Horace Gray

“ The question in this case is of the validity of the divorce obtained by the husband in Pennsylvania. No valid divorce from the bond of matrimony can be decreed on constructive service by the courts of a state in which neither party is domiciled. And by the law of Pennsylvania every petitioner for a divorce must have had a bona fide residence within the state for one year next before the filing of the petition. ”

“ The death of the husband, since this case was argued, of itself terminates the marriage relation, and, if nothing more had been involved in the judgment below, would have abated the writ of error, because the whole subject of litigation would be at an end, and no power can dissolve a marriage which has already been dissolved by act of God. ”

“ Upon this record, therefore, the court in Pennsylvania had no jurisdiction of the husband's suit for divorce, because neither party had a domicil in Pennsylvania, and the decree of divorce was entitled to no faith and credit in New York or in any other state. Leith v. Leith (1859) 39 N. H. 20; People v. ”