Rosenstiel v. Rosenstiel
Court of Appeals of New York
209 N.E.2d 709 (1965)
Before marrying Lewis Rosenstiel (plaintiff) in New York, Susan Rosenstiel (defendant) had been married to Felix Kaufman, who traveled to Juarez, Mexico, registered as a resident there under Mexican law, and obtained a one-hour divorce on grounds of incompatibility; Susan's attorney appeared before the same Mexican court the next day, submitted to its jurisdiction, and admitted Kaufman's allegations, and the divorce was granted. New York law didn't permit purely consensual divorce, and after marrying Susan, Lewis later sought to annul their marriage by arguing her prior Mexican divorce was invalid, even though New York courts had recognized similar Mexican decrees for about 25 years. The trial court granted the annulment, but the Appellate Division reversed, and Lewis appealed.
Whether a foreign divorce decree, issued consistent with the foreign jurisdiction's laws, is enforceable where neither party was truly domiciled there but one appeared physically and the other submitted to the court's jurisdiction.