In a case in Kings County Supreme Court before Justice Delores Thomas, a husband filed a divorce case against his wife. The wife took action to have the marriage declared void (to have never existed). The wife provided documentation that while her attorney was looking into the appraisal of their property in the Dominican Republic, her attorney discovered her husband had been previously married and the marriage didn’t end in a divorce. The husband took the position the Dominican Republic marriage certificate referred to another man and not to him. He claimed the national identity card number on the marriage document was not his and it belonged to someone else.
Rights of Non Biological Parents
Justice Delores Thomas sitting in the Family Law part in Kings County found the husband had sought to get around the determination in Kings County concerning his divorce in the Dominican Republic on the basis that he had initiated a lawsuit in the Dominican Republic to declare his prior marriage void. The court found the father had been proceeding with declaring his prior marriage void in Dominican Republic for 3 months and he was not interested in waiting any longer. Judge Thomas found the husband’s passport showed an identification number similar to the one on the marriage certificate presented by the wife’s attorney. She found his allegation that the marriage certificate was a fraud was without merit. She also found the father’s allegation the other marriage never occurred was simply not true. The court therefore rendered a decision declaring the wife’s and husband’s marriage to be void as of the date it took place and that therefore no divorce lawsuit was necessary.
Elliot S. Schlissel and his associates represent clients concerning matrimonial and family law issues throughout the Metropolitan New York area.
