York. He began suit in Kentucky for a divorce a vinculo matrimonii because of his abandonment, which was a cause of divorce by the laws of Kentucky, and took such proceedings to give her notice as the laws of that state required, which included mailing of notice to the postoffice nearest her residence in New York. No response or appearance having been made by her, the Kentucky court proceeded to take evidence and grant to the husband an absolute decree of divorce. It was held that this decree was entitled to full faith and credit in the courts of New York. In the Haddock case, the husband and wife were domiciled in New York, and the husband left her there, and after some years, acquired a domicil in Connecticut, and obtained in that state, and in accordance with its laws, a judgment of divorce, based upon constructive, and not actual service, service of process on the wife, she having meanwhile retained her domicil in New York, and having made no appearance in the action. The wife afterwards sued for divorce in New York, and obtained personal service in that state upon the husband. The New York court refused to give credit to the Connecticut judgment, and this court held that there was no violation of the full faith and credit clause in the refusal, and this because there was not at any time a matrimonial domicil in the state of Connecticut, and therefore the res-the marriage status-was not within the sweep of the judicial power of that state. In the present case it appears that the parties were married in the state of Virginia, and had a matrimonial domicil there, and not in the District of Columbia or elsewhere. The husband had his actual domicil in that state at all times until and after the conclusion of the litigation. It is clear, therefore, under the decision in the Atherton case and the principles upon which it rests, that the state of Virginia had jurisdiction over the marriage relation, and the proper courts of that state could proceed to adjudicate respecting it upon grounds recognized by the laws of that state, although the wife had left the jurisdiction and could not be reached

by formal process. But in order to make a divorce valid, even when granted by the courts of the state of the matrimonial domicil, there must be notice to the defendant, either by service of process, or (if the defendant be a nonresident) by such publication or other constructive notice as is required by the law of the state. Cheely v. Clayton, 110 U. S. 701; Atherton v. Atherton, 181 U. S. 155. In Cheely v. Clayton, because the notice was published against the defendant without making such effort as the local law required to serve process upon her within the state, this court held, following repeated decisions of the state court, that the decree of divorce was wholly void for want of jurisdiction in the court that granted it; and that the liberty conferred by the local statute upon a defendant on whom constructive service only had been made, to apply within three years to set the decree aside, did not make it valid when the constructive service was so defective." The lucid exposition made in this reconciling opinion may be regarded as the existing law on this difficult subject.

§ 143. When judgments are subject to collateral attack. In considering, as was necessary in the preceding section, the full faith and credit clause of the Federal constitution as to judgments of sister states, it is necessary to remember that it has no reference to judgments rendered without jurisdiction. As the fact of jurisdiction is always open to inquiry, the record of a judgment rendered in a sister state may be attacked collaterally as to the existence of the jurisdictional facts involved in it. In Hanley v. Donoghue, 116 U. S. 4, the Court said: "Judgments recovered in one state of the Union, when proved in the courts of another, differ from judgments recovered in a foreign country in no other respect than that of not being re-examined upon the merits, nor impeachable for fraud in obtaining them, if rendered by a court having jurisdiction of the cause and the parties. Buckner v. Finley, 2 Pet. 586; McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312, 324; D'Arcy

v. Ketchum, 11 How. 165, 176; Christmas v. Russell, 5 Wall. 290, 305; Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457." The proceedings are not merely voidable but void, and may be rejected when collaterally attacked, if there is a total want of jurisdiction. Rose v. Himely, 4 Cranch 241; Griffith v. Frazier, 8 Cranch 9; Elliot v. Piersol, 1 Pet. 328; Shriver v. Lynn, 2 How. 43; Williamson v. Berry, 8 How. 495. A judgment is void and subject to collateral attack when rendered without jurisdiction of the defendant. No error can be considered that does not show want of jurisdiction in the court that rendered the judgment condemning the property, where confiscation proceedings are brought before the court collaterally as the foundation of the defendant's title. Tyler v. Defrees, 11 Wall. 331. In the leading case of Scott v. McNeal, 154 U. S. 34, in which the Court said: "The fundamental question in this case is whether letters of administration upon the estate of a person who is in fact alive have any validity or effect against him;" and in which the plaintiff claimed "that to give effect to the probate proceedings under the circumstances would be to deprive him of his property without due process of law,"-it was held that "No judgment of a court is due process of law, if rendered without jurisdiction in the court, and without notice to the party." Approved in Hilton v. Guyot, 159 U. S. 164; New Orleans Water Works Co. v. New Orleans, 164 U. S. 480, and distinguished in Hamilton v. Brown, 161 U. S. 274, wherein it was held that a judgment in an escheat proceeding is conclusive against all having constructive notice by publication. The judgment of a court which has once acquired jurisdiction is unassailable collaterally only when after acquiring jurisdiction, it proceeds according to established modes governing the class to which the particular case belongs. When it transcends, in the extent and character of its judgment, the law applicable to it, its judgment is not only erroneous but void. Windsor v. McVeigh, 93 U. S. 274. See also, United States v. Walker, 109 U. S. 258. A judgment is not only

voidable but void and subject to collateral attack when rendered in excess of jurisdiction. Re Terry, 128 U. S. 289.

In United States v. Morse, 218 U. S. 493, in which the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia had jurisdiction over the res and the parties, in a proceeding for the sale of an infant's real estate for purposes of investment, it was held that the decree was not open to collateral attack, despite the error of the court in holding that a case had been made either under its statutory authority, or under its inherent power as a court of equity. In Briscoe v. Rudolph, 221 U. S. 547-upon an objection challenging an assessment as excessive, and asserting that a second jury should have been called under the local code, -it was held that a judgment of the Supreme Court of the District, confirming a special assessment for benefits resulting from a street extension, can not be attacked collaterally, since the matter complained of was, at best, only an error reviewable on appeal. See also, Johannessen v. United States, 225 U. S. 227; Herbert v. Crawford, 228 U. S. 204; Thompson v. Thompson, 226 U. S. 551; Priest v. Board of Trustees, 232 U. S. 604; Magruder v. Drury, 235 U. S. 106; Simon v. Southern Railway, 236 U. S. 115. Special reference should be made in this connection to Riverside Mills v. Menefee, 237 U. S. 189, in which it was held: first, that due process of law can not be denied in fixing, by judgment, against one beyond the jurisdiction of the court, an amount due, even though the enforcement of the judgment be postponed until execution issue; second, that the fact that a judgment rendered without due process of law may not, under the full faith and credit clause, be enforced in another state, affords no ground for the court entering a judgment without jurisdiction in violation of due process of law. In reaching those conclusions the Court said: "It is self-evident that the application of these settled principles establishes the error of the decision of the court below unless it be that the distinction upon which the court acted be well founded,

that is, that the enforcement of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment was without influence upon the power to render the judgment since that limitation was pertinent only to the determination of when and how the judgment after it was rendered could be enforced. But this doctrine while admitting the operation of the due process clause, simply declines to make it effective. That is to say, it recognizes the right to invoke the protection of the clause but denies its remedial efficiency by postponing its operation and thus permitting that to be done which if the constitutional guaranty were applied would be absolutely prohibited. But the obvious answer to the proposition is that wherever a provision of the Constitution is applicable, the duty to enforce it is imperative and all embracing, and no act which it forbids may therefore be permitted." See also, Doran v. Kennedy, 237 U. S. 362.