## Facts

- Otis L. Williams and Lillie Hendrix were married to other spouses and lived in North Carolina.
- In 1940, each traveled to Nevada and filed separate divorce actions against their North Carolina spouses.
- The nonresident spouses did not appear in the Nevada actions and were not personally served in Nevada; notice was provided by publication and out-of-state delivery or mailing.
- Nevada courts granted both divorces, finding each plaintiff a bona fide and continuous Nevada resident for the statutory period.
- Williams and Hendrix married each other in Nevada and returned to North Carolina, where they lived together as husband and wife.
- North Carolina indicted and convicted them of bigamous cohabitation after instructing the jury that the Nevada decrees need not be recognized.
- The Supreme Court of North Carolina affirmed, concluding North Carolina could refuse recognition even if the petitioners had become domiciled in Nevada.

## Issues

1. Whether the Full Faith and Credit Clause and the federal full faith and credit statute require North Carolina to recognize Nevada divorce decrees granted to bona fide Nevada domiciliaries when the absent spouses did not appear and were notified by substituted service.
2. Whether North Carolina may treat the petitioners as still married to their prior spouses for purposes of a bigamy-based prosecution despite the Nevada decrees.

## Decision

- The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the North Carolina judgments.
- A divorce decree granted by a state to a spouse who is bona fide domiciled there, in proceedings consistent with due process, is entitled to full faith and credit in other states.
- Because Nevada’s findings of bona fide residence (treated as domicile) were not contested on this record, North Carolina was required to recognize the Nevada divorces.
- Consequently, North Carolina could not premise criminal liability on the theory that petitioners remained married to their former spouses after the Nevada decrees.

## Legal Principles

- Full faith and credit extends to divorce decrees when the divorcing state had jurisdiction based on the plaintiff’s bona fide domicile and the proceeding satisfied due process.
- Divorce adjudicates marital status, and the domicile state may alter that status even if the other spouse is absent, provided substituted service meets constitutional notice requirements.
- A forum state’s public policy against migratory divorces does not justify refusing recognition to a sister-state divorce that is jurisdictionally valid and procedurally fair.
- When the rendering state’s domicile finding is not challenged in the recognizing state, the decree’s status determination must be treated as binding for interstate purposes.

## Conclusion

The Court held that North Carolina was constitutionally required to recognize Nevada’s ex parte divorce decrees granted to bona fide Nevada domiciliaries with due process, and it therefore could not sustain bigamous-cohabitation convictions premised on the continued validity of the petitioners’ prior marriages.


Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U.S. 287 (1942)