Full Opinion

FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL STATE OF FLORIDA _____________________________ No. 1D19-1370 _____________________________ ALLAN L. CLAFLIN, Appellant, v. HEIDEE ZAMORA CLAFLIN, Appellee. _____________________________ On appeal from the Circuit Court for Clay County. Gary L. Wilkinson, Judge. January 21, 2020 M.K. THOMAS, J. Heidee Zamora petitioned for dissolution of her nineteen-year marriage to Allan Claflin, a petition which Mr. Claflin contends should be dismissed because under Philippine law, the marriage was never valid. The trial court disagreed, denied Mr. Claflin’s request for a dismissal, and determined the marriage could be dissolved under Florida law. Thereafter, Mr. Claflin—having in the interim obtained a second judgment from a Philippine court declaring the marriage between the parties to be void—filed a timely motion to set aside the final judgment pursuant to Rules 1.540(b)(2), (b)(3), and (b)(5) of the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure. The motion asserted that the latest Philippine judgment constituted newly discovered evidence. The trial court subsequently scheduled three additional evidentiary hearings, ultimately considering the newly acquired Philippine judgment presented by Mr. Claflin. Following the three evidentiary hearings, the trial court entered an “Order Denying Former Husband’s Motion to Set Aside Final Judgment.” Although the trial court indicated a technical denial of Mr. Claflin’s motions, the order contemplated the Philippine judgment he acquired, reconsidered the merits of the petition for dissolution and arrived at the same disposition. The order on appeal is regarded as an amended final judgment and we affirm. We write only to address the rule of comity and its application here. Facts The parties were married in the Philippines in 1994 and subsequently settled in the United States. They raised three children together before Ms. Zamora petitioned for dissolution of the marriage in March 2013. Around the time of the petition filing, Mr. Claflin discovered that Ms. Zamora had previously married Rodolfo Mallari in the Philippines in 1989, and that marriage had not been officially annulled by a Philippine court prior to the parties entering their marriage. Ms. Zamora denies that she was married to Mallari. Due to a lack of undisputed evidence to the contrary, the trial court denied Mr. Claflin’s motion to dismiss the petition for dissolution. The trial court reasoned that the issues required resolution in the Philippines, kicking off a years-long overseas legal odyssey. Ms. Zamora eventually filed with the trial court a Philippine judgment she acquired from the regional trial court of San Mateo which addressed the status of her alleged previous marriage to Mallari. The “San Mateo” judgment resulted from Ms. Zamora’s request for an annulment and declaration of nullity as to the Mallari marriage. The judgment described the Mallari marriage as orchestrated by Ms. Zamora’s family against her will. At the time of the alleged marriage, Ms. Zamora was barely seventeen years of age. She did not attend any ceremony, never lived with Mallari and subsequently fled her family’s home. Ms. Zamora testified that she had never seen the alleged Mallari marriage certificate until it appeared in the current dissolution proceedings. The San Mateo judgment declared the Mallari marriage as “void from the 2 beginning” as under Philippine law, Ms. Zamora lacked the legal capacity to marry because of her age. The trial court acknowledged the San Mateo judgment declaring that the Mallari marriage was invalid and found the parties’ marriage validly entered and capable of dissolution under Florida law. Dissatisfied, Mr. Claflin filed a timely motion to set aside the trial court’s order and renewed his motion to dismiss the action. Mr. Claflin argued that under Philippine law, the validity of the Mallari marriage was irrelevant to the legality of the subsequent marriage between the parties as no judicial declaration of its illegality was obtained prior to the solemnization of the subsequent marriage. The motions notified the trial court of a separate legal action Mr. Claflin was pursuing in the regional trial court of Pasig City in the Philippines. Subsequently, Mr. Claflin filed with the trial court a separate Philippine judgment he acquired from the Pasig City court. The “Pasig City” judgment declared the parties’ marriage to be “void ab initio” as bigamous, terminated the mutual support obligation of the parties, declared the children born of the parties’ marriage as “illegitimate,” and ordered the children’s birth certificates be amended to reflect the new status. The trial court found the Philippine judgments “irreconcilable” and, in instances of conflicting foreign judgments, “courts have discretion to recognize the earlier judgment, the later judgment, or neither one.” The trial court followed the San Mateo judgment and maintained its previous determination that the subsequent marriage between parties was valid because the Mallari marriage was void. Mr. Claflin contends that, considering the Pasig City judgment, the trial court’s dissolution of the parties’ marriage under Florida law constitutes reversible error as the trial court does not have jurisdiction to dissolve a marriage that is invalid under Philippine law. Legal Analysis A lower court’s application of a foreign jurisdiction’s law is reviewed de novo. Cohen v. Shushan, 212 So. 3d 1113, 1117 (Fla. 3 2d DCA 2017). In reviewing a trial court’s application of foreign law, courts are encouraged to research and analyze the law independently of the issues raised by the parties and to “take an active role in ascertaining foreign law.” Transportes Aereos Nacionales, S.A. v. De Brenes, 625 So. 2d 4, 6 (Fla. 3d DCA 1993); see also Twohy v. First Nat'l Bank of Chicago, 758 F.2d 1185, 1192 (7th Cir. 1985). Whether the trial court erred in its interpretation of the Florida Statutes and its subsequent determination that a marriage existed between the parties (which could be dissolved) is also a question subject to de novo review. See Payton v. State, 239 So. 3d 129, 131 (Fla. 1st DCA 2018) (noting that a lower court’s statutory interpretation and application is reviewed de novo). 1 In the absence of the Mallari marriage, Mr. Claflin does not dispute the validity of his marriage to Ms. Zamora. Thus, the question on review is whether the trial court erred in its determination that, under Philippine law, the parties’ marriage is valid and therefore, subject to dissolution under Florida law. “Florida has traditionally approved of the sanctity of marriage, and the act of marriage, regardless of where it is contracted.” Johnson v. Lincoln Square Props., Inc., 571 So. 2d 541, 542 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990). Accordingly, “[u]nder principles of comity a marriage by citizens of a foreign country, if valid under foreign law, may be treated as valid in Florida . . .” Montano v. Montano, 520 So. 2d 52, 52―53 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988). Conversely, if a purported marital relationship in a foreign jurisdiction would be deemed invalid in that jurisdiction, it must be deemed invalid here. See, e.g., Betemariam v. Said, 48 So. 3d 121, 125 (Fla. 4th DCA 2010) (holding that because the Commonwealth of Virginia mandated a marriage license as a condition of marriage, and the litigants had never obtained such a license, “[t]he trial court had no choice but to determine that no legal marriage had occurred”). However, deference to foreign law or judgments is not absolute. 1 Because we regard the order on appeal as an amended final judgment, we do not apply the due diligence standard of review for a motion to set aside under Rule 1.540(b). See Cleveland v. Crown Financial, LLC, 212 So. 3d 1065, 1069 (Fla. 1st DCA 2017). 4 Before enforcement of the foreign law or judgment in a dissolution proceeding, Florida courts are to review foreign law and ensure compliance with the rule of comity. See § 61.0401(3), Fla. Stat. For application, the rule of comity has three requirements: 1) the parties were given adequate notice and opportunity to be heard; 2) the foreign court had jurisdiction; and, 3) that the judgment does not “offend the public policy of this state.” Id. In 2014, the Florida Legislature enacted section 61.0401 which codified the common law established by Florida courts to protect litigants in family-related matters under Florida Statutes Chapters 61 and 88 (relating to divorce, alimony, division of marital assets, child support, and child custody) from unfair foreign laws. The statute shields a party in Florida from being adversely affected by enforcement of a foreign law or judgment that does not provide the parties the fundamental liberties, rights, and privileges guaranteed by Florida law. See In re Estate of Nicole Santos, 648 So. 2d 277, 282 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995). Judge Barfield of our Court eloquently stated: Comity does not require Florida public policy to be supplanted by foreign law. Comity is not a rule of law, but of practice, convenience and expediency. Where it would be contrary to the statutory law or contravene some established and important policy of the forum state, it is not applied. Anderson Contracting Co., Inc. v. Zurich Ins. Co., 448 So. 2d 37, 38 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984). Thus, our analysis requires review and application of Philippine law, unless such application would offend Florida law or public policy. 2 The Family Code of the Philippines was passed in 1987 and is the source of the Philippine statutory authority at issue. The Code 2 We find no merit in argument that the court lacked jurisdiction or that the parties did not receive adequate notice and opportunity to be heard. 5 provides that no Philippine marriage shall be valid without both parties to the marriage being of legal capacity, without a valid marriage license, and without both parties freely and personally declaring that they take each other as husband and wife in the presence of a solemnizing officer. Family Code of the Phil., Title I, chap. 1, art. 2-3. The absence of any of these requirements “shall render the marriage void ab initio.” Id. at art. 4. The Code further specifies that only parties above the age of eighteen may contract to marry. Id. at art. 5. Chapter 3 of the Philippine Family Code separately addresses “Void and Voidable Marriages.” Article 35 provides that certain marriages “shall be void from the beginning.” Included in this list are marriages “contracted by any party below eighteen years of age even with the consent of parents or guardians” and marriages which are “bigamous or polygamous.” Id. at art. 35. Article 40 of the Code provides that “the absolute nullity of a previous marriage may be invoked for purposes of remarriage on the basis solely of a final judgment declaring such previous marriage void.” Id. at art. 40. Article 41 specifies that a marriage that is “contracted by any person during subsistence of a previous marriage shall be null and void, unless before the celebration of the subsequent marriage, the prior spouse had been absent for four consecutive years and the spouse present has a well-founded belief that the absent spouse was already dead.” Id. at art. 41. Mr. Claflin does not dispute the validity of the San Mateo judgment finding the Mallari marriage was void under Philippine law. See Family Code of the Phil., Title I, chap. 1, art. 2-3. He also concedes that the parties’ marriage was otherwise properly solemnized and that he cohabitated with Ms. Zamora as husband and wife for over fifteen years. Regardless, he asserts that under Article 40 of the Philippine Code a judicial declaration of the nullity must be obtained prior to any subsequent marriage or the subsequent marriage is unlawful. As no such judicial decree was obtained here, under Philippine law the marriage of the parties must be declared invalid and incapable of dissolution in Florida. Mr. Claflin posits that in ascertaining whether a marriage was validly entered, it has been determined that “if a purported marital relationship in a foreign jurisdiction would be deemed invalid in 6 that jurisdiction, it must be deemed invalid here.” Cohen, 212 So. 3d at 1119; see also Smith v. Anderson, 821 So. 2d 323, 325 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002); Young v. Garcia, 172 So. 2d 243, 244 (Fla. 3d DCA 1965); Goldman v. Dithrich, 179 So. 715, 716 (Fla. 1938). He concludes that, because the marriage in the Philippines was retroactively deemed invalid by Philippine law (Pasig City ruling) based on the illegal marriage to Mallari, the courts of Florida are likewise bound to find that the parties’ marriage is invalid and nonexistent. Mr. Claflin is correct that Florida courts must generally honor the rules of foreign jurisdictions in determining whether a marriage is valid in other types of proceedings where the question might be at issue. However, section 61.0401—which requires liberal construction—specifically instructs that Florida courts not effectuate foreign law or court judgments during a dissolution proceeding in certain circumstances. Specifically, section 61.0401(4) provides that “any attempt to apply the law of a foreign country is void if it contravenes the strong public policy of this state or if the law is unjust or unreasonable.” 3 Because section 61.0401 specifically addresses the proceedings which Mr. Claflin now challenges, its requirements control over the general terms of a more comprehensive policies. See McKendry v. State, 641 So. 2d 45, 46 (Fla. 1994). Chapter 61, Florida Statutes, governs the dissolution of marriages. The chapter is to be “liberally construed and applied,” and its purpose is three-fold: 3 We note that section 61.0401 appears to make a distinction between judgments, orders, and statutes. Specifically, judgments and orders of a foreign country must not offend the “public policy of this state” while application of law of a foreign country is void if it contravenes the “strong public policy” of this state. Section 61.0401(1) defines “strong public policy” as “public policy of sufficient importance to outweigh the policy of protecting freedom of contract.” We conclude this distinction is not relevant here as the prior marriage was not a valid contract thereby not implicating whether the freedom of contract was offended. 7 (a) to preserve the integrity of marriage and to safeguard meaningful family relationships; (b) to promote the amicable settlement of disputes that arise between parties to a marriage; and (c) to mitigate the potential harm to the spouses and their children caused by the process of legal dissolution of marriage. § 61.001, Fla. Stat. Here, the trial court regarded the San Mateo judgment as controlling, finding the Philippine judgments to be “irreconcilable.” We disagree and find the exercise of discretion unnecessary. The Philippine judgments do not conflict and can be applied harmoniously. The San Mateo judgment addresses the sole issue of the validity of the Mallari marriage. The Pasig City judgment, on the other hand, determines the validity of the parties’ marriage. Granted, in its analysis the Pasig City court considered the San Mateo judgment’s declaration of the Mallari marriage as invalid. In fact, both judgments found the Mallari marriage to be invalid as a stand-alone determination. Only the Pasig City judgment proceeded a step further to address the effect of the invalidity of the Mallari marriage regarding the legal status of parties’ marriage. It is this second-tier analysis, performed only by the Pasig City court, that is salient here. Although finding the Mallari marriage invalid, the Pasig City judgment ultimately declared the parties’ marriage a nullity because of the absence of a judicial decree condemning the Mallari marriage prior to entering the subsequent marriage. If our analysis stopped here, we would be compelled to agree that the parties’ marriage is unlawful. However, section 61.0401 requires further review. Before enforcing a judgment or order of a foreign court, the trial court must contemplate whether enforcement would offend the public policy of this state. Here, the narrow question becomes whether enforcement of the Pasig City judgment is contrary to the public policy considerations of section 61.0401. Though sparse in its detail, the record indicates that Mr. Claflin served as the breadwinner in the marriage while Ms. Zamora was apparently without an independent source of income during what was, absent the fraudulent Mallari marriage, an 8 unquestioned, conventional union. Mr. Claflin’s position, per his trial counsel’s statements, was that he did not want Ms. Zamora to be “rewarded” for “lying” to him through her receipt of spousal support. However, should Ms. Zamora’s expectation of spousal support in the event of dissolution of the parties’ nineteen-year marriage be foreclosed simply because she did not obtain a judicial decree recognizing the invalidity of a prior fraudulent marriage? We answer the question in the negative and find that to do otherwise would be both unjust and unreasonable especially when both parties concede Ms. Zamora was never legally married to Mallari, in addition to being in direct opposition with Florida policy, which would hold the subsequent marriage to be valid. As the trial court noted, the parties’ marriage enjoys certain presumptions in Florida when its validity is challenged based on a previous marriage. In such instances, the second marriage is presumed to be valid, a presumption which “is one of the strongest presumptions known to the law.” Stewart v. Hampton, 506 So. 2d 70, 71 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987). Overcoming the presumed validity of a second marriage requires the challenging party to prove the validity of a first marriage, id., which Mr. Claflin cannot do as he acknowledges that the Mallari marriage is invalid. Thus, in Florida, the parties’ marriage would be deemed valid based on the status of the prior marriage. The Philippine policy raised by Mr. Claflin as controlling, namely the requirement that the parties’ marriage was invalid because of the technical failure of Ms. Zamora to acquire a judicial decree that the illegal Mallari marriage was, in fact, illegal, conflicts with Florida policy on this point. Pursuant to section 61.0401, when faced with such a conflict the trial court is required to decline enforcement of the foreign law in a dissolution proceeding. Mr. Claflin’s requested relief works an obvious harm to Ms. Zamora and ignores the duty of the court to avoid an unjust and unreasonable outcome during the process of dissolution. See § 61.001, Fla. Stat. In addition, the likelihood of harm exists to the relationship between the parties and their children— unquestionably a meaningful family relationship owed protection during these proceeding. The relief pursued by Mr. Claflin and the arguments raised in support are an unsparingly obvious attempt to avoid spousal support. Mr. Claflin’s request for relief requires 9 that the parties’ nineteen-year marriage be de-sanctified and that the children of the marriage be declared illegitimate. We can think of few greater attacks on the integrity of the institution of marriage and the attendant family relationships than the outcome which Mr. Claflin advocates for—a decades-long relationship which was a marriage in every general sense being retroactively voided for the sake of a prior fraudulent “marriage.” Under the principle of comity, the trial court correctly acknowledged that Philippine law controlled but erred in excluding the Pasig City judgment from consideration as it was not irreconcilable with the San Mateo judgment. However, we decline to provide effect to the provision of the Pasig City judgment which declares the parties’ marriage invalid because no judicial decree of nullity of the prior fraudulent marriage was obtained prior to their subsequent marriage. This outcome is compelled under section 61.0401, as doing otherwise would be unjust, unreasonable, and contrary to the public policy of Florida. Thus, we conclude that the outcome here is precisely that which is dictated by chapter 61 of the Florida Statutes, regardless of any error by the trial court. See Vandergriff v. Vandergriff, 456 So. 2d 464, 466 (Fla. 1984) (noting the “well established rule” that a trial court’s decisions should be affirmed, if correct, regardless of whether the reasons advanced are erroneous). Because the trial court correctly determined that Mr. Claflin’s underlying argument regarding the validity of the parties’ marriage was incorrect, we conclude that the court’s denial of his Motion to Set Aside the Final Judgment should be affirmed. Accordingly, we AFFIRM and REMAND the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. LEWIS and BILBREY, JJ., concur. _____________________________ Not final until disposition of any timely and authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or 9.331. _____________________________ 10 Terrance A. Jones, Green Cove Springs, for Appellant. Heidee Zamora Claflin, pro se, Appellee. 11