CONFLICT OF LAWS-DOMICILE OF CHILD LIVING WITH MOTHER

Authors

Charles E. Becraft S.Ed., University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

Plaintiff and defendant, husband and wife, were domiciled in New York. Because of temporary unemployment, plaintiff took his wife and minor child to Connecticut. He later returned to New York and resided in the apartment the family had formerly occupied. The wife and child did not return to New York, and the court found that she had at all times intended to remain in Connecticut and establish a domicile there. Plaintiff at all times intended to make New York his permanent residence. When defendant would not return to New York, plaintiff brought action for separation in a New York court, defendant being served in Connecticut with a copy of the complaint. Defendant did not appear in the action, and the New York court rendered a decree of separation, awarding custody of the child to each parent for a portion of each year. Plaintiff then sought habeas corpus in Connecticut to obtain custody of the child on the basis of the New York decree. Although the trial court did not find that the husband had committed any fault which would justify the wife in leaving him, it refused to grant the husband custody. Held, affirmed. A wife can acquire a separate domicile regardless of fault, and since both Connecticut and New York, by statute, provide for joint guardianship by husband and wife, the domicile of a child living with its mother is the domicile of the mother. Thus the court in New York had no jurisdiction to award custody. Boardman v. Boardman, (Conn. 1948) 62 A. (2d) 521.

Recommended Citation

Charles E. Becraft S.Ed., CONFLICT OF LAWS-DOMICILE OF CHILD LIVING WITH MOTHER, 47 Mich. L. Rev. 1212 (1949).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol47/iss8/14