Felix Frankfurter

“ When the Supreme Court of Vermont in 1950 finds a decree of divorce to have been fraudulently obtained by a spouse and says that there are no findings that the other spouse had either appeared or been served with process, and rejects the claim that the divorce decree must be respected by reason of unclean hands or condonation, plainly part of the case is the assumption that this was not a Sherrer v. Sherrer or Coe v. Coe situation. An issue which is established by the assumptions in a litigation is as truly established as though put into words. ”

“ Mann did not have a Florida domicile and her husband did not submit, under the Sherrer doctrine, 334 U.S. 343, 68 S.Ct. 1087, 1097, 92 L.Ed. 1429, to the State's jurisdiction, Florida had no power to terminate the marriage. If there was no jurisdiction to grant a divorce, there was no divorce. The sham divorce was a nullity, no more binding on the Vermont courts than would have been a private letter to the lady by the local Florida judge. ”

“ It is inconceivable that the Vermont courts did not know that the fraudulent claim of domicile by a divorcing spouse is irrelevant to the enforceability in sister States of a decree of divorce if the other spouse contests or consents to the proceeding leading to the decree. ”