Alice wants a divorce but Bob does not. What can Bob do to stonewall the process and what are the consequences of doing so? Alice wants to get a divorce from Bob. Bob is an upstanding member of society. There is no credible case against Bob for any crimes or impropriety (no abuse, infidelity, etc). Bob does not want Alice to divorce him. Alice and Bob have no prenuptial agreement. Alice has asked Bob to leave their shared house, but he refuses and maintains residence at the property. What can Bob do to stonewall the process? What happens if he refuses to sign the divorce papers? If those consequences are highly detrimental, what is his next course of action after delaying as long as possible? And then what are the consequences from that action? (Continuing on until he is out of options) What is the ultimate outcome? Can Alice unilaterally force a divorce? What are the conditions of such a divorce likely to be? (alimony, the house, other property, etc) This is a hypothetical and I am interested in the United States law as a whole, but if necessary I will specify New York State to establish a concrete jurisdiction.
Prior to 2010, New York was the last state to have only fault based divorce. In 2010, the fault based grounds for divorce were retained, but a no fault ground for divorce was added and has become very popular. In a no fault divorce: All that has to be proved and stated in your divorce papers is that the marriage has been “irretrievably broken&quot; for at least six months. One spouse must state this under oath. With respect to this point: Alice has asked Bob to leave their shared house, but he refuses and maintains residence at the property. The judge will almost certainly at the very outset (probably within a month or two, quite possibly in a matter of days) order one spouse out of the house in temporary orders if either spouse objects to continued cohabitation. Temporary orders at the outset of a divorce establishing a provisional status quo with separated parties is routine. In a divorce, title to the residence is pretty much irrelevant, and so are the wishes of the adults unless they agree. There is no presumption in favor of either party, i.e. neither for or against Bob, and neither for nor against Alice, in a temporary orders hearing, based upon who filed for divorce or who lived there at the time of temporary orders. There is, however, a very strong imperative to not have people who are getting divorced cohabiting when one or both of the parties doesn't want to cohabit. Cohabitation would only in the most extraordinary case be imposed on a party who opposed it during divorce proceedings. The judge looks at the facts and circumstances and decides for one or the other without considering at all who filed for divorce, and without seriously considering what either of them want (if they don't agree). Once a divorce has been commenced, everything is up for grabs without regard to who filed for divorce. Usually, temporary use of the residence if awarded to the primary caretaker of the children if there is one, so that the children's lives can be disrupted as little as possible. But, a judge in a temporary orders hearing has immense discretion. For example, Rudy Giuliani wife was granted occupancy of his official residence as Mayor of New York City during one of his three divorces: &quot;Giuliani moved out of Gracie Mansion by August 2001 and into an apartment with a couple he was friends with.&quot; What can Bob do to stonewall the process? Not all that much other than insisting on disputing all matters to be resolved in the divorce and taking them to trial. Bob can't prevent the divorce from happening and can't do all that much to slow down the process any more than insisting on taking everything to trial does. Generally speaking, efforts to unjustified efforts to delay the process and the inevitable will be penalized and it is unethical for Bob's lawyer to use such tactics. If it is apparent to the judge that Bob is trying to stonewall, this will be perceived as defiance of the court's authority in a case where the judge has massive discretion to make a determination on the merits. This is unwise, although there is no specific consequence that could necessarily be assigned to this kind of perception. What happens if he refuses to sign the divorce papers? A process server delivers the papers to him, and then a judge decides how to resolve the disputed issues related to custody, property, child support, alimony, and attorney fees. Bob's consent is not required for anything. Bob could speed things up by agreeing to various things, but only so much. If those consequences are highly detrimental, what is his next course of action after delaying as long as possible? And then what are the consequences from that action? (Continuing on until he is out of options) Fighting for the sake of fighting rarely produces an optimal outcome. Delaying as long as possible is almost never the best strategy. If Bob litigates needlessly, he is likely to see most of both side's attorney fees allocated to him and to get a custody arrangement that is rigid in a way that will be detrimental to him in the long run. What is the ultimate outcome? Can Alice unilaterally force a divorce? Yes. What are the conditions of such a divorce likely to be? (alimony, the house, other property, etc) An equitable but not equal division of property, a parenting time and parental responsibility order that a judge finds to be in the best interests of the children, child support based upon child support guidelines with statutorily allowed adjustments if any are present, and alimony based on many factors but mostly duration of the marriage and the relative incomes of the parties. The specific award could vary significantly even in case where the lawyers present exactly the same facts to two different judges in the same courthouse, without either judge committing reversible error. This is a hypothetical and I am interested in the United States law as a whole, but if necessary I will specify New York State to establish a concrete jurisdiction. For what it is worth, New York is somewhat atypical. But the broad outlines of no fault divorces are reasonably similar. One factor that makes New York State divorces different from some no fault states is that marital fault can be considered in some cases in the substantive decision on the merits. But this is no applicable in the case of this question where, by assumption, there is no marital fault present.
Only in a civil case Yes, in a civil case, Alice generally can call Bob as a witness to take the stand. In many cases, this is done very early, locking in their testimony, before expert witnesses or other evidence by the plaintiff are presented to try and undermine the testimony. Alice may ask only questions that have relevance to the case. Let's take for example a dispute about a contract: Alice may ask Bob if he engaged in negotiations to form the contract, about the matter of the contract, if he signed the contract, or how he (or his employees) fulfilled (or not) the contract. Pretty much everything that pertains to the contract or the execution thereof. This does not extend to the settlement of the case or attempts thereof. Alice may not ask if Bob has an affair with Clarice unless that somehow is material to the contract at hand. Alice may not re-ask questions where an objection was sustained in the same way. However, Bob might not need to answer all questions (there are things that are banned from being asked), especially as Bob's attorney will object to questions. A few examples of competent questioning can be seen towards the end of My Cousin Vinnie, though this is a criminal trial. Never in a criminal trial In a criminal trial, not only can the prosecution not call Bob to the stand, he has to elect to go to the stand to even be questioned by the prosecution. That is because he can &quot;plead the 5th&quot;. There is a tiny exception for civil cases, where they can do so there too.
The appropriate course of action would be to demand an evidentiary hearing, present evidence, and appeal the judge's ruling if it is contrary to the evidence in the record. Abandoning your attorney because the judge is sounding ominous would be foolish indeed. You can't do anything about the judge or about DSS.
In a typical divorce proceeding, both sides are required to provide a sworn statement of their finances, and to respond to written interrogatories, produce documents (e.g. financial statements made in loan applications, balance sheets, tax returns, bank statements, and copies of deeds and certificates of title and stock certificates) and be deposed in pre-trial discovery proceedings. Divorce lawyers have the authority to subpoena third-party records custodians and to take a small number of depositions of third-party witnesses prior to a permanent orders hearing and can usually get permission to take more if there is evidence suggesting that it would be fruitful to do so. There are a variety of sanctions that may be imposed for failure to cooperate, including adverse inferences regarding the facts that would have been disclosed if there had been disclosures in the discovery process. Still, it behooves a client to know as much as possible before commencing the process, since having lawyers gather this information during the course of divorce litigation is expensive and isn't always perfect. Where misconduct is suspected, a spouse's lawyer will typically retain forensic accountants and/or private investigators and will compare bank and accounting and tax records with other public records such as real property records, corporate records and tax filings. Unless an asset has produced no income or expenses flowing through a personal or business account, it will usually show up somewhere. Spouses will also often have familiarity with where to look based upon living with a spouse and often will have obtained copies of relevant correspondence or documents to provide a lead - perhaps a letter asking a spouse to fill out corporate paperwork or receipt from a foreign bank account. This investigation process (collectively called discovery) usually takes place between the filing for a divorce and the half year or more later when a permanent orders hearing is held. Often, in complex cases and cases where there is a likelihood that assets have been hidden, the final hearing will be set later after the original filing than it would otherwise be, and the planned hearing will be longer in light of the evidence that will need to be produced at that time. In my state, a spouse has up to five years after a divorce to reopen a proceeding is undisclosed assets are discovered. It isn't impossible to hide assets in a divorce, but it isn't easy either.
It is possible that a court would hold Comapny X's agreement with Bob to be unconscionable for overbredth and therefore void. This would depend on the state having jurisdiction, and on the specific facts of the case and the language of the contract between X and Bob. Some states do not favor such broad agreements on automatic assignment of IP rights. If the Contract between X and Bob was held to be void, then Sam would own the rights. Otherwise X would own the rights, as their contract came first. As the answer by Dale M says, Bob entered into the contract with Sam fraudulently, by concealing a materiel fact (Bob's existing employment with X). Bob would potentially be liable to Sam for damages. One possible measure of damages would be what it would cost Sam to buy the rights from X.
A settlement is fundamentally a contract where parties A and B promise to do certain things (one of them being "stop litigating"). A court order is an enforceable order to do something. A contract cannot be directly enforced (where force is used to make a person comply), it requires a court order for actual enforcement. The conditions of a contract might be enforceable, but you can't get the sheriff to come out based just on a contract. It appears that you got to the "facilitation" phase where the parties talk about the issue and the CRT case manager talks to the parties in neutral terms, aiming for an agreement. If you don't reach an agreement, the Tribunal Decision Process escalates the matter. Under the decision process, the CRT member makes a decision, and it can be enforced in court. They state that "For a $25 fee, the CRT can turn your agreement into an order, if both parties agree that an order should be issued. This is called a “consent resolution order”." I suppose that you did not go through that step, and you only have an agreement. So you would need a separate court process to get a court order. Because everything that you did in this negotiation phase is confidential, if you want CRT to give you something that is enforceable, you have to present the case from the beginning, since they don't have access to what has happened before. The problem in your account is that a settlement has to be reached by yourselves – possibly with the assistance of the CRT case manager. I assume you did actually get a settlement (agreement) with the landlord, but have not filed for a consent resolution order. It may be that the case is too old for you to just pay the $25, and it does require agreement by the other party. Read their FAQ about how cases end.
Truth is a defense to defamation Bob must prove the truth of his statement if Rob sues - there is a reverse onus for this defense. Because this is a civil trial the burden is balance of probabilities. Provided Bob can prove Rob stole his bike he will win. A conviction for doing so is pretty good (but not necessarily conclusive) evidence. Absent that, Bob would need other evidence. Of course, if Bob has said that Rob was convicted of stealing the bike, he’s going to lose.
Even before the police have any idea who did it, Bob is guilty of whatever wrong he did. However, if you want this to be a legal question and not a moral one, we should assume that you really want to know "Can Bob be convicted of murder, if the evidence proves that he did do it?". Yes, he can. See Morris v. State, 214 S.W.3d 159. The critical question was whether the defendant understood the charges (he did) and whether he could assist in his defense (he could). The desideratum of being able to assist in your own defense only goes so far. On the other hand, maybe no, per Wilson v. US. A government expert witness "testified that appellant had permanent retrograde amnesia and would not be able to aid in his own defense in terms of remembering any of the acts alleged in the indictment". The crucial difference seems to be whether one just has loss of memory, vs. loss of memory connected with some other mental disorder. [Addendum] Per Dusky v. United States 362 U.S. 402, competence to stand trial depends on whether the accused has sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding -- and whether he has a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him. I am not aware of any exceptions e.g. whether this is not the case with strict liability crimes like statutory rape, and since it is generally held that "competency" is a requirement mandated by the due process clause, I don't think there could be an exception.