Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Family Law Blogs -> Florida Divorce - Child Custody - Domestic Abuse Law

Family Law

: Florida Divorce - Child Custody - Domestic Abuse Law

Divorce Absent Valid Marriage ? Again

By Janet Langjahr

A couple marry in Massachusetts. The couple adopt a child.

The couple move to Texas. One partner files for divorce.

The divorce culminates in a two day trial deciding proerty division and parenting of the couple’s child.

The family court in Austin, Texas grants the couple’s divorce. Subsequently, the Texas Attorney General intervenes to challenge the divorce.

The couple are lesbians. And Texas does not recognize homosexual marriages.

Where there is no legally valid marriage, there can be no divorce. Or so the Attorney General maintains.

And so an appellate court in Dallas concluded on similar facts. But that was Dallas.

Once the intermediate level appellate court in Austin rules, the losing party will likely take the case to the state’s supreme court.

Read more in this Austin Statesman article: Court urged to void Travis County gay divorce.

Full post as published by Florida Divorce - Child Custody - Domestic Abuse Law on December 26, 2010 (boomark / email).