Here is an interesting point, seemingly contrary to the general rules that once a party is remarried, the ex-spouse no longer has a spousal support obligation. These parties were married in June 20091 and separated February 2006. In 2007, the parties entered into a stipulation providing for Husband to pay spousal support to Wife in the amount of $32,547 per month and child support in the amount of $14,590 per month. A judgment of dissolution, as to status only, was entered in 2008. (Status only means they are divorced and can remarry, but some issues, like property, are still pending.)
In 2009, Husband filed an order to show cause application to terminate spousal support, on the primary ground that Wife had remarried. That sounds reasonable. Except that it wasn’t a “real” marriage: Wife went through a Jewish ceremony, wearing her wedding dress, and signed a Ketubah, a Jewish marriage contract. But they did not get a marriage license, so even though their children and the rabbi who presided and the guests saw one take place. Typically, spousal support — or alimony, if you’re old school — stops when the receiving spouse remarries. Except Wife didn’t technically remarry her new life partner. The ceremony may have looked, felt, and quacked like a wedding (like a duck), but it was not a wedding.
Husband asked the court to terminate his spousal support obligations to Wife under a theory of quasi-estoppel, claiming he was entitled to rely upon Wife’s apparent remarriage. The trial disagreed, and the appellate court found no error in the trial court’s reasoning. Both courts relied on whether a marriage license issued: if no marriage license issued, then it was not a marriage.
Leave a Reply