Litigation

Florida jurisdiction over the husband in a matrimonial action cannot be found where the parties were domiciliaries of Illinois and filed taxes there, even though the parties maintained a corporate residence in Florida where they resided for over 3 years and where the wife registered to vote and maintained a driver's license. Weiler v. Weiler, Case No. 5D03-541, Fla. Ct. App., 5th Dist., November 21, 2003.

The parties resided in Illinois. Thereafter, the husband's Illinois corporation purchased investment farm property in Florida and formed another Illinois corporation to conduct business on the Florida farm. The wife was president of the farm and supervised its day- to-day operations from the farm in Florida. The wife became a Florida resident by changing her voter registration and driver's license. The parties resided on the farm together from November 1997 to May 2001, when the husband relocated to Colorado. Even though the parties resided on the Florida farm, they continued to file tax returns using Illinois as their residence for the tax years 1998 through 2001. In 2002, the wife filed a petition for a divorce in Florida, claiming long-arm jurisdiction over the husband for the purpose of the divorce petition. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial judge made no determination as to the husband's domicile, but held that the court had jurisdiction over the divorce without further basis for its conclusion. The husband appealed, and the appellate court reversed. It held that Florida did not have jurisdiction over the husband for the purpose of the parties' divorce. The court held that under the Florida statute, the matrimonial domicile was required to be in Florida. Furthermore, the court noted that although a person can have many residences, he or she can only have one domicile, and that the best proof of domicile is the person's intent. In this case, the evidence presented showed that the husband did not intend Florida to be his residence. The parties filed joint tax returns naming Illinois as their residence until 2001, and the husband maintained an Illinois driver's license. The farm on which the parties resided was only one of many corporate residences of the parties. The court concluded that one spouse cannot unilaterally change the matrimonial domicile merely by changing her driver's license and voter registration because that could be considered “forum shopping.”