Shirley Crain v. Lisa Crain, et al.

Federal courts do not hear divorce disputes. That is because our system of federalism retains for the states special expertise in domestic matters. Thus, the domestic relations exception to federal jurisdiction requires that only state courts enter divorce decrees, including the property settlement agreements bound up within them. The inevitable dickering that arises in enforcing these decrees should likewise stay there. But the federal courts are conflicted on how to apply the domestic relations exception to follow-on litigation after a state court enters a divorce decree. The courthouse doors are firmly closed in the Ninth, First, and Sixth Circuits (and softly shut elsewhere) to claims like this one, alleging one party to a divorce breached the terms of a property settlement agreement. If a litigant asks the federal court to interpret or modify a state court decree, the claim is barred. But the Eighth Circuit allows breach-of-adivorce-contract claims to proceed, so long as they are brought by a third-party beneficiary (viz., a child). The Eighth Circuit is wrong to allow such claims in federal court based on the identity of the parties. Those circuits that bar these claims properly ask what the court is doing, not who is asking the court to do it. This Court’s intervention is warranted because the decision below is one example of an acknowledged and entrenched split of authority on how broadly the domestic relations exception applies. The question presented is: Whether, as only the Eighth Circuit has held, federal courts may exercise jurisdiction to interpret