TWO RECENT CASES ON INTERSTATE MARITAL RELATIONS "The proposition presupposes that be cause in the exercise of its power over its own citizens a state may determine to dis solve the marriage tie by a decree which is efficacious within its borders, therefore such decree is in all cases binding in every other jurisdiction. As we have pointed out at the outset, it does not follow that a state may not exert its power as to one within its jurisdiction simply because such exercise of authority may not be extended beyond its borders into the jurisdiction and authority of another state. . . . "It (the holding of the court of the pres ent case) does not deprive a state of the power to render a decree of divorce sus ceptible of being enforced within its borders as to the person within the jurisdiction and does not debar other states from giving such effect to a judgment of that character as they may elect to do under mere principles of state comity . . . that is, it compels all the states to recognize and enforce a judg ment of divorce rendered in other states where both parties were subject to the jurisdiction of the state in which such decree was rendered." If these passages mean that the Connec ticut decree is entitled to no recognition in New York the result is that Connecticut is prevented from effectually settling the status of one of its own citizens; and in a case where the public policy of Connecticut demands that this person should have the status of an unmarried man, New York can prevent Connecticut from doing this in any such •way as to establish that person's status everywhere beyond question. In other words, the Atherton case says' that a state may effectually fix the status of its own citizens, even-though it does thereby indirectly affect the status, .of non-citizens; the Haddock case apparently says that one state can prevent another state from taking action effectually to remedy a state of affairs that may produce an extreme hardship upon one of its own citizens, although the first state may be at the same time equally
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powerless to act with any greater effective ness. As between a rule that allows a states^ to regulate effectually the status of its own citizens even though it incidently affects others and a rule that because of an inci dental effect in another state refuses to allow a state to effectually act as to its own, the choice would seem clear. It may well enough be admitted that a doctrine which allows action under such circumstances will permit, say, Connecticut indirectly to pro duce an effect in New York. But this is a result by no means peculiar to divorce pro ceedings. A decree in admiralty directing the sale of A's vessel, that being within the jurisdiction, and he not being within thejurisdiction will when carried out effectu ally operate to make it not his vessel, and the result of that decree may incidently affect A's relations in half a dozen other ways. Yet the efficiency of such a decree has never been questioned. An even closer analogy may be found in the garnishee cases. If instead of husband and wife in the Haddock case the parties had been a New York creditor of a Connecticut debtor, and a creditor of the New York creditor had proceeded as plaintiff in Connecticut to gar nish that obligation, the Connecticut court could have given a judgment which when satisfied would have operated to destroy the debtor and the creditor relation between the garnishee and the defendant and which would have been everywhere entitled under the constitution to recognition as protecting the garnishee against any claim by his cred itor for that amount (see R. & I. P. R. R. v. Sturm, 174 U. S., 710 (1899), King v. Cross, 175 U. S., 396 (1899), and it would have made no difference that the defendant was never in Connecticut and never appeared in the case (so long as he had notice thereof) or that the garnishee was merely temporarily in the state, Harris v. Balk, 198 U. S., 215 (1905). It may be said that the relation of debtor and creditor is not a status, but it still remains true that the state is held by virtue of its control over one of the parties
