Filed 5/30/18

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION THREE

In re the Marriage of SUMMER and 

ROBERT TURFE.

_____________________________________

SUMMER TURFE,

Respondent,

v.

ROBERT TURFE,

Appellant.

B276665

(Los Angeles County

Super. Ct. No. BD561532)

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los 

Angeles County, Christine Byrd and Michael E. Whitaker, 

Judges. Affirmed.

Law Offices of Marjorie G. Fuller and Marjorie G. Fuller;

Freid and Goldsman and Marci R. Levine; Turfe Law and 

Edward M. Turfe for Appellant.

Honey Kessler Amado for Respondent.

_________________________
2

Robert Turfe (husband) appeals a judgment of dissolution 

of marriage as to status only. The judgment terminated his 

marriage to Summer Turfe (wife) and reserved jurisdiction over 

all other issues.1

Husband contends the trial court erred in denying his 

request for an annulment. He asserts wife defrauded him by 

falsely promising at the time of the marriage to be bound by the 

“mahr agreement” that they entered into in accordance with 

Islamic law.2 The parties’ mahr agreement provided that wife 

would receive a copy of the Quran in the event of a divorce. The 

parties disagree as to whether the mahr agreement precluded 

wife from obtaining any other property in the event of a divorce,

and the expert testimony at trial was in conflict with respect to 

the proper interpretation of the mahr agreement.

Following a bifurcated trial, the trial court concluded that 

it was not persuaded by clear and convincing evidence that wife 

 

1 A “status only” dissolution judgment is immediately 

appealable as a final judgment on the issue of dissolution of 

marital status. (Fam. Code, § 2337, subd. (a) [early and separate 

trial on dissolution of marital status]; In re Marriage of Fink

(1976) 54 Cal.App.3d 357, 366; In re Marriage of Eben-King & 

King (2000) 80 Cal.App.4th 92, 116; Eisenberg, Cal. Prac. Guide: 

Civil Appeals & Writs (The Rutter Group 2017) § 2:62 – 2:63, 

pp. 2-47 – 2-48.)

All further statutory references are to the Family Code, 

unless otherwise specified.

2 A mahr agreement “is an agreement based on Islamic law 

under which a husband agrees to pay a dowry to his wife. 

Generally, there is a short-term portion and a long-term portion. 

The short-term portion is due immediately. The long-term 

portion is the amount that the wife is entitled to take with her in 
3

had intentionally misrepresented her intention to be bound by 

the mahr agreement in order to induce husband to enter into the 

marriage. Instead, the trial court found that the parties simply 

had different interpretations of the mahr agreement, which they 

did not discuss with one another, and that husband made the 

assumption that wife shared his interpretation of the agreement.

We conclude substantial evidence supports the trial court’s 

determination, and we therefore uphold the trial court’s decision 

which denied husband’s request for an annulment based on 

fraud, and instead, entered a judgment of dissolution of marriage.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The parties were married in 2000. Their first child was 

born in 2002, and their second child was born in 2005.

1. Pleadings.

In March 2012, wife filed a petition for marital dissolution.

In May 2012, husband filed a response to the petition, 

claiming as his separate property his post-separation earnings 

and accumulations,3 as well as other separate property assets not 

yet known. He also pled “[t]here are community and quasicommunity assets and obligations of the parties, the exact nature 

and extent of which are unknown to [him] at the present time.”

In January 2014, husband filed an amended response to 

the petition, requesting an annulment of the marriage based on 

fraud, and requesting specific performance of the mahr 

 

the event of a divorce.” (In re Marriage of Obaidi and Qayoum

(2010) 154 Wash.App. 609, 612 [226 P.3d 787].) In the mahr 

agreement at issue here, the short-term portion was five gold 

coins and the long-term portion was a copy of the Quran.

3 The date of separation is in dispute.
4

agreement. Husband’s amended response denied the existence of 

any community property and requested that all his earnings and 

accumulations during the purported marriage be confirmed as his 

separate property.

2. Bifurcated trial on the issues of nullity of marriage and 

validity and enforceability of the mahr agreement as a premarital 

agreement.

The matter proceeded to a bifurcated trial on the issues of 

whether husband was entitled to an annulment, and whether the 

mahr agreement was a valid and enforceable premarital 

agreement that would limit the property to which wife would be 

entitled in the event of a divorce.

In seeking an annulment, husband asserted that wife 

fraudulently induced him to enter into the marriage by 

pretending to accept the mahr agreement when, in fact, she never 

intended to be bound by it. Husband testified that, as a devout 

Muslim, he would never have married wife if he had known that 

she considered the mahr agreement to be purely symbolic and 

that she never intended to be bound by it in the event of divorce.

The focus of the trial was Exhibit 300, a document signed 

by the parties at the time of marriage. The document was a form 

agreement prepared by the Islamic Center of America in Detroit, 

Michigan, where the parties were married. The form was 

primarily in Arabic and provided spaces for information to be 

entered, such as the names of the bride and groom, the names of 

their parents, and the name of the imam performing the 

marriage ceremony. The form was filled in by an imam of the 

Islamic Center and was signed by each of the parties. The title of 

the document was translated from Arabic to English as 

“Marriage Certificate.” At issue was the section entitled “Dowry”
5

(as translated from Arabic to English). This portion of the 

marriage certificate is referred to as the mahr agreement. The 

certified translation of the subject mahr agreement stated as 

follows: “5 Golden coins[4] paid in advance and a copy of Quran 

deferred.”

The parties agreed that the mahr agreement is an essential 

element of an Islamic marriage, but disagreed as to its meaning 

and significance. Wife contended the mahr agreement is a 

traditional part of the wedding ceremony and that its terms are

merely symbolic. Husband’s position was that the mahr 

agreement is an enforceable contract that specifies the entirety of 

the property that wife will receive in the event of a divorce.

Both parties called religious scholars as expert witnesses 

regarding the mahr agreement. Husband’s expert was Imam 

Hassan Qazwini from the Islamic Center of America, who 

officiated at the parties’ wedding. Wife’s expert was 

Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, an imam at the Islamic Society of Orange 

County. According to both experts, a mahr agreement is required 

in order for a marriage to be valid under Islamic law. Both

experts also testified that they would not perform an Islamic 

wedding absent a mahr agreement.

The experts disagreed, however, with respect to the impact 

of the mahr agreement on wife’s entitlement to any other

property upon dissolution. Dr. Siddiqi testified there is a 

difference of opinion among Islamic scholars with respect to the 

interpretation of the mahr agreement, and that he disagreed with 

 

4 Witnesses alternatively referred to the consideration as

“5 golden liras,” but the varying translations have no bearing on 

the issues before us.
6

the position that a wife “only gets what is written on that 

document at divorce and [not] anything else.” Imam Qazwini, in 

contrast, testified that pursuant to the parties’ mahr agreement, 

wife was entitled to five gold coins at the time of the marriage, 

and a copy of the Quran at the time of divorce, and “that’s all 

she’s entitled to out of their property.”

3. Statement of decision.

After the matter was submitted, the trial court ruled in 

relevant part:

The fact that the mahr agreement was a critical personal 

issue for husband did not change the fact that, if accepted, his 

argument would invalidate the parties’ marriage based solely on 

something required by his religious beliefs but not required 

under California law. Annulment on such grounds is prohibited 

by section 420, subdivision (c).5

The trial court further found: “If the religious aspect is 

ignored and only the subject matter is considered – property 

division in the event of divorce – still it is not a proper basis for 

annulment because it is a subject on which California law does 

not require any agreement at the time of marriage. While 

California law allows for a premarital agreement on property 

division in the event of divorce, . . . such an agreement is not 

required for a marriage to be valid under California law. 

[Husband’s] position would make it a requirement simply 

because it was important to him personally. Grounds for 

annulment are limited to matters that go to the essence of the

 

5 Section 420 states at subdivision (c): “A contract of 

marriage, if otherwise duly made, shall not be invalidated for 

want of conformity to the requirements of any religious sect.”
7

marital relationship and do not include all matters, regardless of 

personal importance. [¶] . . . . [T]he Court finds that neither the 

Mahr Agreement, nor any fraud in connection with it, goes to the 

essence of the marital relationship. Consequently, [husband’s] 

claim of fraud with respect to the Mahr Agreement, even if 

proved, does not provide grounds for annulment, however 

important the Mahr Agreement was to [husband] personally.”

The trial court further found that husband’s evidence of 

fraud was insufficient. It stated: “[E]ven if the Mahr Agreement 

could constitute grounds for fraud, having heard the testimony of 

both parties and other witnesses and considered their credibility, 

the Court is not persuaded by clear and convincing evidence that 

[wife] intentionally misrepresented her intentions under the 

Mahr Agreement in order to induce [husband] into marriage.

“The parties agree that the Mahr Agreement required 

[husband] to give gold coins to [wife] at the time of the marriage 

and that it requires [him] to give her a copy of the Quran at the 

time of divorce. [Husband] contends, however, that a Mahr 

Agreement limits a wife’s property rights in the event of divorce 

and, therefore, [wife] is entitled only to the property listed in the 

Mahr Agreement. [Wife] contends that a Mahr Agreement is 

traditional and symbolic and does not limit her property rights. 

In essence, [husband] claims that the Mahr Agreement 

represents the maximum that [wife] is to receive in the event of 

divorce while [wife] claims that the Mahr Agreement represents 

the minimum that she is to receive. The fraud claimed is that 

[wife] intentionally deceived [husband] as to her views on the 

Mahr Agreement.

“The evidence presented was insufficient to establish that

[wife] intentionally deceived [husband] regarding the Mahr 
8

Agreement. The evidence did not show any back-and-forth 

negotiations between the two of them or any in-depth discussions 

during which [wife] could have misled [husband] as to her views. 

[Husband] offered the gold and a copy of the Quran and [wife]

accepted. That was it. The question of whether the Mahr 

Agreement represented a minimum or a maximum, or was 

symbolic or literal, was never discussed. It appears that 

[husband] assumed that when [wife] agreed to his terms for the 

Mahr Agreement, she also agreed with his view that the Mahr 

Agreement limited her property rights to those specified items. 

As it turned out, she did not. The evidence at trial demonstrated 

that two religious scholars, both well educated in the Islamic 

religion and traditions, also disagree on this issue, i.e., whether 

limitation of the wife’s rights to any other property is implied in 

every Mahr Agreement. The mere fact that the parties had 

different views but did not discover this until later does not 

establish that one intentionally misled the other. Proof of fraud 

requires more than proof of disagreement.”

With respect to wife’s credibility, the trial court found she

was not credible with respect to her fidelity, but “found her to be 

a credible witness on the issue of the Mahr Agreement and 

[found] that she did not engage in any misleading or deceptive 

conduct in order to induce [husband] to marry her. Having heard 

[wife] testify in person as well as in her videotaped deposition, 

the Court [was] not persuaded that [wife] could have formulated 

the fraud scheme claimed by [husband] and then continued the 

deception over the next decade of marriage, which included the 

birth of two children, all the while keeping secret something that 

[husband claimed] was so important to him.”
9

For these reasons, the trial court found husband’s evidence 

of fraud was insufficient and denied his request to annul the 

marriage on that basis.

The remaining issue was husband’s contention that the 

mahr agreement was enforceable as a premarital agreement 

limiting the property to be received by wife in the event of divorce 

to the items identified therein. The trial court concluded the 

mahr agreement did not satisfy the statutory requirements for a 

premarital agreement (see § 1600 et seq.).

6

On July 12, 2016, the trial court entered a judgment of 

dissolution as to status only, reserving jurisdiction over all other 

issues. On July 28, 2016, husband filed a timely notice of appeal.

CONTENTIONS

Husband contends: the trial court erred in denying him 

relief pursuant to section 420 because he sought annulment 

based on fraud, not based on the marriage’s lack of conformity to 

the requirements of any religious sect; wife’s deceit in pretending 

to accede to the requirements of a valid Islamic marriage 

constituted fraud that went to the very essence of the marital 

relationship, requiring that the marriage be invalidated; and the 

uncontradicted and unimpeached evidence was of such character 

and weight as to support a finding of wife’s fraud in swearing 

that she would abide by the mahr agreement.

 

6 On appeal, husband does not challenge the trial court’s 

determination that the mahr agreement was not enforceable as a 

premarital agreement. (See In re Marriage of Shaban (2001) 88 

Cal.App.4th 398, 406–407 [parties’ mahr agreement was 

unenforceable as a premarital agreement].) 
10

DISCUSSION

1. General principles governing annulment of marriage on 

basis of fraud.

The issue before this court is not the enforceability of the 

mahr agreement (see, generally, Sizemore, Enforcing Islamic 

Mahr Agreements: The American Judge’s Interpretational 

Dilemma (2011) 18 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 1085), because husband is 

not seeking to enforce the agreement. Rather, the issue is 

whether husband is entitled to an annulment of the marriage on 

the ground that wife deceived him by promising to be bound by 

the mahr agreement.

“The law in California has long been that an annulment of 

marriage may be granted on the basis of fraud only ‘in an 

extreme case where the particular fraud goes to the very essence 

of the marriage relation.’ [Citations.]” (In re Marriage of 

Meagher & Maleki (2005) 131 Cal.App.4th 1, 3 (Meagher).) 

Stated another way, “ ‘a marriage may only be annulled for fraud 

if the fraud relates to a matter which the state deems vital to the 

marriage relationship. [Citations.]’ [Citation.] As one court 

explained, ‘because of its peculiar position as a silent but active 

party in annulment proceedings[,] the state is particularly 

interested in seeing that no marriage is declared void as the 

result of fraud unless the evidence in support thereof is both clear 

and convincing. Thus[,] . . . [because] “[t]he state has a rightful 

and legitimate concern with the marital status of the 

parties[,] . . . the fraud relied upon to secure a termination of the 

existing status must be such fraud as directly affects the 

marriage relationship and not merely such fraud as would be 

sufficient to rescind an ordinary civil contract.” ’ ” (Id. at pp. 6–7, 

italics ours, original italics omitted.)
11

Meagher noted that annulments “on the basis of fraud are 

generally granted only in cases where the fraud related in some 

way to the sexual or procreative aspects of marriage.” (Meagher, 

supra, 131 Cal.App.4th at p. 7, and cases cited therein.) The 

paradigm example of such fraud is where a spouse “ ‘harbors a 

secret intention at the time of the marriage not to engage in 

sexual relations with [the other spouse]. [Citations.]’ (In re 

Marriage of Liu (1987) 197 Cal.App.3d 143, 156; accord, e.g., 

Handley v. Handley (1960) 179 Cal.App.2d 742, 746; Millar v. 

Millar (1917) 175 Cal. 797.) Similarly, ‘the secret intention of a 

woman concealed from her husband at the time of marriage 

never to live with him in any home provided by him would be a 

fraud going to the very essence of the marriage relation and of 

such a vital character as to constitute [a] ground for annulment.’

(Bruce v. Bruce [(1945)] 71 Cal.App.2d [641,] 643.) Annulment 

has also been held justified based on a wife’s concealment that at 

the time of marriage she was pregnant by a man other than her 

husband (Hardesty v. Hardesty (1924) 193 Cal. 330; Baker v. 

Baker (1859) 13 Cal. 87), or on a party’s concealment of his or her 

sterility (Vileta v. Vileta (1942) 53 Cal.App.2d 794) or intent to 

continue in an intimate relationship with a third person (Schaub 

v. Schaub (1945) 71 Cal.App.2d 467).” (Meagher, supra, 

131 Cal.App.4th at p. 7.)

Meagher continued, “In the absence of fraud involving the 

party’s intentions or abilities with respect to the sexual or 

procreative aspect of marriage, the long-standing rule is that 

neither party ‘may question the validity of the marriage upon the 

ground of reliance upon the express or implied representations of 

the other with respect to such matters as character, habits, 

chastity, business or social standing, financial worth or prospects, 
12

or matters of similar nature.’ (Schaub v. Schaub, supra, 

71 Cal.App.2d at p. 476, italics [omitted].) In Marshall v. 

Marshall [(1931)] 212 Cal. 736, 740, for example, the court 

expressly held that the trial court properly denied relief to a wife 

who sought an annulment on the basis of her husband’s 

‘fraudulent representation as to his wealth and ability to support 

and maintain’ her, when in fact he was ‘impecunious’ and subject 

to ‘harassment by creditors.’ (Id. at pp. 737–738; accord, Mayer v. 

Mayer (1929) 207 Cal. 685, 694–695 [shoe salesman’s 

misrepresentation that he owned shoe store not sufficient 

grounds for annulment].)” (Meagher, supra, 131 Cal.App.4th at 

p. 8.)

2. Substantial evidence supports trial court’s factual 

determination that wife did not deceive husband with respect to 

her intentions in entering into the mahr agreement.

The evidence adduced at trial showed the following:

The parties discussed the necessity of a mahr agreement as 

a requirement for entering into the marriage. Husband 

suggested five gold coins at the time of marriage and a copy of the 

Quran in the event of a divorce, and wife agreed. However, there 

was no discussion prior to the marriage in which the parties 

agreed that in the event of a divorce, wife would receive a copy of 

the Quran and nothing else. Further, Imam Qazwini, who 

officiated at the wedding, never told wife that “if there was a 

divorce, she would get the Quran and [husband] would keep 

everything else.” It was not until the dissolution proceedings 

that the parties learned of their discordant understandings of the 

mahr agreement.
13

Further, the parties’ respective experts, like the parties, 

differed with respect to the impact of the mahr agreement on 

wife’s entitlement to any other property.

As indicated, Imam Qazwini, on behalf of husband, testified 

that under the terms of the parties’ mahr agreement, wife was 

entitled to five gold coins at the time of the marriage, and a copy 

of the Quran at the time of divorce; “that’s all she’s entitled to out 

of their property.” Imam Qazwini acknowledged that he did not 

tell wife at the time of the wedding that she would be limited to a 

copy of the Quran upon divorce, but explained that “[i]t is 

implied, it doesn’t need to be worded that way.”

Dr. Siddiqi, wife’s expert, testified to a difference of opinion 

among Islamic scholars with respect to the interpretation of the 

mahr agreement, and that he disagreed with the position that a 

wife “only gets what is written on that document at divorce and 

[not] anything else.”

Because the parties entered into the mahr agreement 

without discussing their understandings of its impact in the 

event of a divorce, and because the expert testimony showed that 

religious scholars disagree as to whether the consideration 

specified in the mahr agreement is the sum total of what wife 

may recover in the event of divorce, substantial evidence 

supports the trial court’s determination that wife did not deceive 

husband with respect to her intentions in entering into the mahr 

agreement. The trial court properly concluded that the parties 

simply had different understandings with respect to the 

interpretation of the mahr agreement, and that husband made 

the assumption that wife shared his interpretation.

In other words, contrary to husband’s position, the mere 

fact that wife entered into the mahr agreement does not compel 
14

the conclusion that she deceived him in entering into the 

marriage. Husband’s argument that wife defrauded him when 

she agreed to be bound by the mahr agreement makes the 

assumption that there is a universal understanding of the impact 

of the mahr agreement in the event of a divorce. Although 

husband’s, and Imam Qazwini’s, view is that implicit in the mahr 

agreement is that wife would receive nothing else in the event of 

a divorce, the evidence showed there is no such consensus and 

that religious scholars disagree on that issue.

Further, although husband claims wife lied at the time of 

the marriage, when she promised to be bound by the mahr

agreement, the trial court specifically found that wife was “a 

credible witness on the issue of the Mahr Agreement 

and . . . that she did not engage in any misleading or deceptive 

conduct in order to induce [husband] to marry her.” It is settled 

that it is “not for this court to weigh the evidence or pass upon 

the credibility of the witnesses.” (Smith v. Smith (1941) 

42 Cal.App.2d 652, 654; accord, In re Marriage of Berman (2017) 

15 Cal.App.5th 914, 920.)

For these reasons, the trial court, after weighing the 

evidence, properly found that husband failed to meet his burden 

to establish by clear and convincing evidence that wife 

fraudulently induced him to enter into the marriage.

3. Other issues not reached.

Having concluded that the trial court properly rejected 

husband’s claim that wife deceived him at the time they entered 

into the mahr agreement, it is unnecessary to address whether 

such alleged fraud “ ‘goes to the very essence of the marriage 

relation’ ” (Meagher, supra, 131 Cal.App.4th at p. 3) so as to serve 

as the basis for an annulment. 
15

Because husband’s failure to prove fraud requires 

affirmance of the judgment denying his request for an 

annulment, it is also unnecessary to address the trial court’s 

additional holding that an annulment would violate section 420, 

subdivision (c) [marriage shall not be invalidated for want of 

conformity to the requirements of any religious sect].

DISPOSITION

The judgment of dissolution is affirmed. Wife shall recover 

her costs on appeal.

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

EDMON, P. J.

We concur:

EGERTON, J.

DHANIDINA, J.*

 

*

 Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, assigned by the 

Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California 

Constitution.