Tag: no fault

No Fault Divorce Coming to England

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

The United Kingdom is leaving behind another ancient relic. With the April 2022 effective date of the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020, no fault divorce is coming to England.

No Fault England

An Outdated Druidic Ritual?

Legal professionals everywhere believe current divorce laws are out of date. In England in particular, this became the thinking after the 2018 Supreme Court case of Owens v Owens.

In Owens the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom upheld a decision that refused a contested divorce petition by a wife after the trial judge found the husband’s behavior was not unreasonable enough to justify granting a divorce.

The UK Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal expressed regret at not being able to grant the divorce petition. The public reaction to the unfairness Mrs. Owens was placed in led to the passage of the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020.

Passed in June 2020, the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 comes into force on April 6, 2022. The Act allows either or both parties to a marriage may apply to the court for a “divorce order” which dissolves the marriage on the ground that the marriage has broken down irretrievably. These changes will also apply to the dissolution of civil partnerships.

After April 6th, couples will not have to either separate for at least two years – increasing to five if one party does not consent – or allocate blame to legally end their marriage.

Florida No-Fault Divorce

The official term for divorce in Florida is “dissolution of marriage”, and you don’t need fault as a ground for divorce. Florida abolished fault as a ground for divorce.

I’ve written about divorce and infidelity issues before. The no-fault concept in Florida means you no longer have to prove a reason for the divorce, like your husband’s alleged infidelity with a congresswoman. Instead, you just need to state under oath that your marriage is “irretrievably broken.”

Before the no-fault divorce era, people who wanted to get divorce either had to reach agreement in advance with the other spouse that the marriage was over, or throw mud at each other and prove wrongdoing like adultery or abuse.

No-fault laws were the result of trying to change the way divorces played out in court. No fault laws have reduced the number of feuding couples who felt the need to resort to distorted facts, lies, and the need to focus the trial on who did what to whom.

21st Century Divorce

Passage of the Act is causing many lawyers to expect a surge in applications from separating couples when no-fault divorce is introduced in England and Wales. It has been described as the biggest reform of divorce laws for 50 years.

The legal requirement to assign blame makes it harder for couples to reach an amicable agreement at an already difficult and often emotional time. Florida’s own experience, and in other countries which have moved to a no-fault system, is that there is a spike when the new law comes in – in Scotland, for example, when they changed the law in 2006.

Coupled with the recent increase in divorce and child custody filing related to being quarantined due to the coronavirus pandemic, the new law in England is expecting many to cause a divorce surge.

The latest divorce statistics, published on Thursday, showed that the number of divorce petitions in the last quarter of 2021 was down 26% on the same period in 2020.

There are fears that an initial surge in cases coupled with the new technology necessary to implement no-fault divorce will put added pressure on courts have never been under greater strain because of because of Covid and budget cuts.

Stowe Family Law is also anticipating a spike in the number of couples seeking divorce, although Amanda Phillips-Wylds, a managing partner at the firm, said others had been rushing to push through a divorce under the existing fault-based system.

She suggested couples were motivated by “catharsis”, but also because some “wrongly believe that being able to prove the other party was at fault for the marital breakdown would favorably impact their financial settlement and arrangements for any children … In reality, behavior very rarely impacts financial outcomes or arrangements for children.”

Lawyers were at pains to point out that the new law would not affect the financial settlement process – which is separate – nor necessarily speed up the divorce. For the first time there will be a new minimum overall timeframe of six months for the divorce.

Edwards said she supported this in principle to allow time for reflection, but added: “I do have some concerns about that because in a coercive controlling relationship there’ll be nothing to stop a joint applicant from withdrawing partway through the process, and then you start all over again.”

The government has said it would look at the financial settlement process, in which judges currently have broad discretion, and it is also being urged by bodies including Family Solutions group to look at ways of taking divorcing couples away from the courts altogether to put the welfare of children centre stage.

The Guardian article is here.

Devil’s Tower: Return to a Fault Based Divorce

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

Is divorce too easy? Some South Dakota lawmakers are trying, but recently failed in their effort, to pass a bill that would have eliminated no fault divorce, removed a common reason used by married couples seeking divorce, and make the whole process more difficult.

Devils Tower Divorce

The Mt. Rushmore of Divorce Law

Under South Dakota law, a divorce may be granted for any of the following grounds: adultery, extreme cruelty (including bodily injury or grievous mental suffering), willful desertion, willful neglect, habitual intemperance, conviction of a felony, chronic mental illness or irreconcilable differences.

South Dakota, unlike Florida, recognizes both “fault” and “no fault” divorces. A “no fault” divorce cites irreconcilable differences as the reason for the divorce.

Irreconcilable differences are defined as those determined by the court to be substantial enough reasons for not continuing the marriage and make it appear as though the marriage should be dissolved.

According to South Dakota sources, a Rapid City legislator introduced a bill to remove the grounds of “irreconcilable differences” as a legal reason for couples to get divorced.

In divorce court, irreconcilable differences are the most common in South Dakota. Irreconcilable differences are a way to have a no-fault divorce, and allows a couple to decide that the marriage isn’t working and ask a judge to dissolve the union for no other fault.

But the politician behind the bill said that making divorce harder to get was the point of his legislation: Divorce has gotten to be too easy, and married couples are giving up on their matrimonial contracts.

The result, he said, is that people are throwing each other away, leading to poverty and depression among children whose parents divorce. “How is that helpful to society?”

Florida No-Fault Divorce

The official term for divorce in Florida is “dissolution of marriage”, and you don’t need fault as a ground for divorce. Florida abolished fault as a ground for divorce.

I’ve written about divorce and infidelity issues before. The no-fault concept in Florida means you no longer have to prove a reason for the divorce, like your husband’s alleged infidelity with a congresswoman. Instead, you just need to state under oath that your marriage is “irretrievably broken.”

Before the no-fault divorce era, people who wanted to get divorce either had to reach agreement in advance with the other spouse that the marriage was over, or throw mud at each other and prove wrongdoing like adultery or abuse.

No-fault laws were the result of trying to change the way divorces played out in court. No fault laws have reduced the number of feuding couples who felt the need to resort to distorted facts, lies, and the need to focus the trial on who did what to whom.

Avoiding the Badlands

Opponents of the South Dakota bill to make divorce harder included Robert Riter, representing the South Dakota Bar Association, and Steve Siegel, representing the South Dakota Trial Lawyers Association.

Siegel noted that removing irreconcilable differences would require couples to cite one of the six remaining reasons. Those include adultery, extreme cruelty and habitual intemperance. Those reasons would require couples to go to trial, forcing costly and contentious showdowns.

It’s going to force parties to air their dirty laundry in a public forum.

Riter said that the system of divorce law that existed when he started practicing law was worse before irreconcilable differences was added by the Legislature in the 1980s. He noted that other states have similar provisions.

“We’re not an island on this at all,” Riter said. “Society has decided that there ought to be opportunities for parties to agree that the marriage cannot be preserved.”

Tony Monnens, a farmer from Hazel, testified that his wife of 43 years filed for divorce last year after a head injury caused memory loss, which resulted in him losing a job. He said that divorce is too easy.

This thing is the absolute destruction of the family unit as we know it today.

South Dakota’s Argus Leader article is here.

 

Borat and No-Fault Divorce

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

The official term for divorce in Florida is “dissolution of marriage”, and you don’t need to prove fault. Instead, you need to state under oath that your marriage is “irretrievably broken.” According to CNN, Sacha Baron Cohen learned the true meaning of no-fault divorce after discovering Pamela Anderson’s divorce may have been caused by his movie Borat.

Borat No Fault Divorce

High Five!

As CNN reports, the movie Borat was a huge success, earning $262 million against a modest $18 million budget, and worked its way deep into American culture. Unfortunately, the film’s success came at a price, as it may have cost Kid Rock his wife.

Sacha Baron Cohen, recently told The Daily Beast’s The Last Laugh podcast that Pamela Anderson was in on the joke for the scene in which Borat kidnaps her, Cohen and that her then husband, Kid Rock, hated the movie.

Cohen says that the scene in which his fictional character Borat approaches Anderson and carries her out of a book signing caused the split:

“We did that scene twice, actually. The first time we did it at a book signing and I grabbed her over my shoulder and ran out with her and no one did anything. I was like, what kind of fans are these?”

Kid Rock was briefly married to Pamela Anderson in 2006. Cohen said that, following a screening of the finished film with Anderson and Kid Rock, he called Anderson to find out what her new husband thought of the film.

“Kid Rock saw the movie, and I texted Pamela Anderson and asked, ‘How did it go? What did he think?’” said Cohen. “And she texted back, ‘He’s getting divorced.’”

Florida No-Fault Divorce

I’ve written about no fault divorce before. No-fault laws are the result of trying to change the way divorces played out in court. In Florida no fault laws have reduced the number of feuding couples who felt the need to resort to distorted facts, lies, and the need to focus the trial on who did what to whom.

Florida abolished fault as grounds for filing a divorce. Gone are the days when you had to prove adultery, desertion or unreasonable behavior as in England.

The only ground you need to file for divorce in Florida is to prove your marriage is “irretrievably broken.” Additionally, the mental incapacity of one of the parties, where the party was adjudged incapacitated for the prior three year, is another avenue.

Adultery can be the cause of a divorce, but can it impact the outcome? Since Florida became a no-fault state, the fact that, “she (or he) is sleeping with a co-worker” doesn’t hold much traction in court any more.

Some people think no fault divorce is one of the main reasons for a high divorce rate. Despite the recent legislative moves in the UK, there is a movement here to return to the old “fault” system to promote families.

Not in Kazakhstan Anymore

Cohen said Anderson told him that Kid Rock wanted the divorce specifically because of the movie, which he naturally assumed was a joke:

“I thought it was a joke,” Said Cohen. “But then a few weeks later they got divorced and they put as a reason for divorce: ‘Borat.’ So, it had some casualties.”

Cohen’s version of this story also lines up with and seems to confirm reports, which claimed that Universal Studio chief Ron Meyer held a screening of the movie at his home and that the Kid Rock became angry and ruined the night because he hated the movie.

This revelation raises a number of questions. Was Kid Rock, like so many people, unable to tell if his wife’s involvement in the film was real? Did he believe that his wife did not fight back strongly enough against the seductive, amorous advances of Borat Sagdiyev?

CNN reports that Anderson and Rock did get divorced the same month as the film came out, but the comedy film may be an unlikely cause of the divorce.

The CNN article is here.

Photo courtesy of Michael Bulcik / SKS Soft GmbH Düsseldorf