and the record supported its finding of bona fide residence.

A husband sued his wife in Washoe County for divorce on the ground of desertion. The couple had married in Martin County, North Carolina, lived briefly in Raleigh, and then the husband left - first to New York for about a year, then to Nevada in late December 1914 - admitting at trial that he separated because he did not feel like he wanted to live with her. In 1915 he sued unsuccessfully in Washoe County to annul the marriage. He then wrote his wife a letter dated November 29, 1915 asking her to come to Nevada as his wife, but the letter told her that he disliked her more than ever, could never forgive her, that she had completely ruined his life and prospects, that she could expect no assistance from his relatives, and that she would have to live as he lived and suffer whatever hardships he went through. She replied with letters full of expressions of love and pleas for genuine reconciliation, but did not come. The wife never appeared in the divorce case, yet the trial court entered judgment against the husband, and he appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. While a husband ordinarily may choose the family home and a wife's unjustified refusal to join him can be desertion, this husband was himself the first deserter, and a deserting spouse's reconciliation offer counts only if made in good faith. His frankly brutal letters - reminding her of his contempt while nominally inviting her - were, in spirit, a warning that he did not want her to come, evidently written to pave the way for the divorce suit that followed. Her failure to accept such an offer was not desertion.

A spouse sued for divorce in Nevada. The defending spouse answered that a court in Maine had already decided the same divorce claim against the plaintiff (a defense called res judicata - the matter has already been judged). At trial, over the plaintiff's objection, the Nevada court admitted a certified copy of the Maine judgment, which recited that 'the material facts alleged in the libel suit' were 'not sufficiently proved to the satisfaction of the court' and that the libel was denied. The Nevada court then ruled the Maine judgment barred the new suit. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. It first held the Maine judgment was a decision on the merits, not a mere 'nonsuit' (an abandonment that would allow refiling): both at common law and under Nevada's nonsuit statute, the Maine plaintiff had not abandoned the case, so the denial of the libel counted as a merits ruling. But the court then held the Nevada trial court committed reversible error in ADMITTING the Maine judgment, because divorce is not a proceeding 'according to the course of the common law,' so the usual presumption that a court of general jurisdiction acted with full jurisdiction does not apply. Since the plaintiff's reply denied that the Maine judgment had been rendered, the defendant had to prove the Maine court's jurisdictional facts before the judgment could come into evidence, and did not. The case was sent back for a new trial.

The Keenans married in Los Angeles on January 6, 1902. In 1914 the wife sued for divorce in Ada County, Idaho, even though her husband lived and ran a business in East Ely, White Pine County, Nevada, where he owned real and personal property; he was served personally in Nevada, never appeared in Idaho, and was defaulted. The Idaho court granted her a divorce on August 31, 1914. She then sued in White Pine County, Nevada, asking the court to partition the property and make the husband account for it, relying on Nevada's statute requiring community property to be divided when a marriage is dissolved. The Nevada trial court sustained a demurrer for lack of jurisdiction, and she appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The Idaho court may have had power to dissolve the marriage, but it never acquired jurisdiction over the husband personally or over property located in Nevada, so its decree could not support any personal or property relief here. And Nevada's community property statute commits the division of community property to 'the court granting the decree' of divorce - here a foreign court - so the statute gave the Nevada court nothing to enforce. The court pointedly noted that the wife chose a foreign forum knowing the husband and all the property were in Nevada.

Evelyn Woods Merritt sued Frederick Charles Merritt for divorce in Washoe County. Her complaint alleged that she resided in Reno and that her husband was within the court's jurisdiction and could be served there; the sheriff personally served him in Washoe County. The district court nonetheless entered a decree declaring itself 'without jurisdiction' and that the plaintiff take nothing, and she appealed. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. Under the 1915 divorce statute, any one of five conditions confers jurisdiction, including that the defendant 'be found' in the county; a time period of residence is required only when the plaintiff relies on her own six-month residence. Since the wife alleged her Reno residence and the husband was found and personally served in Washoe County, the court had jurisdiction under the rule of Tiedemann v. Tiedemann. On rehearing - granted on a petition filed by friends of the court on behalf of the district court - the Supreme Court examined the evidence of the wife's residence: she lived at the Riverside Hotel from January 16, 1916 through trial, owned no Nevada property, and lived on income from mortgages and bonds. The court held none of that undermined a bona fide residence ('the time was when hotels and inns were not regarded as permanent places of abode, but in this modern day and age no such intimation or presumption is justified'), adhered to its reversal, and directed the trial court to enter the divorce decree as prayed.