O'Keeffe v. O'Keeffe

This is an appeal by the husband, Thomas E. O’Keeffe, from a declaratory decree and final order dismissing his petition for marriage dissolution on the basis that the parties had already been divorced in the Republic of Panama in May 1974. We reject the husband’s two points on appeal and affirm.

First, we see utterly no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s decision to try separately the threshold issue of the validity of the Panamanian divorce decree, in advance of all other issues in the case. Plainly, if the parties were already divorced by a Panamanian court, the entire marriage…