Source: http://www.courts.state.ny.us/REPORTER/3dseries/2010/2010_02082.htm
Timestamp: 2019-01-22 14:57:09
Document Index: 765970037

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 7', '§ 7', '§ 5', '§ 6', '§ 7', '§ 1140', '§ 236', '§ 1140', '§ 140', '§ 7']

Campbell v Thomas (2010 NY Slip Op 02082)
2010 NY Slip Op 02082 [73 AD3d 103]
Prudenti, P.J., J.
Christopher Campbell et al., Respondents,
In addition, the plaintiffs submitted Nidia's affidavit in opposition to their prior motion for a temporary restraining order, in which Nidia made the following statement:
"The plaintiffs claim that I tricked [Howard] into transferring the TRS Account into my name. The fact is that I did not know that he had transferred the account until three months after [his] death. He had taken the steps to make the transfer without my knowledge or my help."
In their reply papers, the plaintiffs referred to Nidia's assertion in her prior affidavit that Howard changed the beneficiary of his retirement account without her knowledge or assistancean assertion which Nidia repeated in her affidavit opposing the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment. The plaintiffs pointed out that, in deposition testimony which they had also submitted in support of their motion, Nidia had admitted that the handwriting on the change-of-beneficiary form was hers, thus exposing the representations made in her affidavits as untruthful.
This Court concluded that the marriage between Nidia and Howard was null and void on the ground that Howard was "incapable of consenting to a marriage for want of understanding" (Domestic Relations Law § 7 [2]). The Domestic Relations{**73 AD3d at 111} Law deems such a marriage to be voidable, meaning that the marriage "is void from the time its nullity is declared by a court of competent jurisdiction" (Domestic Relations Law § 7). This status is distinct from that of certain other marriagesincestuous marriages (Domestic Relations Law § 5) and bigamous marriages (Domestic Relations Law § 6)which the law deems to be absolutely void. The distinction, however, is not that void marriages are nonexistent from the beginning, while voidable marriages are valid until declared invalid. That is the distinction between annulment and divorce. Rather, as [*5]a general rule, both void and voidable marriages are void ab initio, the difference between them being that the parties to a void marriage (and everyone else) are free to treat the marriage as a nullity without the involvement of a court, while a voidable marriage may be treated as a nullity only if a court has made the requisite pronouncement (see Sleicher v Sleicher, 251 NY 366, 369 [1929] ["A marriage procured by fraud is voidable, not void. Even so, annulment when decreed, puts an end to it from the beginning. It is not dissolved as upon divorce. It is effaced as if it had never been" (citations omitted)]; Matter of Moncrief, 235 NY 390 [1923]; Jones v Brinsmade, 183 NY 258 [1905]; Matter of Skagen v New York City Employees' Retirement Sys., 108 Misc 2d 448, 450 [1981]; Metcalfe v Cutler, 52 NYS2d 71, 73 [1944], affd 269 App Div 655 [1945]).
In Matter of Moncrief, where a child's parents were married on the day after she was born, but the marriage was later annulled on the ground of duress, the Court of Appeals held that, despite a statute providing that a child whose parents are later married was deemed legitimate, the child could not be considered legitimate because her parents' marriage was a nullity. The Court explained that, at common law, whether a marriage was void or voidable, the courts were empowered to declare it void, and "[s]uch a decree rendered the marriage void from the beginning" (235 NY at 393). Although a statute enacted in 1830 provided that certain marriages were absolutely void and certain other marriages were void "from the time their nullity shall be declared by a court of competent authority," the Court concluded that the Legislature did not intend to alter the well-established rule that, when a Court annulled a voidable marriage, the marriage was void ab initio (id. at 394 [internal quotation marks omitted]). The Court reasoned that
"[c]onsent is essential to the contract. No consent, no marriage. The court finds no consent. It, therefore,{**73 AD3d at 112} nullifies the marriage. It declares there was no marriage. From that moment the marriage is void. As we have seen a void marriage is void for all purposes from its inception. All that was meant was that no longer might husband and wife upon their own responsibility determine that they were free from the contract. Such a determination required the concurrence of the court. Only when that was obtained did the marriage become void. But when it was obtained the marriage was nullified and all the consequences of a void marriage then followed" (id.; see Jones v Brinsmade, 183 NY 258, 262 [1905] ["when a voidable marriage has been set aside by a decree of nullity, the parties are regarded as having never been married"]; Matter of Skagen v New York City Employees' Retirement Sys., 108 Misc 2d at 450 [Domestic Relations Law § 7 "would be a superfluous statute if its sole meaning were to establish that the marriage is void only from the time of a declaration by the court to that effect. The same is true of the effect of any court decree. . . . Once annulled[,] . . . [a] marriage is deemed erased as if it never took place. In that respect it is very much unlike a divorce, which serves to legally terminate a marriage deemed to have validly existed"]).
The Court of Appeals later confronted the same scenario in Gaines v Jacobsen (308 NY 218 [1954]). In that case, the Court held that the annulment of the second marriage did not revive the [*6]first husband's support obligation, noting that, at the time of the Sleicher decision, a wife was not entitled to alimony upon the annulment of a marriage, which would have left the wife in that case without any means of support if the first husband's alimony obligation had not been revived. The Gaines Court observed that the Legislature had since enacted Civil Practice Act § 1140-a (now Domestic Relations Law § 236), which allowed for spousal maintenance upon the annulment of a marriage, and concluded that the new enactment "alters the situation before us so materially that it calls for a different result in this case" (308 NY at 223). The Gaines decision then proceeded to question the "doctrinal basis" of Sleicher, in light of the enactment of Civil Practice Act § 1140-a. The Court explained that
"[t]he fiction that annulment effaces a marriage 'as if it had never been' is sometimes given effect and sometimes ignored, as the 'purposes of justice' are deemed to require. The courts and the legislature have, accordingly, attached to annulled marriages, for certain purposes, the same significance that a valid marriage would have, when a more desirable result is thereby achieved. Thus, although a distinction is sometimes made between void and voidable marriages, the annulled marriage has been given sufficient vitality to constitute valid consideration for a gift in contemplation of the marriage; to make a remarriage by one of the parties during its continuance bigamous; and, by statute in this state, to legitimatize any children born of the union.
"By writing section 1140-a into the law, the legislature has chosen, without regard to whether the marriage is void or voidable, to attach to annulled marriages sufficient validity and significance to support an award of alimony, in other words, to serve, the same as any valid marriage would, as the foundation of a continuing duty to support the wife after the marriage is terminated" (308 NY at 225 [citations omitted]).
We turn, then, to the question of whether this Court's determination that Nidia's marriage to Howard was null and void renders the marriage void ab initio for purposes of the right of election Nidia has asserted. The Domestic Relations Law provides that
"[a]n action to annul a marriage on the ground that one of the parties thereto was a mentally ill person may be maintained at any time during the continuance of the mental illness, or, after the death of the mentally ill person in that condition, and during the life of the other party to the marriage, by any relative of the mentally ill person who has an interest to avoid the marriage" (Domestic Relations Law § 140 [c]).
The most readily apparent interest a relative of a deceased spouse is likely to have in avoiding a marriage is preventing the living spouse from sharing in the deceased spouse's estate.[FN5][*7] Yet, the Estates, Powers and Trusts Law provides that a husband or wife is considered a "surviving spouse" with a right of election against the deceased spouse's estate under EPTL 5-1.1-A
"unless it is established satisfactorily to the court having jurisdiction of the action or proceeding that:{**73 AD3d at 115} (1) A final decree or judgment of divorce, of annulment or declaring the nullity of a marriage . . . was in effect when the deceased spouse died [or that] (2) The marriage was void as incestuous under section five of the domestic relations law, bigamous under section six thereof, or a prohibited remarriage under section eight thereof [or that certain other circumstances, not relevant in this case, existed]" (EPTL 5-1.2 [a]).
The Supreme Court, being a court of equity as well as law (see NY Const, art VI, § 7 [a]; McCain v Koch, 70 NY2d 109, 116 [1987]), was empowered to grant relief consistent with the equitable principle that "[n]o one shall be permitted to profit by his own fraud, or to take advantage of his own wrong, or to found any claim upon his own iniquity, or to acquire property by his own crime" (Riggs v Palmer, 115 NY 506, 511 [1889]; see Matter of Covert, 97 NY2d 68, 74 [2001]; In re Lonergan's Estate, 63 NYS2d 307 [1946]; see also Barker v Kallash, 63 NY2d 19, 25 [1984]; Carr v Hoy, 2 NY2d 185, 187 [1957]). Pursuant to this doctrine, which has been applied in both civil and criminal cases, the wrongdoer is deemed to have forfeited the benefit that would flow from his or her wrongdoing (see Giles v California, 554 US , , 128 S Ct 2678, 2683 [2008] [discussing common-law doctrine of "forfeiture by wrongdoing," under which a criminal defendant forfeits the right to confront witnesses by engaging in conduct designed to prevent a witness from testifying]; Diaz v United States, 223 US 442, 458 [1912], quoting Falk v United States, 15 App DC 446, 460 [1899] [" 'The question is one of broad public policy. . . . Neither in criminal nor in civil cases will the law allow a person to take advantage of his own wrong' "]; New York Mut. Life Ins. Co. v Armstrong, 117 US 591, 600 [1886] [person who purchased life insurance policy "forfeited all rights under it when, to secure its immediate payment, he murdered the assured" (quoted in Riggs v Palmer, 115 NY at 512)]; People v Sanchez, 65 NY2d 436 [1985] [criminal defendant who deliberately leaves courtroom during trial forfeits the right to be present at [*8]trial]; Matter of Coty, Inc. v Anchor Constr., Inc., 2003 NY Slip Op 50013[U], *27 [Sup Ct, NY County 2003], affd 7 AD3d 438 [2004] ["for example, if one party destroys evidence, wrongfully resists disclosure, intentionally absents itself, or prevents a witness from testifying, it cannot profit from its own misconduct"]).
We recognize that Nidia's conduct was not as egregious as, for example, the conduct of the defendant in Riggs v Palmer (115 NY 506, 509 [1889]), who, having been named in his grandfather's will, murdered his grandfather in an effort to obtain "speedy enjoyment" of his inheritance and to prevent the grandfather from excluding him from the will (see also In re Lonergan's Estate, 63 NYS2d 307 [1946] [surviving spouse who had murdered his wife had no right to spousal election against her estate]). Yet, while the wrongdoers in Riggs and Lonergan were already in a position to benefit from their victims' estates, in the present case, it was the wrongful conduct itself that put Nidia in a position to obtain benefits that were available by virtue of being Howard's spouse. Thus, while the measures taken by Nidia were certainly not as extreme as those taken in Riggs and Lonergan, the causal link between the wrongdoing and the benefits she sought was actually more direct in this case (cf. McConnell v Commonwealth Pictures Corp., 7 NY2d 465, 471 [1960] [for recovery to be denied on the basis of wrongdoing, "[t]here must at least be a direct connection between the illegal transaction and [*9]the obligation sued upon"]). Moreover, the facts that Nidia had known Howard for 25 years, had a close relationship with him, and had been legitimately named as one of the beneficiaries of his retirement account do not diminish Nidia's culpability. If anything, those factswhich Nidia has in common with a large percentage of perpetrators of elder abuse (see supra footnote 1)indicate that Nidia was in a position of trust, which she abused, and that she could not plausibly deny awareness of Howard's mental incapacity.
In this case, however, the marriage was wrongfully procured by Nidia, and since, as Nidia had every reason to know, Howard's mental condition would become progressively worse until his death, this was not a situation in which the marriage, though initially nonconsensual, could be ratified later by the nonconsenting spouse. Indeed, Howard's condition was such that he not only lacked any awareness that the marriage had occurred, but vehemently denied that it had when he was confronted with it. Nidia's conduct in this casemarrying Howard so close to the end of his life, [*10]with knowledge that Howard was mentally incapacitated and would never regain his mental capacity, and concealing the marriage from Howard's familywas unmistakably designed to preserve the nonconsensual marriage until Howard's death, thus ensuring that Nidia would be regarded by the law as a surviving spouse.
Ordered that the order dated January 31, 2008 is modified, on the law, by deleting the provision thereof denying that branch of the motion of the defendant Nidia Colon Thomas which was to vacate the provision of the order dated June 21, 2007 directing the New York City Teachers' Retirement System to "recognize and make Keith Howard Thomas, Peter Thomas, and Christopher L. Campbell the sole beneficiaries under Howard N. Thomas' TRS Pension Number R-7817910 (or any other account of Howard N. Thomas) with each beneficiary receiving a 1/3 share," and substituting therefor a provision granting that branch of the motion and directing the New York City Teachers' Retirement System to restore the designation of the beneficiaries of Howard N. Thomas's Teachers' Retirement System of the City of New York account to that which existed prior to the change made thereto in 2001; as so modified, the order is affirmed, with costs to the respondent Christopher Campbell.