How does &quot;sexual desertion&quot; get determined by the court? I was reviewing a link supplied by a helpful user regarding my earlier question, listing various legal grounds for divorce in New Jersey, and found this interesting tidbit: 4. Desertion Desertion is a potential cause of action in the event that your spouse has abandoned you physically, ... , or sexually, as in refusing to engage in a marital relationship. How exactly would the court determine this to be the cause of divorce? 99.99% of the time, this would be purely a &quot;he said she said&quot; situation, for how can someone prove refusal to engage? You can prove the opposite if there are children born to both parents, but how can one prove a negative? Or is the statement by the divorce initiator considered sufficient for the judge? I'm interested in the question in general, but if a specific jurisdiction is needed, let's assume New Jersey, US.
How exactly would the court determine this to be the cause of divorce? 99.99% of the time, this would be purely a &quot;he said she said&quot; situation, for how can someone prove refusal to engage? You can prove the opposite if there are children born to both parents, but how can one prove a negative? Or is the statement by the divorce initiator considered sufficient for the judge? Testimony under oath is evidence. Judges resolve &quot;he said she said&quot; situations every day on a routine basis with witness testimony alone by judging the credibility of each witness before them. See also an answer by @Jen about the subject of how things are proved in court in general. In the appropriate case, testimony under oath with no other corroborating evidence can even support a murder conviction as proof beyond a reasonable doubt. It can certainly suffice to prove marital fault in a civil lawsuit for a divorce. If the judge finds that witness testimony under oath between more than one witness is irreconcilably different, and each witness is equally credible, and that it is impossible to tell which person is telling the truth, then the person seeking relief from the court has failed to meet their burden of proof to obtain relief from the court. But, this is rare. Usually, when witnesses are both testifying under oath and disagree about what happened, the judge will find that one witness is more credible than the other. And, in truth, while people certainly do lie in open court under oath, and probably are more likely to lie in that situation than when speaking to someone not under oath outside of a courtroom, most of the time, people don't lie and the testimony of all of the witnesses are consistent with each other subject to limitations based upon what they could perceive from their perspective and the limitations of imperfect memories. This could come down to demeanor in court, hesitation in answering, &quot;tells&quot;, inconsistencies in their testimony, corroboration from other evidence and other witnesses (e.g. what someone said to a friend or wrote in a diary at the time), evidence that a witness has been convicted of a crime of deceit in the past, use of language that suggests coaching about their testimony, or common sense judgments about whose story seems more plausible under the circumstances of the parties in front of the judge.
Resolving Conflicting Injunctions This happens from time to time, frequently in cases involving child custody with dueling cases in different states, at least until recent legislative changes (the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act and the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act), which set forth clear rules calculated to leave only one court with jurisdiction to enter orders in almost all cases. The very first case I worked on as a student in a law school clinical program involved this kind of jurisdictional standoff. There is no fool proof way to prevent this, although parties will often forcefully ask the court not to have contradictory injunctions imposed upon them, and courts will often take these arguments seriously. And, the parties will usually parse the language of each order to determine how both can be possibly be complied with at once. Also, impossibility is a defense to being held in contempt of court for violating an injunction, and this tends to favor honoring the first entered of contradictory injunctions since the first is not impossible to comply with but complying with subsequent orders may be impossible. When push comes to shove and the appeals in each case don't change the result, usually the case keeps going up the appellate court ladder on an emergency basis in each contradictory case until it the deadlock is resolved, or until a court with jurisdiction over all courts involved intervenes. But, as you note, there is no definitive way to prevent the highest court in the land from having a deadlock (which can happen even when there are an odd number of judges if a judge recuses). In many state supreme courts, and in appellate courts outside the U.S., deadlock in a tie breaker court is often avoiding by having a process to appoint lower court judges a substitute judges in a higher court when there is a potential for deadlock in that court. But, the U.S. Supreme Court has no such process. The Ongoing Policy Debate There is on ongoing debate in federal public law practice (i.e. in cases in which the government is a party) over whether national injunctions of the type that have been issued in the DACA case and the Muslim ban cases in the current administration are proper, or not on jurisdictional grounds (but, the propriety of the injunction is generally not a defense to being held in contempt of court for violating it). These injunctions bind the United States government, which is a single entity over which the court has jurisdiction, but the dispute is over whether these injunctions should be allowed to benefit non-parties who are similarly situated to those before the court (the prevailing rule at this time), or whether the parties seeking an injunction against the United States government only have standing to obtain relief for themselves personally, in the absence of a class action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, which has procedures calculated to protect the interests of members of a class who are not personally before the court. The &quot;conservative&quot; position is that &quot;national&quot; injunctions against the United States should not be allowed outside of class actions, which would reduce the potential risk of conflicting orders, but would allow the United States government to proceed with conduct that had already been judicially determined elsewhere in a case against the same defendant to be unacceptable and illegal conduct. The status quo of allowing &quot;national&quot; injunctions is also important to allow a court to have the power to grant relief to individuals whose current location is not known perhaps, for example, because the United States government has concealed this information. For example, a national injunction allows a district court to grant relief to a parent whose child has been removed from the parent improperly to an unknown location in the juvenile immigration detention system for which the U.S. government lost track of 1,400+ juveniles due to poor record keeping.
This is what we mean when we say something falls between the cracks. Sorry for that. First off, in the United States, family law is not federal, it is individual to each state. This means there is no federal agency or official charged with enforcing family law. When it comes to marriage and divorce, the federal government and their border agents are after those seeking to gain benefit through fraud (i.e., attempting to attain status through fraudulent marriage). Likewise, they don't have formal cross-jurisdictional protocols controlling the right of the US government to demand personal, private family law records from other governments. Nor do they have the means to pursue that. What this means, in practical terms, is that no family law judge sitting in the US has authority, interest or means in international marriage and divorce beyond those cases initiated in their court. I hope you read that slowly and carefully. Ask me if you need clarification. I suspect that you have a very specific cause in mind that necessitates you being in possession of a divorce decree. And I get the impression that you and your ex-spouse are in agreement and working together to solve this. You might find it valuable, at this point, to take a step back a little further into history. Let's consider your marriage. You two know you got married. I suspect that your friends, loved ones, and hopefully family know you got married. Then there is that clerk somewhere in Denmark (who records more than 100 marriages every week) who knows you got married. Theoretically. Possibly. Maybe. You've been residing in Russia for some years now, and the Russian government doesn't know you are married. Marriage is illegal there. So, in actuality the Russian government, if asked by some official of some other government, can only state with truth and authority that it is certain that you are NOT married. At the same time, some US federal official decides to investigate the most highly unlikely case ever. Someone is trying to gain entry, not by claiming marriage but by hiding a marriage. (ridiculous!) So, with a budget of zero, and the authority to match, goes from country to country demanding that they open up the (extremely) private records of family courts in search of the evidence he needs. When they ask him to demonstrate cause, he boldly tells them that his sharp mind is cause enough. They agree and give him cups of tea as he searches through the private affairs of their residents. It is never-ending, but he is proud to be working to stop the flood of unwanted divorced persons trying to gain entry to the USA. - - - - You get the picture. Also, consider the option of an international divorce. I would provide a reference here, but a simple Google search will yield many providers. It is expensive and time-consuming, but an available option. I'd rank it last. There are also varied laws by jurisdiction - internationally. I'm not expert enough to know of any jurisdictions that might not require extended residency. I suspect some won't. I am confident, on the other hand, that there are several that you might access with relative short windows of required residency. This Wikipedia article should give you a good start. You are also maybe a little fast in dismissing Denmark as a possible venue. European Union states, at one time, experienced a tangled mess regarding family law across jurisdictions and specifically divorce. In 2003, however, the EU implemented Regulation 2201/2003 providing for conferred jurisdictional competence by way of exception in cases involving applicants for divorce similarly situated to you. And now jurisprudence, in a wonderful show, is beginning to catch up with regulation and public sentiment on the matter. The provisions seem complicated, but they are definitely outside the abilities of a couple of Russians who have managed to get this far. Here's a starting point to get the ball rolling. Aside from those three solutions, you might be stuck. You would be ill-advised to seek some creative solution outside of the law. And I struggle to think of anything that might work. Unfortunately, justice and law are often connected by a mere thread, and sometimes not at all. You are left to forge ahead on behalf of others, who enjoy the fruits of your labour. For that, you have our gratitude. And while I am no expert on the fight for justice, There is this man - an American, who is. He wasn't gay, so much as black. Be he figured out a lot regarding justice. There are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all." -Martin Luther King Jr. I salute you.
The details depend on the state, of course. The common law thing you are looking for is a writ of mandamus -- a court order to a public official to do something (or not do something) that they are required to do under the law. Writs of mandamus were traditionally only applicable to ministerial tasks (i.e. things that are basically paper-shuffling where there is little to no discretion); marriage licenses are typically considered ministerial. With discretionary actions, things are much more complicated because the government official is supposed to have significant ability to decide what should and shouldn't be allowed; mandamus doesn't apply unless there's a right to the action requested. In some cases, mandamus has been replaced with other forms of judicial review, but in Alabama it is definitely still mandamus that's involved (source: mandamus is what's previously been used to stop issuance of licenses). For federal review, which is more likely to get somewhere, the approach to use is the exact same thing that led to DeBoer (the case bundled into Obergefell that was about granting licenses), and Perry, and many of the other gay marriage cases: a lawsuit seeking an injunction or declaratory relief under 42 USC 1983, which allows actions in law and equity whenever anyone denies civil rights to a US citizen (or someone in the jurisdiction of the US) under color of law. The ultimate result of this kind of suit is a federal court order to issue a marriage license, or a declaration that it's illegal to not issue the license (and so anyone who doesn't will be subject to a court order). Violating this order, like any court order, is contempt of court.
in washington state can a divorce case last 32 months Yes. There is no limit to the possible duration of a divorce case, especially where at least one represented party has any money. This report showcases various instances of divorce proceedings that have lasted longer than the marriage itself because lawyers dragged the case for as long as they want. Being in Washington or New Jersey makes no difference. Your description, including the mention that your &quot;helper&quot; from the divorce packet babysat your kid, suggests that you have been scammed. If you want to get divorced, it is in your best interest to learn about divorce &amp; procedural laws of your state and then take the helm of your proceedings. You did not specify the conditions of the divorce packet you purchased. It is therefore unclear whether the packet provider has any duty toward you in the direction of an attorney-client relation. That being said, your husband as the adversary in the proceedings has no obligation to inform you about proceedings if he already notified the person representing you in court.
This is very, very weird. I've never heard of a case like this one. Is there some context that could explain why anyone would refile a divorce someplace new twelve years after getting divorced the first time around? The logical thing to do if Canadian civil procedure is at all analogous to U.S. civil procedure on this point, would be to have a Canadian lawyer file a motion in the Canadian divorce case to set aside the judgment on the extraordinary grounds that you were not married any longer at the time that the 2015 divorce was filed, seeking to set aside the 2015 case ruling. In most U.S. jurisdictions with civil procedural rules modeled on the federal rules of civil procedure (California's are not), this would be a motion under Rule of Civil Procedure 60, but obviously, the Canadian rule numbering would probably be different. Alternatively, if the home is in California, you could bring an action for declaratory judgment declaring that the Canadian judgment is invalid because it was brought in a divorce action between people who were already divorced and probably also lacked jurisdiction over you and the property. I'm not sure what you mean by CPL in this context. Normally, in a real estate context, a CPL would mean a "closing protection letter", but in the context you are using it, it sounds like you are referring to something akin to a lis pendens or a lien. Perhaps you mean a "certificate of pending litigation" which is another name of a lis pendens in at least some Canadian jurisdictions (but is terminology rarely used in the U.S.). This sounds like slander of title, or "abuse of process" or the filing of what is known as a spurious lien, any of which are actionable, but without knowing what a CPL actually is, it is hard to know.
united-states In the United States, divorce is a matter of state law, and each of the 50 states has slightly different laws. But in general, it is not true as a matter of law that divorced women are awarded everything but &quot;a mattress and a TV&quot;. A small number of states, of which the largest are California and Texas, are community property states. In such states, all property acquired during the marriage is generally divided equally according to the value of the assets. The majority of states, however, follow what is called &quot;equitable distribution&quot;. In such states, assuming the divorce goes before a judge (most divorces don't), the judge must determine a fair distribution of the assets acquired during the marriage. As an example, in the state of Illinois, this division should be based on factors such as: the effects of any prenuptial agreements the length of the marriage each spouse's age, health, and station in life whether a spouse is receiving spousal maintenance (alimony) each spouse's occupation, vocational skills, and employability the value of property assigned to each spouse each spouse's debts and financial needs each spouse's opportunity for future acquisition of assets and income either spouse’s obligations from a prior marriage (such as child support for other children), contributions to the acquisition, preservation, or increased value of marital property, including contributions as a homemaker contributions to any decrease in value or waste of marital or separate property the economic circumstances of each spouse custodial arrangements for any children of the marriage the desirability of awarding the family home, or the right to live in it for a reasonable period of time, to the party who has physical custody of children the majority of the time, and any tax consequences of the property division. (The exact legal phrasing of the statutes can be found in 750 ILCS 5 if you're curious.) In practice, this may result in a partner who has stayed home with the kids for 10 years getting a larger share of the shared property; such a person may have difficulty re-entering the workforce because of their lack of recent work experience. Similarly, if it is desirable to have the couple's children remain in the family home, and one partner will be receiving primary custody (perhaps because they have spent many years at home bonding with the children), then the family home may be awarded to that partner. In such circumstances, the judge may also award the other partner a larger portion of the assets than they would otherwise receive, to compensate for the loss of equity. In practice, given gender norms within Western societies, it is more likely that a woman will stay home with the children, have worse economic prospects after divorce, and be awarded primary custody of any children. An equitable distribution would therefore favor the woman under the above criteria. But the law itself does not discriminate by gender. If a heterosexual couple divorced where the woman had been the primary wage-earner and a man was the homemaker, the distribution of assets might well favor the man.
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.