general appearance

In 1909 petitioner and respondent married and lived together in the District of Columbia until about the time he brought suit for limited divorce. They had a son and a daughter. On October 29, 1925, the supreme court of the District of Columbia granted petitioner a divorce a mensa et thoro on the ground of cruelty, awarded custody of the son to him and of the daughter to her, and directed him to pay $300 a month for support of wife and daughter. Petitioner brought suit in the circuit court of Arlington County, Virginia, alleging that he was a resident of that State for the requisite time. On June 26, 1929, the circuit court entered a decree granting him an absolute divorce on the ground of desertion after finding that he had been a resident of Virginia for the requisite time and that respondent had willfully deserted him since February 24, 1925. Process was served personally on respondent in the District of Columbia. She filed a plea stating she appeared specially to challenge jurisdiction, alleging that neither party had been a resident of Virginia for a year before suit and that his residence was a fraud upon the court. The Virginia court referred the cause to a commissioner in chancery who, after taking testimony pursuant to a stipulation of counsel limiting inquiry to the jurisdictional facts raised in the plea, reported that petitioner was a bona fide resident and the court had jurisdiction. Respondent filed exceptions reiterating the allegations of her plea. After a hearing the court overruled the exceptions, confirmed the report, found it had jurisdiction of the subject matter and parties, and granted respondent time to file an answer, which she did not do. The final Virginia decree granted petitioner absolute divorce, divested respondent of rights in his property, and required him to pay $150 per month for support of the daughter. On December 30, 1929, petitioner applied to the District court to set aside or modify its 1925 decree on the basis of the Virginia decree. The application was denied and affirmed on appeal without any question as to the jurisdiction of the Virginia court being considered or decided. On April 16, 1935, petitioner filed another application citing the Virginia decree, the daughter's marriage, and diminution of his income. After a hearing at which respondent sought to introduce evidence that petitioner went to Virginia solely to obtain a divorce and never became a bona fide resident there, the trial court denied relief. The court of appeals held that the Virginia court did not have full jurisdiction and its decree was not entitled to full faith and credit, and remanded for further proceedings.

The petitioner, Baldwin, brought suit against the respondent, the Iowa State Traveling Men’s Association, an Iowa corporation, initially in a Missouri state court. The action was removed to the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri. The respondent appeared specially and moved to quash the service of process, asserting that it had never been present in Missouri and that the person served was not its agent. The Missouri District Court quashed the service but refused to dismiss. An alias summons was issued and returned served. The respondent again appeared specially, moved to set aside the service, quash the return, and dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction over its person. After a hearing on affidavits and briefs, the motion was overruled, with leave to plead within thirty days. No plea having been filed within that period, the cause proceeded and judgment was entered for the amount claimed. The respondent did not move to set aside the judgment nor sue out a writ of error. The petitioner then instituted the present action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa upon the record of the Missouri judgment. The respondent defended on the ground that the Missouri court lacked jurisdiction over its person. After a hearing in which a jury was waived, the Iowa District Court sustained the defense and dismissed the action. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. A writ of certiorari was granted to review the affirmance.

L. B. Sullivan is one of three elected Commissioners of the City of Montgomery, Alabama. He has duties including supervision of the Police Department. He brought this civil libel action against the New York Times Company and four individual petitioners who were Alabama clergymen. The suit sought $500,000 in damages based on a full-page advertisement entitled "Heed Their Rising Voices" that appeared in the New York Times on March 29, 1960. A jury in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County awarded Sullivan the full amount claimed against all petitioners. The Supreme Court of Alabama affirmed the judgment. The advertisement was signed by the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South. It described widespread non-violent demonstrations by Southern Negro students and an unprecedented wave of terror against them. Two paragraphs formed the basis of the claim. One alleged that after students sang on the State Capitol steps their leaders were expelled, truckloads of police ringed the Alabama State College Campus, and the dining hall was padlocked to starve students into submission. The other stated that Southern violators had bombed Dr. King's home, assaulted him, arrested him seven times, and charged him with perjury. The text appeared over the names of 64 persons. It was endorsed by the individual petitioners among others. Sullivan contended that the references to police referred to him in his supervisory capacity. Six Montgomery residents testified that they read the statements as referring to him. However, several statements were inaccurate. The students sang the National Anthem rather than "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." The expulsions were for a different incident. The dining hall was not padlocked. Dr. King had been arrested only four times. The bombings occurred before Sullivan's tenure with police efforts to apprehend the perpetrators. The Times published the advertisement for approximately $4800. It acted upon an order from a New York advertising agency. The agency provided a letter from A. Philip Randolph certifying authorization. The Times made no efforts to confirm its accuracy against its own news files. Sullivan served written demands for retraction on the petitioners pursuant to Alabama law. None of the individual petitioners responded as they had not authorized use of their names. The Times did not retract. It published a retraction only upon demand by Governor John Patterson after learning more facts. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to the separate petitions of the individual petitioners and the Times due to the importance of the constitutional issues involved.

In 1956 the petitioners brought an action against the respondent in a Nebraska court to quiet title to bottom land situated on the Missouri River. The main channel of that river forms the boundary between the States of Nebraska and Missouri. Whether the land was Nebraska land depended entirely upon a factual question whether a shift in the river's course had been caused by avulsion or accretion. The respondent appeared in the Nebraska court and through counsel fully litigated the issues, explicitly contesting the court's jurisdiction over the subject matter of the controversy. After a hearing the court found the issues in favor of the petitioners and ordered that title to the land be quieted in them. The respondent appealed, and the Supreme Court of Nebraska affirmed the judgment after a trial de novo on the record made in the lower court. The State Supreme Court specifically found that the rule of avulsion was applicable, that the land in question was in Nebraska, that the Nebraska courts therefore had jurisdiction of the subject matter of the litigation, and that title to the land was in the petitioners. The respondent did not petition this Court for a writ of certiorari to review that judgment. Two months later the respondent filed a suit against the petitioners in a Missouri court to quiet title to the same land. Her complaint alleged that the land was in Missouri. The suit was removed to a Federal District Court by reason of diversity of citizenship. The District Court after hearing evidence expressed the view that the land was in Missouri, but held that all the issues had been adjudicated and determined in the Nebraska litigation. The Court of Appeals reversed. It held that the District Court was not required to give full faith and credit to the Nebraska judgment. Normal res judicata principles were not applicable because the controversy involved land. A court in Missouri was therefore free to retry the question of the Nebraska court's jurisdiction over the subject matter. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider a question important to the administration of justice in the federal system.