This case is here on certiorari (290 U.S. --, 54 S.Ct. 209, 78 L.Ed. --) to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia. It is a suit in equity brought in the Supreme Court of the District in 1932, by Ruth Loughran, then resident there. The defendants are John Loughran and others, trustees of real estate there located. The estate of Daniel Loughran, Jr., deceased, is a beneficiary. The plaintiff alleges that she is Daniel's widow; and she seeks to enforce as such rights in the nature of dower and to recover unpaid alimony. She alleges that in 1926 she married Daniel in Florida after living there more than two years; that in 1927 she and her said husband established their domicile in Virginia; that in 1929, while they were residing in Virginia, she obtained there a decree of divorce from him a mensa et thoro, with an award of alimony payable monthly; and that in 1931, while she remained Daniel's wife, he died, leaving a part of the alimony unpaid.
The trustees defend on the ground that, before her marriage to Daniel, the plaintiff had been married to Henry Daye; that in 1924, while she and Daye were domiciled in the District, he had secured there an absolute divorce for her adultery with Daniel; that being the guilty party, she was by section 966 of the Code of the District 1901 (D.C. Code 1929, T. 14, § 63) prohibited from remarrying; and that, having married in violation of the statute, she is not in a position to enforce in a court of the District the alleged rights in the estate of the deceased. A copy of the record of the Daye divorce proceeding is annexed to the answer.
Section 966 (D.C. Code 1929, T. 14, § 63) provides:
'A divorce from the bond of marriage may be granted only where one of the parties has committed adultery during the marriage: Provided, That in such case the innocent party only may remarry, but nothing herein contained shall prevent the remarriage of the divorced parties to each other. * * *'
On motion of the plaintiff, the case was heard on bill and answer. The trial court entered a decree for the plaintiff in respect to the claim in the nature of dower. That decree was reversed by the Court of Appeals of the District. It ordered that the cause be remanded to the lower court for further proceedings not inconsistent with the opinion, 62 App.D.C. 262, 66 F.(2d) 567, 568, saying:
'It is unnecessary for us to concern ourselves with the legality of the Florida marriage in that state, or with the subsequent divorce proceedings in the state of Virginia, since the disposition of the case is dependent entirely upon the law of the District of Columbia. In so far as the law of the District is concerned, the marriage between plaintiff and Daniel Loughran, Jr., in Florida, if performed in the District of Columbia, would be absolutely void, and the plaintiff, being the offending party against the law of the District, is in no position to enforce any claim against the estate of Daniel Loughran, Jr., growing out of the marriage in Florida.'
Disclaiming consideration of the doctrine of clean hands, the court added:
'Plaintiff by her own unlawful conduct has placed herself without the pale of the law, and cannot be heard in a court of equity to take advantage of her own wrong.'
The trustees insist that the bill was properly dismissed because the plaintiff, retaining her domicile in the District, went to Florida and married there in order to evade the prohibition of section 966. The plaintiff contends that the admitted facts constitute no defence; that because the marriage was legal in Florida, its legality should, under the established doctrines governing conflict of laws, have been recognized by the courts of the District ; and, more over, that this was required by the full faith and credit clause, since the validity of the Florida marriage had been adjudicated by the Virginia decree of divorce a mensa et thoro.
First. Marriages not polygamous or incestuous, or otherwise declared void by statute, will, if valid by the law of the state where entered into, be recognized as valid in every other jurisdiction. Meister v. Moore, 96 U.S. 76, 24 L.Ed. 826; Travers v. Reinhardt, 205 U.S. 423, 440, 27 S.Ct. 563, 51 L.Ed. 865. The mere statutory prohibition by the State of the domicile either generally of the remarriage of a divorced person, or of remarriage within a prescribed period after the entry of the decree, is given only territorial effect. Such a statute does not invalidate a marriage solemnized in another state in conformity with the laws thereof.