The parties were married and resided in Wisconsin, where they lived with their minor children. After marital difficulties, the mother left Wisconsin and moved to Ohio with the children. The father filed an action for divorce and custody in a Wisconsin court. The mother was not personally served in Wisconsin and did not appear in the action; service occurred only by publication and/or out-of-state service pursuant to Wisconsin law. The Wisconsin court granted the father a divorce and awarded him custody by default. Armed with the Wisconsin custody decree, the father then went to Ohio and filed a habeas corpus proceeding to obtain physical custody of the children, arguing that the Ohio courts were constitutionally required to give full faith and credit to the Wisconsin decree. The Ohio courts declined to enforce the Wisconsin custody award on the ground that the Wisconsin court had lacked personal jurisdiction over the mother when it purported to determine her custodial rights. The father sought review in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Does the Full Faith and Credit Clause require a state to enforce a sister state's child custody decree against a nonresident parent when the rendering court lacked personal jurisdiction over that parent?
A state is not constitutionally required to give full faith and credit to a sister state's judgment adjudicating a parent's custodial rights if the rendering court did not have personal jurisdiction over that parent. While a state with proper authority may dissolve a marriage ex parte based on domicile, it cannot, without personal jurisdiction (or equivalent due process protections) over a nonappearing parent, enter a custody judgment that binds that parent's personal rights in other states.
No. The Ohio courts were not required to give full faith and credit to the Wisconsin custody decree because the Wisconsin court lacked personal jurisdiction over the mother when it adjudicated her custodial rights. The judgment therefore did not conclusively determine her custody rights in Ohio.
The Court began from first principles of full faith and credit: sister states must generally respect final judgments, but only if the rendering court had jurisdiction consistent with due process. The Court distinguished between a court's power to alter a marital status (which may be done ex parte where a spouse is domiciled, as in Williams v. North Carolina) and a court's power to impose or determine personal rights and obligations, which requires personal jurisdiction. Drawing on the divisible divorce line of cases, particularly Estin v. Estin, the Court explained that a decree may be valid in part and invalid in part: a state may effectively terminate the marriage but cannot, without personal jurisdiction over the absent spouse, conclusively adjudicate that spouse's personal rights, such as support or custody, in a way binding on other states. A custody determination, the Court reasoned, directly affects a parent's personal right to the care, companionship, and control of his or her children. Because the mother had neither been personally served within Wisconsin nor appeared to submit to jurisdiction, Wisconsin's decree could not extinguish or conclusively redefine her custodial rights as against her in other jurisdictions. The Court emphasized that full faith and credit does not transform a judgment rendered without personal jurisdiction into a binding adjudication elsewhere. It expressly refrained from deciding where the children were domiciled or which state could best assess their welfare; the narrow holding was that Ohio need not defer to a custody award entered without personal jurisdiction over the mother. The Court also rejected the view that the children's putative domicile in Wisconsin or the modifiability of custody decrees eliminates the personal jurisdiction requirement. Although custody orders are modifiable and grounded in the child's best interests, they nevertheless adjudicate a parent's personal rights. Absent proper jurisdiction over that parent, the decree is not entitled to conclusive effect in other states. Dissenting views urged that custody turns on the child's status and that domicile or presence should suffice for full faith and credit, but the majority maintained the constitutional line between status and personal obligations.
May v. Anderson cements the divisible divorce doctrine in the custody context and articulates a constitutional limit on the interstate reach of custody decrees: personal jurisdiction over the parent whose rights are adjudicated is required for full faith and credit. The case is a staple in conflict of laws and family law because it teaches how jurisdictional defects in the rendering court constrain enforcement elsewhere. The decision also set the stage for statutory reforms. Later frameworks—the UCCJEA and the PKPA—aim to reduce interstate competition and child snatching by prioritizing the child's home state and requiring notice and opportunity to be heard. While these statutes modify the practical landscape and can authorize custody jurisdiction without traditional in-person jurisdiction over a parent, May remains an important constitutional anchor: a judgment issued without adequate jurisdictional basis and due process protections is not entitled to binding effect across state lines.
May v. Anderson draws a clear constitutional boundary: a state cannot conclusively adjudicate an absent parent's custody rights for nationwide enforcement unless it has personal jurisdiction over that parent or otherwise satisfies due process. The Full Faith and Credit Clause does not obligate sister states to enforce custody decrees born of jurisdictional defects.