Legal Question in Family Law in Florida
I have had my wife served with divorce papers, and I am waiting for a final court date. In the interim, I did some public record research and found the dates of my wife's prior marriages (4 previous). I was aware of her prior marriages and she listed (correctly I hope) myself as her 5th marriage on our 2007 marriage license application. However, I was only able to locate one divorce document from marriage #3 in 1991, and on her marriage license from 1996 she testified that it was her 2nd marriage. I have not been able to locate any further documentation regarding divorce settlements/judgements on Hillsborough county public records. I suspect my wife may not have ever been divorced from up to 3 of her prior husbands. I do not know how to go about persuing this, and I was wondering if you can give some advice regarding how common it is for the public records to be incomplete or if I may have legal action against her if she did indeed fail to officially divorce her prior hudbands. Currently, our divorce is uncontested / non-property nor children, however if I have been defrauded I wish to persue action to recover the costs of the marriage and the divorce. Thank you.
1 Answer from Attorneys
If your marriage is uncontested and you're happy with your settlement, it probably doesn't matter. Hillsborough County is not lax about record-keeping, especially not in the last twenty years, so it's very unlikely that a divorce was entered and not recorded in the computer. Is it possible her divorces occurred in other counties or states?
If she wasn't divorced, here's how it affects you:
1) You can get an annulment instead of a divorce because you were never legally married to her. You can't marry someone who is already married. That may not matter to you, but it might be nice to say, "I've never been married" or "I've never been married to her."
2) There can't be alimony awarded against you, but that doesn't sound like it's in your agreement anyway.
3) She may not be able to get any of your stuff, and you may not have to pay any of her debt, but again, that doesn't sound like that's a problem.
You can sue her for defrauding you, but what are your damages? What are the "costs" of marriage? The costs of the wedding? The filing fee for the divorce? That would work, if it's worth it. You can't get pain and suffering, but if there are hard costs with receipts, you could sue her.
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