George K. Sheppard v. Roma Sheppard

This is an appeal from a decision of the district court which in turn had affirmed in part and reversed in part a decree of divorce entered by a magistrate court. The decree of the magistrate court ordered the parties divorced, ordered child support and custody arrangements for the three natural children of the parties, held that a purported adoption of a fourth child was invalid, held that certain real and personal property was the community property of the parties, valued the community property, ordered its distribution as between the parties, and because of the great bulk of the property being distributed to one party, ordered an offsetting monetary award to the other party payable over a number of years. Upon appeal, the district court overturned the magistrate court's ruling regarding the invalidity of the adoption of the fourth child and reversed the magistrate court's order permitting the offsetting financial award to be paid over a number of years and required such to be paid immediately, but in all other respects the district court affirmed the decree of the magistrate court. On appeal to this Court, we affirm the district court in all respects. The principal question presented on this appeal is, we are informed, one of first impression in this and evidently any other jurisdiction, i.e., the jurisdiction of a state court over a divorce action where one of the parties is an Indian and the other party a non-Indian, and the extent to which a state court may adjudicate the status of real and/or personal property as being the community property of the parties, and the authority of such a court to either divide that community property between the parties or make an offsetting financial award in lieu of an actual division of the community property.