1603 Wda 2008 PDF - Adobe Acrobat

J. A12026/092009 PA Super 251LISA GABOURY, : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF: PENNSYLVANIAAppellant ::v. ::CHRISTOPHER GABOURY, ::Appellee : No. 1603 WDA 2008Appeal from the Order Entered August 29, 2008, in theCourt of Common Pleas of Beaver County, Civil Division, atNo. 20103 of 2008.BEFORE: BOWES, DONOHUE and POPOVICH, JJ.OPINION BY BOWES, J.: FILED: December 23, 2009¶ 1 Lisa Gaboury (“Wife”) appeals from the August 29, 2008 ordergranting her divorce from Christopher Gaboury (“Husband”). On June 3,2008, the trial court dismissed all economic claims against Husband,determining that it had jurisdiction to dissolve the parties’ marriage butlacked the necessary personal jurisdiction over Husband to adjudicaterelated economic claims. For the following reasons, we affirm.¶ 2 Husband and Wife met on an Internet site while Husband was living inTexas, and Wife was living in Canada. In April 2004, the parties moved fromtheir respective locations to Pennsylvania and married a year later onApril 21, 2005, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They resided in Pennsylvania inrental housing until Husband’s job transfer in December 2006, when theyrelocated to Wisconsin and lived in a rented apartment. N.T., 6/12/08, at 2.

J. A12026/09The couple separated, and Wife moved to Beaver County, Pennsylvania, inAugust 2007. Husband remained in the marital residence in Wisconsin.Plaintiff’s Answer and New Matter to Defendant’s Objections to Complaint inDivorce, 4/28/08, ¶ 9, 17-21.¶ 3 Wife filed a divorce complaint in Pennsylvania on March 12, 2008,alleging an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage pursuant to 23 Pa.C.S.§ 3301(c). In her complaint, Wife set forth economic claims for equitabledistribution, counsel fees, expenses, spousal support, alimony

pendente lite

,alimony, and permanent alimony. On April 9, 2008, Husband filedpreliminary objections

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challenging the court’s personal jurisdiction overhim. Wife filed an answer and new matter on April 28, 2008. Following ahearing on May 19, 2008, the trial court concluded that it had jurisdiction todissolve the bonds of matrimony, but it did not have the requisite personal jurisdiction over Husband to decide any economic claims. Thus, it enteredan order on June 3, 2008, granting Husband’s preliminary objections, inpart, and dismissing counts two through five of the divorce complaint. OnJune 12, 2008, the trial court denied Wife’s motion for reconsideration. The

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In his preliminary objections, Husband also asserted a lack of subjectmatter jurisdiction over the economic claims in the complaint; that issue isnot raised on appeal

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J. A12026/09trial court subsequently granted the divorce decree on August 29, 2008, andthis appeal followed.

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¶ 4 On appeal, Wife avers that the trial court erred in granting Husband’spreliminary objections and dismissing counts two through five of hercomplaint, and in so doing, misapplied and misapprehended the law. Wife’sbrief at 5. Our standard of review in an appeal from an order grantingpreliminary objections challenging the exercise of

in personam

jurisdiction isas follows:When preliminary objections, if sustained, would result in thedismissal of an action, such objections should be sustained onlyin cases which are clear and free from doubt. . . . Moreover,when deciding a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction the court must consider the evidence in the lightmost favorable to the non-moving party.

Nutrition Mgmt. Servs. Co. v. Hinchcliff

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926 A.2d 531, 535 (Pa.Super.2007);