Posted by Nydia Streets of Streets Law in Florida Annulment

What is a “void” marriage in Florida? This is a marriage that is considered to have never occurred because a factor made the marriage illegal or incapable of being solemnized. An example is when one spouse is still legally married to another person at the time of marriage to a new spouse. In this case, the second marriage would be considered void and subject annulment. But there are defenses to a claim that a marriage is void, mainly for the purposes of preventing a party from selectively claiming the marriage to be void at divorce in order to avoid the financial and legal responsibilities associated with being married. This was an issue in the case Baxter v. Baxter, 1D2023 (Fla. 1st DCA December 4, 2024).

In this case, the parties married in Ecuador in 1995. The wife filed a petition for divorce in 2020. The husband responded to the petition and asserted the defense that the marriage was void because the wife did not obtain a divorce from her first husband until 1996. The findings in the final judgment indicated the wife divorced her prior husband in Ecuador the day before she married her current husband. However, the wife was unable to provide proof of her Ecuadorian divorce decree. Nonetheless, she testified her current husband was aware of the marriage and the divorce, and that the parties lived together as a married couple for 25 years, filing tax returns as “married filing jointly”, raising children together, and purchasing property titled as “husband and wife”. The trial court nonetheless found the marriage was void because the wife could not provide proof of divorcing her prior husband prior to marrying her current husband. The wife appealed, arguing it was error for the trial court to refuse to apply the defense of equitable estoppel against the husband.

The appellate court noted that since there was no transcript provided, it was limited to reviewing the final judgment, the pleadings and the evidence admitted at trial. The court held “[A] presumption exists ‘in favor of the validity of the last marri[a]ge,’ [. . .] ‘one of the strongest presumptions known to the law.’ Teel v. Nolen Brown Motors, Inc., 93 So. 2d 874, 876 (Fla. 1957). Other cases explain that the presumed validity of a marriage’s existence ‘grows out of long and continuous cohabitation, the establishment and maintenance of a home and family, and recognition by the public generally and their friends and associates that the man and woman are husband and wife.’ [. . .] . The presumption grows stronger with the length of time of the couple’s cohabitation. Id. A subsequent challenge to the validity of the marriage by a spouse warrants estoppel because of the inequity associated with allowing and incentivizing spouses to reap the benefits of the marriage for many years while suppressing concerns about the marriage’s validity.”

The court found “Turning to the Baxters’ case here, Kern sat on his qualms about the Ecuadorian marriage for more than 25 years. He only retrieved the marriage-validity argument from his back pocket when a dissolution case was filed. Under these circumstances, Florida law does not permit Kern to question his marriage. Rather, the elements of Jeanette’s equitable estoppel argument were established by the trial court’s findings.” The court specified “Upon returning to the United States, Jeanette relied on Kern’s marriage vow for more than 25 years by cohabiting with him as a married couple, raising a family together, holding herself out as being married, filing tax forms jointly as a married couple under penalty of perjury, and more. All the while, Kern knew Jeanette’s marriage status as much as she did and had helped execute the entire Ecuadorian plan. This is different from cases like Wright, 778 So. 2d at 353, for instance, where the marriage status of a spouse was discovered only after the later marriage. Indeed, Kern travelled and was in on the whole Ecuadorian divorce and marriage plan from the start. And only when the dissolution case was filed did Kern claim not to be married, for his own benefit and to Jeanette’s detriment. Under these circumstances, Kern is estopped from challenging the validity of the Ecuadorian divorce and marriage. Kern provided no evidence proving that the Ecuadorian divorce was invalid. And so, the strongest of presumptions exists in favor of the validity of the parties’ marriage as the ‘last marriage.’ Teel, 93 So. 2d at 876.”

The court concluded “Summing up, Kern is estopped to challenge the validity of his marriage to Jeanette because the trial court’s findings validated the parties’ 25-year marriage against a spousal attack on the foreign divorce decree and also demonstrated that Kern did not raise the issue with clean hands. The trial court court’s judgment is reversed, and the cause is remanded for further proceedings.”

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