(bolding mine)
The claimaint also held them out as married.
blindboyard, thank you for clarifying your position. I understand where you’re coming from a lot better now.
I’m not sure it matters to the common law marriage point, but I don’t see that in there. The only part of the opinion that addresses holding yourself out as married, that I see, is the sentence: “Although the couple was never formally married, Kelley [the defendant] often held out the couple as husband and wife.”
Duh, you’re right. My mistake.
I think that you are dramatically undervaluing the value of childcare. When I had a child in full time day care, that cost approximately $1,200.00 a month. I assume that she was cooking for the family as well and picking up the kids at school. Your workday is a lot more productive when you aren’t scrambling to leave to go get your kid from school and hustle him (or her) to soccer practice, karate, etc. Some families I know, hire a nanny to do all that. I wouldn’t undervalue her contributions to the household.
Returning to the case, alleging that this was a meretricious relationship was a failed defense. The trial court didn’t buy it and the appeals court held that the trial court didn’t screw up.
From a cursory reading of the decision, the defense arises from the codified principle that a contract to do something immoral or illegal can’t be enforced. The Georgia Supreme Court has held that a couple living together without being married are living in an immoral situation and in a meretricious relationship. There is nothing relating to prostitution. The Court held that the defense didn’t apply because the underlying contract to get married isn’t for an immoral purpose.
I’m not sure why common law marriage is being discussed. It isn’t relevant to the discussion. Georgia doesn’t seem to recognize Common law marriage and if it did, then the case would have been decided as a divorce case.
The decision itself revolves around whether he promised to marry her or not, and whether at the time he made the promise, he had any intention of following through is what the decision is about.
The plaintiff’s attorney bemoaned the lack of common law marriage in Georgia; Falchion denied that the case looked anything like common law marriage. It’s a side point, but that’s why it’s being discussed.
My understanding of the plaintiff’s theory is something like this:
-Kelley enjoyed the relationship, including presumably the sex, the free childcare, the housework, the companionship, etc.
-So did Cooper.
-Cooper was only willing to stay in the relationship if she thought it’d turn into a formalize marriage at some point.
-Kelley didn’t want that: he wanted the relationship but not marriage (for whatever reason).
-Kelley did everything he could to convince Cooper he wanted marriage, including presenting them as husband and wife, buying her an engagement ring, a card that called her a wife, and so on.
-Cooper believed him, and stayed with him based on that belief.
-Kelley never intended to marry her. Ergo fraud.
I agree. Her theory of the case is “He tricked me! He never wanted to marry me!” If that is true, as they have convinced a jury that it is, then they wouldn’t be married under the common law.
I think the attorney spoke a little too much and really meant that the evidence of an intent to be married under the common law would have been a much easier case, and his argument for intent to be married under the common law would have been easier than his argument (under the same facts) of a lack of intent to be married under the current law. *smacks head. He’s pretty much admitting that his representation to the court of the relevant facts would have been different based upon the theory of law he was arguing.
Further, the Court’s rationale about the meretricious relationship is misplaced. Sure the ultimate “reward” under the contract was marriage, but the means to achieve it (on both sides) was meretricious. It would be like me offering to pay someone $1M to deliver cocaine across the border, and the court finding that it was enforceable under the guise that there is nothing illegal amount paying someone money. This interpretation swallows the whole “can’t recover for illegal or immoral conduct” doctrine by picking out one objective that isn’t illegal or immoral.
Not necessarily, from my reading of Wikipedia. It looks like common-law marriage is evidenced by holding yourself out as married to the community. If the law existed, there’d be no possibility for fraud about the common-law marriage part, because the mere fact of calling themselves married to the community would be sufficient evidence that they were already married. The fraud wasn’t over whether they were already married, it was over whether they would ever be married formally (which is the only sort that exists in GA).
If there were common-law marriage in GA, it’d be reasonable to hold the fraud and the common-law ideas simultaneously: he defrauded her by claiming that one day he’d marry her formally, but meanwhile they were common-law married.
As I said, I’m not convinced by what I’ve read of the fraud ruling, but I wasn’t there and didn’t hear all the facts. From what I’ve read, the guy sounds like a sleazebag who knew neither his own mind nor how to keep it in his pants; he doesn’t necessarily sound smart enough to carry out this sort of fraud. In any case, through some weird legal maneuvers, it looks like justice was ultimately served, since for all intents and purposes their partnership built their familial wealth together, and she should be entitled to some of it when their informal family broke apart.
I don’t get that at all. They say that the illegal cohabitation was collateral to the contract, and that the illegal acts (living together–thanks, Georgia morons!) are severable from the enforceable contract.
You might argue that the financially costly acts she took in response to the proposal–specifically, quitting her job and raising their children and maintaining the household–are acts associated with cohabitation. Well, sure, they are–but they wouldn’t be illegal if separated from sex. She could certainly raise their kids and maintain the house without sleeping with him. You can sever the “sleeping with him” part from the arrangement and still have an enforceable contract.
I hestitate to weigh back into this again with you. But, under Georgia law when common law marriage existed (and as I understand every common law jurisdiction), you need to show actual intent to marry (in Georgia, “holding yourself out” is evidence of actual intent, for obvious reasons). But I think the “fraud” theory would undermine the “actual intent” showing, becuase it shows the opposite. But, in addition, “common-law married” is married (where it exists). Sure, they could go get it solemnized later, but they woud be no more or less married than if they didn’t. So that becomes a really weak fraud case since the promise becomes akin to promising her an aniversary party or a nice christmas gift. I guess conceptually, if I tell my wife that I’ll throw her a nice party if she cleans the bathroom, but I don’t mean it, that would be a twisted relationship, but actionable fraud?
A basic requirement of all marriages, including common law marriages is that each party must consent and have the intent to be married. The Plaintiff’s whole case was that Kelley’s actions regarding marriage were all a ruse, and that his talk of her being his wife and buying the engagement ring were acts of fraud. If true, he didn’t intend to be married to her, thus no common law marriage.
For your second point, if you wanted to argue that the sex was severable from the contract, such that the jury should believe that this was primarily a household services contract with sex as an added gratuitous bonus, that would probably work out as well as beating a prostitution rap by saying that I paid for the date, but the sex was free.
I still argue the construction. The court held that it was legal because promise in exchange for marriage led to her damages in the form of financial harm in order to cohabit with him. The court says that the ultimate goal was marriage, so no harm.
What if she killed his current wife in order to marry him but he backed out? Since the ultimate goal was marriage, is it a good contract and she is owed $2.14 for the bullet she used on the wife?
Well, sure, but I think that’s significant. Given exactly the same facts, we have two universes:
- In this one, with no common-law marriage in GA, the promise was non-trivial and therefore the fraud was actionable, but there’s no post-divorce division of property.
- In an alternate universe, one with common-law marriage in GA, the promise was trivial and the fraud is not actionable, but there’s post-divorce division of property.
The attorney was suggesting that universe 2 would have made things much simpler, not suggesting that he would have argued a different set of facts in universe 2.
That IS what was argued (edit-minus your “gratuitous bonus” nonsense), and the reasoning I described is what the appeals court said. Either:
- You think that you could beat a prostitution rap with the reasoning you describe, because you think it’s similar reasoning and clearly it worked in this case; or
- You disagree with my summary of the appeal court’s reasoning; or
- You haven’t read the appeal court’s judgment.
This analogy is so bad, I can’t even figure out where you think it works. Is buying a bullet comparable to cleaning house or something? Do you think it’s impossible to have sex with someone unless you’ve cared for their kid first? It doesn’t make any sense at all.
The extent of my point is only that I think the bolded is wrong (I mean, that may have been what he was suggesting, but I think that can’t be right). It seems to me (and, apparently, the dissenting judges) like this really would have been better as a common law marriage claim; I don’t like these sorts of quasi-marriages by judicial construction, but the facts (as accepted by the trial court) make this a good case for having common law marriage.
That being said, here the woman argued that the man never intended to marry her (hence the fraud), if there were common law marriage, she would have had to argue that he did intend to marry her. That’s all I mean by them being inconsistent.
The woman argued he never intended to formalize marriage with her, but he intended to represent to her and the community that they were married. If common-law existed, she wouldn’t have needed to change the argument, it’s just that the “never intended to formalize marriage with her” part would be irrelevant. The facts would be exactly the same.
Edit: to be clear, one reason he might have committed this fraud is because he wanted to keep an easy out for himself: he wanted to be able to walk away from her at the time of his choosing and owe her nothing. Had he been honest about his intentions with her, she would have left earlier, thus the fraud. Had there been common-law marriage laws, his fraudulent acts would themselves have transformed his claims into truth, making it a common-law marriage, and he wouldn’t have been able to get away with leaving her with nothing anyway.
The court hand waives it by calling it a collateral matter, yet uses her actions of quitting her job and cohabiting with him to establish damages.
If cohabitation was a collateral matter, and not an expected part of the contract performance, then she is not damaged by doing something gratuitous. It is simply a gift on her part.
If it is not a collateral matter, and was expected to be done as part of the promise to marry, then the contract is void as meretricious.
The court seems to be mixing two doctrines to get at the result they want.
Quitting her job is damage to her. Was that illegal?
Did the promise of marriage require (explicitly or otherwise) her to quit her job so that she could cohabit with Kelley?
ETA: IOW, why couldn’t she keep working yet still marry Kelley?
I think I see what you’re saying. You’re saying (as I understand it) that in a CLM regime, she would argue that he intended to represent himself to her and the community as married (but he didn’t mean it). She wouldn’t argue that he didn’t mean it, though, becuase that would negate actual intent. She would argue that he intended to be married and now he’s lying about it to try to get out of being married. I don’t know if CLM has some sort of “reasonable reliance” doctrine (it wouldn’t surprise me), but if not you would still need to claim that he actually intended to marry her (not just hold themselves out as married). So, really, it would be him claiming that it was a fraud.
Right. That’s what I meant by the attorney saying too much. He basically said that he would argue different facts had CLM been the law. No matter what the theory, he wants his client to recover so he will shift the facts. Just like the court wants to work around its binding precedent that cohabitation is a bar, by constructing this holding so that this isn’t really about cohabitation.
I’m sorry–I’ve read this several times–I’m not sure how the second and third sentences work. It looks to me like you say “She would argue that . . . he didn’t mean it. She wouldn’t argue that he didn’t mean it.” Does “it” refer to something different in these two sentences?
I’m saying she’d argue that he put himself out as married to her, but didn’t intend to formalize the ceremony. Under CLM, the formalization is meaningless AIUI, so legally it wouldn’t be fraud; but it wouldn’t be arguing different facts. In the current scenario, he also put himself out as married to her, but didn’t intend to formalize the ceremony; since under GA law that formalization is significant, it was fraud.