Legal Question in Family Law in Rhode Island

Re: Rhode Island (RI) common law marriage

This is a very complicated question. The answer is yes and no. If a person is common law married in Rhode Island (RI) then a marriage to a second person is not valid unless there is a Final Judgment of Divorce.

However, it is not as simple as that. If a common law marriage has not been established by a Court of competant jurisdiction then a second marriage may be tenuous in validity but perhaps not illegal.

Since there is no marriage certificate to establsih the common law marriage, whether or not there is a common law marriage depends on the factual circumstances. Therefore, the person who remarried may deny that he or she was previously common law married to the other party.

Absent a Court decree / judgment of common law marriage, the second marriage would be valid. However, the second marriage is tenuous because the spouse or heirs of the spouse could go to Probate Court or Family Court and seek to establish the validity of the common law marriage.

I would be extremely interested to know whether there are any affidavits, or documents in which the person who got remarried acknowledged the first marriage. It can get really messy if the common law spouses filed a federal tax return claiming they were married by common law and then did not get divorced but filed with a new spouse as married. The IRS may get involved if the person files "married" with the new spouse but never got divorced from the prior spouse. You should contact a Rhode Island divorce and family law attorney / lawyer Concerning this matter. Please feel free to call me.