Tag: Divorce & Privacy

Divorce Privacy

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

Like any optimist, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison is hoping divorce privacy laws will keep his personal history from impacting his campaign to become Minnesota attorney general. That may be difficult with the Star Tribune suing to unseal his divorce records.

Divorce Privacy

Minnesota Allegations

Ellison and his ex-wife, Kim Ellison, divorced in 2012. The related records have been sealed, so the public cannot access the information. The efforts to unseal the divorce records follow allegations by Ellison’s ex-girlfriend, Karen Monahan, that Ellison domestically abused her in 2016.

Ms. Monahan, a Sierra Club organizer, reportedly said she suffered “emotional and physical abuse” during their long-term relationship, including an incident in which she said Mr. Ellison dragged her from a bed and screamed obscenities at her.

The Star Tribune argued that, given the public interest around that situation and Kim Ellison’s public support of her ex-husband, the divorce records are a matter of concern to voters.

Divorce records are typically public, but judges will often agree to seal them if both parties to the case agree and no one else objects.

Florida Divorce Privacy

I’ve written on divorce privacy issues before. Divorce privacy is an issue that comes up a lot. Divorces in court are public events, and the filed records of court proceedings are public records available for public examination.

Both the public and the media can challenge any closure order by a divorce court. The closure of court proceedings or records should only really occur  when it’s necessary to comply with established public policy, to protect trade secrets; or to protect children in a divorce among other reasons.

Florida also has new rules protecting sensitive data from public view. This includes protecting Social Security, Bank Account, Debit, and Credit Card Numbers because if those numbers are included in a document, they may become part of the public record.

If information is absolutely required, there is a rule with procedures for sealing and unsealing of court records. Also, the Clerk of Court has the authority to redact or make confidential only specific information.

If sensitive information has already been filed in Court Records, you must complete and submit a “Notice of Confidential Information Within Court Filing” in order to remove or seal it.

Close Race

The Star Tribune argued that, given the public interest around that situation and Kim Ellison’s public support of her ex-husband, the divorce records are a matter of concern to voters.

Divorce records are typically public in Minnesota, but judges will often agree to seal them if both parties to the case agree and no one else objects. The Ellison campaign released a statement from Kim Ellison on behalf of both her and Keith Ellison.

“Our divorce simply isn’t the public’s business, and therefore, when we separated, we jointly asked the court to seal the file. Now, one month before a closely contested election for Minnesota Attorney General, a conservative group wants to probe our divorce file in search of something to use against Keith in this race. I am disappointed that the Star Tribune would choose to file this motion.”

Polls show this is a very tight attorney general race. A poll released September 16 shows Republican challenger Doug Wardlow and Ellison with 41 percentage points each. The Star Tribune/Minnesota Poll released September 19 shows Ellison with a five-point lead. That is still within the margin of error.

The Star Tribune article is here.

 

Avoid the American Hustle

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

As if divorce wasn’t bad enough, the FBI warns the most common targets of dating scams are divorced women over 40. Women are courted online, and after weeks of intimacy, money is missing. This post contains a few post-divorce tips to protect yourself

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

According to an Atlantic magazine article, scams are abundant, and Derek Alldred seems to have scammed at least a dozen women out of about $1 million since 2010.

He used different names and occupations, but the identities he took on always had an element of financial prestige or manly valor: decorated veteran, surgeon, air marshal, investment banker.

Con artists have long known that a uniform bolsters an illusion, and Derek was fond of dressing up in scrubs and military fatigues. He tended to look for women in their 40s or 50s, preferably divorced, preferably with a couple of kids and a dog or two.

The age of the internet, with its infinitude of strangers and swiftly evolving social mores, has also been good for con men. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, which tracks internet-facilitated criminal activity, received nearly 300,000 complaints in 2016.

Of those scams, more than 14,500 were for relationship fraud, a number that has more than doubled since 2011.

Divorce Tips

I’ve written about practical tips after your divorce before. Consider that once the lawyers, are gone, who is there to guide you on the many questions? There are some immediate steps to take to ensure your hard-fought interests are protected – and your financial documents reflect your new marital status.

Once your divorce is final – meaning a final judgment is entered – you should review and revise, if necessary, the following legal and estate planning documents:

  • Trusts
  • Powers of Attorney (property, healthcare, HIPAA, etc.)
  • Will
  • Life insurance policies
  • Retirement accounts

What can happen if you don’t?

One example is common. If your ex-spouse remains the beneficiary of your life insurance policy and you pass away, the proceeds will go to your ex-spouse instead your children.

The opposite can also be true. In Florida, the plain language of the documents controls. To the extent your or your former spouse claimed a right to remain as the beneficiary under a life insurance policy – as a condition of the dissolution of marriage – your rights can be waived.

The Sting

The FBI warns that in many scams, women are courted online by men who claim to be deployed in Afghanistan or tending an offshore oil rig in Qatar. After weeks or months of intimate emails, texts, and phone calls, the putative boyfriend will urgently need money to replace a broken laptop or buy a plane ticket home.

According to the Justice Department, only 15% of fraud victims report the crimes to law enforcement, largely due to shame, guilt, embarrassment, and disbelief:

You feel really crappy about yourself,” Missi told me, then slipped into a tone that sounded like the mean voice that lives inside her head: “I’m a stupid woman; I’m a dumb, dumb, dumbass.

One excellent way to dispel yourself of any con-man fantasies, however, is to spend some time with the people they’ve hurt. Their victims are negotiating ruined credit scores and calls from collection agencies.

Several were so flattened by the experience, they’ve had old medical problems flare up or have struggled to go back to work.

The Atlantic magazine article is here.

 

The Oscar Curse: Divorce

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

The Post about the world being unfair to women is no Phantom Thread. Even when women succeed, they face challenges men don’t – and may want to Get Out. Winning the Oscar for Best Actress, for example, is a major accomplishment, but can also be the Darkest Hour if winning the Oscar means divorce.

The Shape of Divorce

In recent years, anecdotal evidence suggesting that winning an Academy Award — the “Oscar” — for Best Actress puts a woman’s marriage at risk for divorce.

The phenomenon has prompted the media to speculate about the existence of an “Oscar curse” – that an actress’ husband will leave her once she’s won an Academy Award.

Is there any scientific evidence for the Oscar Curse?

After looking at the 751 nominees in the best actor and actress categories of the Academy Awards from 1936 through 2010, researchers concluded that Best Actress winners have a 63% chance of their marriages ending sooner than non-winners.

However, the Best Actor winners do not experience any increase in the risk of divorce after an Oscar. Is there any truth to this Oscar Curse?

According to a study reported in an article in the New York Times, the old social norms for marriages were that a husband’s income and job status was higher than his wife’s.

New studies are showing that men may even be avoiding women whose intelligence and ambition exceeds their own.

Studies are also showing that violating the old social norm about marriage can cause strains in a marriage. The result is that a wife’s high income has been linked to an increased risk of divorce at all levels of the husband’s income, but especially when the wife’s income exceeds her husband’s.

A Marriage’s Dunkirk

I’ve written about the causes of divorce before. There are many reasons clients file for divorce. The top reasons I hear repeatedly include: difficult in-laws, financial problems, constant separation due to travel, and bad communication habits.

I recently read a reason I hadn’t come across before: a church caused it! A Florida husband sued his church for encouraging his wife to leave him, even helping her move out of their marital home after 28 years of marriage.

“The defendant’s pastor made multiple visits to Plaintiff and his wife’s residence to play Wii games with them not at the invitation of the Plaintiff”

The husband says his wife paid 60 percent of the household bills, and that he has struggled financially since she left him. He is suing the church for $180,000, in addition to $10 million in punitive damages.

Not exactly the Oscar Curse, but the Florida case is another example of old marital norms putting a strain on a long-term marriage.

Oscar Party?

One study in the New York Times article found that Oscar wins are associated with a greater risk of divorce for Best Actresses. Interestingly, the correlation with divorce did not extend to winners for Best Actors.

The study shows an asymmetric effect of winning an Oscar for best actress but not best actor. What does that outcome prove though?

Some say it means women face an increased risk of divorce which may be due to their husbands’ discomfort with their wives’ fame and success.

There’s another possibility. Others argue that after a major success in fame and money, a wife may grow dissatisfied with her marriage. Maybe the wife has outgrown the marriage, or has the confidence and to move away from a bad relationship.

The New York Times article is here.

 

Spouses and Spies

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

Can you spy on your spouse? GPS trackers, spyware, key logger programs, and hidden cameras are changing divorce, making it easy to become an amateur spy, and making it even easier to land you in trouble.

The CIA Home Kit

As NPR reports, couples are turning to the latest technology to spy on each other as their marriages fall apart.

New digital spy tools are cheap and easy to use — from something as simple as the Find My iPhone feature to spyware that can be installed in a spouse’s computer, phone, or even a car.

Welcome to divorce in the 21st century — how much privacy you’re entitled to is an open question. Cases involving domestic spying are not unique, and are becoming more common as the technology gets cheaper and easier to use.

Digital spying is changing divorce as we know it.

The tools are abundant. Clients use it in an effort to stay in control after a separation or to gather evidence of extra-marital affairs or drug abuse. But the laws can be murky.

Cyberstalking

There may be problems with becoming your own James Bond type spy. I’ve written about domestic violence issues before. Many people are unfamiliar with cyberstalking statutes in Florida, and that cyberstalking is grounds for an injunction.

In Florida, cyberstalking is also a crime, and it means conduct to communicate, or to cause to be communicated, words, images, or language by or through the use of electronic mail or electronic communication, directed at a specific person, causing substantial emotional distress to that person and serving no legitimate purpose.

Cyberstalking can involve communications over the Internet like: email, instant messages, text messaging, blogging, website or online forum postings, and social media posts.

Florida also has an aggravated cyberstalking law for protection against people who willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly follows, harasses, or cyberstalks another person and makes a credible threat to that person commits the offense of aggravated stalking.

Spyware

Partners in breakups sometimes install spyware on computers or phones in order to spy on their soon-to-be ex. Once installed, people can see every incoming and outgoing message from the target’s phone, Web searches, even keystrokes and passwords.

The legality of tracking technology is messy. For example, parents can put spyware on a child’s phone or a home computer. But, putting it on a spouse’s or a partner’s computer or iPhone without consent is generally illegal.

Florida has a strong Constitutional right to privacy. Florida enacted laws to ensure each party to a conversation has an expectation of privacy from interception by another party to the conversation.

Be careful about becoming your own spy. Florida has made it illegal for a person to intercept wire, oral, or electronic communications. And, trial courts can and do exclude from evidence electronic communications illegally intercepted.

Back at Langley

As the NPR article reports, the messages from an ex-husband to his ex-wife can be unsettling:

“I know all of the ways you’ve described me to your friend.”

Unfortunately, the ex-wife went to an Apple store, but didn’t look for the spyware; instead they got her a brand-new phone. That meant that the evidence went along with the phone.

In 2012, the last time the Justice Department attempted to quantify stalking, it estimated that 1.5% of all adults in the U.S. were victims.

That figure more than doubled — to 3.3 percent — for people who were divorced or separated.

The NPR article is here.

 

Friends or Spouses?

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux announced that they are going to file for divorce after two and a half years of marriage. However, some news outlets report they can’t locate the Friends’ star’s marriage license to see if they were even married. What would happen if you find out you were not married?

Friends Like Us

Irrespective of the status of their marriage license, according to news reports, the decision to divorce appears to have been mutual:

“We are two best friends who have decided to part ways as a couple, but look forward to continuing our cherished friendship.”

According to TMZ though: “We checked marriage records in L.A. County all the way back to 2010 and there is no record of a marriage license. There’s such a thing as a confidential marriage license, but we’re told they did NOT get one in L.A. County.”

Is Your Marriage Valid in Florida?

First off, common-law marriages have been abolished in Florida since 1968. In order to be validly married, you need a license. It may seem like a mere formality, but couples who want to be married must apply for a license.

There is a fee for getting a marriage license, and that fee is reduced for attending pre-marital counseling. The license is valid for 60 days. The officiant at the ceremony must certify that the marriage was solemnized.

The certified marriage license must be returned to the clerk or an issuing judge within 10 days, and the clerk or judge is required to keep a correct record of certified marriage licenses.

I have written about Florida marriages and divorces before. Florida courts have repeatedly warned people that they cannot depart from the requirement of the Florida Statutes to have a license, otherwise the courts would be re-creating common-law marriages.

In the event you do not obtain your marriage license, you cannot divorce. This means that certain rights can be lost. For example, you could not make claims for equitable distribution, and you could not ask a court for alimony. That can be a devastating result for many couples who unknowingly, are not married.

Central Perk

The report from TMZ sounds like ridiculously bad investigative journalism. Jennifer and Justin could have gotten a marriage license in any of the 57 other counties in California, or other states and even countries, and their marriage license would be valid.

But just because TMZ claims it spoke with some “Jen sources who have had regular contact with her for years, and they say there’s been talk for a long time they might not be legally married” does not prove or disprove anything.

According to the TMZ article:

“it’s certainly possible they’re legally married, but based on what we found, it’s possible they’re not.”

The TMZ article is here.

 

Divorce and Privacy

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner’s divorce are a lot of things: “Messy” comes to mind, and definitely “sordid.” It has also been front page news. However, now the divorce is going to be closed to the public. Is it about reconciliation or privacy?

A Very Public Divorce

Huma Abedin was a top aide to former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and privacy has always been a struggle. She has been front page news most recently, as the State Department posted a number of her emails after the messages were found on her husband’s laptop by the FBI.

Several of the released documents were found to contain information classified “confidential,” and were heavily redacted.

If that wasn’t front page news enough, her husband is Anthony Weiner. Anthony is the former Democratic congressman from New York who won seven terms as a Democrat, never receiving less than 60% of the vote. Politicians don’t get elected by being shy.

In May last year, Weiner pled guilty to a sexting charge of transferring obscene material to a minor, and was sentenced to 21 months in prison and is required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

According to the New York Post, the couple withdrew their divorce proceeding from the New York court where it was being heard. They’re not reconciling though, it appears they are trying to keep their divorce private.

Divorce Privacy

I’ve written about the issue of privacy and public access to divorce records before. For example, in the Tom Cruise divorce, his ex-wife could have filed in New York or California, but they chose New York because of privacy laws there.

In Florida, court filings are not private. In fact, it has long been the policy of Florida that all state, county, and municipal records are open for personal inspection and copying by anyone.

In Florida, privacy is not the rule. Far from it. Here, providing access to public records is an affirmative duty of each agency. And, any agency that maintains a public record has to provide to any person, a copy of any public record which is not exempted by law from public disclosure.

The Weiners

In a statement to the New York Daily News, Abedin’s attorney said it’s for the privacy of their family.

“In order to ensure the proceedings have a minimal impact on their child, the parties have decided to finalize their divorce swiftly and privately.”

Privacy would certainly be a change for this couple’s tumultuous and much-scrutinized marriage, which is heading to an end after the sexting scandals.

The New York Daily News article is here.

 

Getting a Religious Divorce

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

Just in time for the holidays is the problem of religious divorce. Many women are stuck in their former marriages because their secular divorce was not enough to allow them to remarry in their religion. This post looks at the problems and solutions for getting a religious divorce.

The Religious Problem

I’ve written about the issue of religious divorce many times. The religious nature of divorces for many couples, particularly for Muslim and Jewish women, complicates settlement.

That’s because religious courts have no enforcement authority in the United States, and the First Amendment of the Constitution prevents secular courts from intervening in purely religious disputes.

Also, religious authorities are very critical about the secular enforcement of divorce as it can contravene religious law. Among religious people, there’s also a reluctance on using secular courts against their coreligionists, which discourages people from getting help in state court.

Islamic Divorce

The Economist recently reported on Shirin Musa, and her bitter religious divorce experience which ultimately inspired her to help women caught between legal and cultural worlds.

A resident in the Netherlands, Shirin was unhappily married to a man from her native Pakistan. In 2009 a Dutch judge divorced them, but her husband would not grant an Islamic divorce.

Although she lived in secular Europe, her husband’s refusal to grant a religious divorce mattered. If she remarried without a religious divorce, she could be considered an adulteress under Islamic law. She also risked religious punishment if she ever tried to return to Pakistan.

So, Shirin sued her former spouse through the Dutch secular courts. In 2010 she received a landmark judgment: her ex-husband would be fined $295 a day, up to a maximum of $11,795 as long as he refused to cooperate.

The sanction had the desired effect on her ex-husband She then persuaded the Dutch parliament to make holding women in such “marital captivity” a criminal offence, in theory punishable by jail.

Jewish Divorce

Jewish women share a similar problem to Muslim women. Under the strict interpretations of Jewish law, only the husband can grant a divorce document, called a “get.” Without a get, the woman is still religiously married, regardless of how long it’s been since the civil divorce.

Without a get, a Jewish woman can’t remarry and have more children, lest she be declared an adulterer and her children from the second marriage shunned by the community.

Women in this situation can be trapped for years as their childbearing years fade away. In Hebrew, many call them agunot, or “chained women.”

Solutions

First, you may want to secure a religious divorce before even filing a secular divorce. This prevents the husband from using the religious divorce as a bargaining chip.

Securing a religious divorce before filing a civil divorce also prevents another common problem: imams and rabbis stepping in to negotiate large cash payments in exchange for a religious divorce.

Another civil legal remedy is a prenuptial agreement. Under a prenuptial agreement, the spouses could agree to arbitrate the marital dispute, and the husband agrees to pay the wife a set amount per day until he grants a religious divorce.

The Economist article is available here.

 

Rising Divorce Rates

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

The accepted wisdom is that divorce rates have dropped since the 1980s, and divorce rates have been declining since. A new report out of Great Britain is showing just the opposite, that divorce rates are increasing.

A recent article from the BBC in London reports that there were 106,959 divorces of opposite-sex couples in 2016 – an increase of 5.8% from 2015. It was the biggest year-on-year rise in divorce rates since 1985, when there was a jump of 10.9%.

Of 112 divorces of same-sex couples in 2016, 78% involved female couples.

Charity Relate said rising levels of household debt and stagnating wages could be putting a strain on marriages. For those in opposite-sex marriages, divorce rates were highest for women in their 30s and men aged between 45 and 49.

Overall, there were 8.9 divorces per 1,000 married men and women.

Florida and Divorce Rates

I’ve written about divorce rates in the United States before. Part of the problem with counting divorces in the U.S., is that collecting divorce statistics in the United States is not consistent.

Some counties in some states keep excellent records of finalized divorce cases, an important statistic in measuring divorce rates. Miami-Dade County, for instance has excellent records of filing online. However, other counties in Florida and outside of Florida may not.

Additionally, different American states, and the federal Census Bureau, have had a rocky history of collecting the data from across the country on divorce rates. In fact, the federal government has stopped providing financial support for detailed state collection.

Some states, especially California, have stopped reporting divorce rates entirely.

In the U.S., the increase in divorce rates is being blamed on the Baby Boomers, those born between 1945 and 1954. In the 1970s, Baby Boomers, who were then in their twenties, were equally likely to divorce.

But by 1990, couples in their twenties were more stable, but the Baby Boomers, who were entering their forties, continued to divorce “at unprecedented rates.” Since then, the biggest rise in divorce has the “massive increase” in divorce among women in their fifties.

Back in the UK

A spokeswoman in the Britain said: “Although the number of divorces of opposite-sex couples in England and Wales increased by 5.8% in 2016 compared with 2015, the number remains 30% lower than the most recent peak in 2003; divorce rates for men and women have seen similar changes.”

The most common reason for the increase in divorce rates was “unreasonable behaviour”, with 51% of women and 36% of men citing it in their divorce petitions. Unreasonable behaviour can include having a sexual relationship with someone else.

Overall, women initiated proceedings in 61% of opposite-sex divorces.

Commenting on divorce rates, Chris Sherwood, chief executive of the relationship support charity Relate, said: “It is unclear as to why there was a slight increase in divorces in 2016 and as to whether this rise will continue or not.

“We know that money worries are one of the top strains on relationships and it may be that rising levels of household debt and stagnating pay growth could be contributing factors.”

“Divorce is not something that people tend to take lightly but our research suggests that many people could have saved their marriage and avoided divorce with the right support.”

The BBC report is available here.

 

Gray Divorce

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

Yet another magazine is reporting on the rising phenomenon of “gray divorces,” or divorce among couples who are aged 50 or older. There are a few special concerns you should be aware of when divorcing after age 50.

Gray Divorces

First, some facts. Among the baby boom generation, the divorce rate has doubled since the 1990s. In 2015, up to 10 out of every 1,000 people over the age of 50 divorced, according to a report from the Pew Research Center.

Though these rates are still lower than those of younger generations, it is the increase in the number of divorces, not the actual divorce rate, that is generating interest among family law attorneys and experts.

Reasons vary. “Life is short, and once you sort of are aging and start to see a limited number of years left on your life, you start to put your own happiness first and do the things that you would want to do.”

I’ve written about gray divorces before. Like the emotional aspects, the legal nuances of gray divorce can be different than what younger couples might encounter when dealing with a split. Chief among those nuances are financial considerations, which can present unique challenges for spouses who are at or nearing retirement.

Florida Gray Divorces

When couples choose to divorce in their 30s or 40s, they still have time to recover financially, because adults at that age have several years, if not decades, left in their careers.

But when divorce occurs when a couple is in their 50s or later, the so-called “gray divorce”, careers may either be coming to a close or are completed, and spouses are often living on fixed incomes provided through Social Security or retirement benefits.

Here are some things to consider:

Valuing the Marital Estate – By the time a couple enters the golden years, they may have gold to divide, including businesses, retirement funds, and vacation homes. Valuing these assets can be difficult. The value of a business may not be apparent from balance sheets, and the sale or transfer of assets may have tax consequences. As a result, a financial advisor may be an important component in the divorce.

Medical Care – Health insurance is often tied to the employment of one spouse. With aging comes diminishing health, and declining cognitive ability. Courts may need to intervene if one party has dwindling capacity to handle their own affairs.

Long-Term Arrangements – Legal arrangements, such as wills and trusts, need to be reviewed to make sure they reflect post-divorce wishes. The same is true for long-term care, such as medical directives, living wills and trusts.

Retirement Plans – After 20 years of marriage, retirement plans can be substantial . . . and complex. Retirement plans vary in kind, and they all have different restrictions, tax consequences, distribution and vesting rules.

Lifestyle adjustment – Younger couples have time to re-accumulate wealth after divorce, but in Gray Divorces, the spouses have less time to re-establish themselves financially. One or both may be close to or in retirement, and face living on half of what they earmarked for retirement.

There are special concerns involved in a gray divorce, or when an older couple divorces. As always, information is power, so make a point to seek out experts for guidance.

Though a couple may have carefully planned for their futures when they were married, they return to the drawing board when it comes to estate planning after a divorce.

Most gray divorces involve marriages that have lasted for several decades, which makes it difficult to disentangle the spouses from each other. However, couples who divorce after many years together should receive a close-to-even split of assets, legally putting each spouse on an equal playing field for the future.

The Indiana Lawyer article is here.

 

Divorce & Common Law Marriages

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

Comedian Ron White’s wife is filing for divorce, and the duration of their marriage could be a major point of contention. Margo Rey filed divorce pleadings last week in Los Angeles, mentioning they had a common law marriage in Texas.

If the couple have had a common law marriage in Texas since 2008, long before they officially got married, they may be considered married in the eyes of the law, if they live together as husband and wife, and hold themselves out in public as a married couple.

The answer to their dispute about the length of the marriage may be important as it relates to property division and alimony.

Margo says she wants Ron to pay spousal support. The issue of the common law marriage may have been raised so she can argue that her marriage could be a few years longer, and thereby entitling her to more alimony.

Florida Common Law Marriages

Florida deems common law marriages void. What about a common law marriage from another state? I have written about a unique case in South Carolina before, and the White divorce raises it again.

In South Carolina, Debra Parks wanted her relationship to be considered a common-law marriage under South Carolina law. Parks is gay. But until 2014, same-sex marriage was illegal.

In a groundbreaking case for South Carolina, a Family Court judge has ruled that Parks and her former partner had a common-law marriage under state law. And the state must recognize that their common-law marriage has been legal for almost 30 years, the judge ruled.

The South Carolina ruling immediately becomes a legal precedent, and has the potential to impact thousands of people in same sex relationships because it backdates the period of effect to the beginning of the common-law marriage.

South Carolina is one of eight states that recognize common law marriage. The case is important because same sex marriages were not recognized until 2014 and left an entire group of people “out in the cold” without the protections the law provides to heterosexual couples.

Florida law is different. No common-law marriage entered into after January 1, 1968, is valid in Florida. The South Carolina case could create a conflict between Florida Statutes – which makes common law marriages in Florida void as of 1968, the Parks case, which recognizes the creation of same-sex, common law marriages in South Carolina.

Interstate Problems

The generally established principle is that the validity of a marriage is determined by the law of the place where the marriage occurred. So, while Florida no longer recognizes common law marriages, nevertheless, it may be forced to recognize the validity of common law marriages in other states.

The TMZ article on the White divorce is here.