Posted by Nydia Streets of Streets Law in Florida Divorce
Must a court recognize and enforce a divorce decree from another country in a Florida divorce case? The answer depends on the circumstances surrounding the entry of the foreign divorce decree. For example, if the decree was entered without a party having notice and opportunity to be heard, a Florida court may decline to enforce the judgment. This was an issue in the case Carrasco v. Jimenez, 4D2023-0461 (Fla. 4th DCA March 5, 2025).
The parties were married in Venezuela in 2010. They eventually moved to the United States in 2016 and had two children. At the time the wife filed for divorce in Florida in 2022, the wife and the parties’ children had resided in Florida for over a year. The husband responded with a motion to dismiss, alleging the parties were already divorced by a final judgment entered in Venezuela. The husband filed for divorce there in November 2021 and had the wife’s cousin served there. The wife did not mention the Venezuelan divorce decree in her petition in Florida, but the trial court dismissed her petition on the basis of the divorce decree asserted by the husband. The wife appealed. While she was appealing, the husband moved to domesticate the Venezuelan decree and the wife moved to dismiss the husband’s petition. Her motion to dismiss was denied and she also appealed that order, resulting in a consolidated appeal.
The appellate court reversed both orders. First with regard to the trial court’s dismissal of the wife’s petition for divorce, the appellate court held “Here, the trial court erred by going beyond the four corners of the wife’s petition to dismiss it. Her petition does not reference the Venezuelan divorce decree, and she did not consent to judicial notice being taken of it. Instead, she contested the legitimacy of the foreign divorce decree. Thus, the trial court should not have considered it.”
Turning to the domestication of the Venezuelan decree, the appellate court analyzed this issue under the principle of comity. The court noted “‘Before enforcing a judgment or order of a court of a foreign country, a court must review the judgment or order to ensure that it complies with the rule of comity.’ § 61.0401(3), Fla. Stat. (2022). ‘A judgment or order of a foreign country is not entitled to comity if the parties were not given adequate notice and the opportunity to be heard, the foreign court did not have jurisdiction, or the judgment or order of the foreign court offends the public policy of this state.’ Id.
The court held “Because the Venezuelan court did not have personal jurisdiction over the wife and did not have subject matter jurisdiction over the children, we hold that the Venezuelan divorce decree could not be domesticated under common law comity principles.” The court concluded “Because the wife has continuously resided in the United States since at least June 2016, and specifically in Florida since March 2021, she was not domiciled in Venezuela when the husband filed his petition for dissolution of the marriage there in November 2021, nor was she properly served with notice at her residence in Florida. Thus, the Venezuelan court did not have general jurisdiction over her when it issued the divorce decree.” The court also determined the Venezuelan court lacked jurisdiction over child custody matters under the UCCJEA since the children resided with the wife in Florida for at least six months prior to the date the husband filed his petition in Venezuela.
Schedule your consultation with a Miami family law attorney to determine the next best steps in your case.