Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/va-court-of-appeals/1884630.html
Timestamp: 2019-12-16 09:53:39
Document Index: 629736321

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Richard S. Levick v. Deborah MacDougall | FindLaw
Richard S. Levick and Deborah MacDougall married in 2002. During a divorce proceeding 10 years later, Levick asserted — for the first time — that their marriage was void ab initio. On this ground, Levick claimed that he could repudiate a marital agreement requiring him to pay spousal support and to distribute the marital assets.
The parties filed for divorce in 2011. Nearly two years into the divorce litigation, Levick filed a motion arguing for the first time that the marriage was void ab initio — that is, a “complete nullity” under the law, Jones v. Commonwealth, 293 Va. 29, 53, 795 S.E.2d 705, 719 (2017) (citation omitted) — because they had obtained the marriage license 16 days after the marriage ceremony in their home.3 This time lapse, he contended, violated Code § 20-13 and rendered the marriage void ab initio, thus placing him outside the equitable powers of the divorce court and allowing him to repudiate his marital agreement. The circuit court agreed and rejected MacDougall's arguments in support of enforcing the marital agreement.
We begin our analysis where it will eventually end — with the first premise of Virginia law governing marriages: “The public policy of Virginia ․ has been to uphold the validity of the marriage status as for the best interest of society,” Needam v. Needam, 183 Va. 681, 686, 33 S.E.2d 288, 290 (1945), and thus, the presumption of the validity of a marriage ranks as “one of the strongest presumptions known to the law,” Eldred v. Eldred, 97 Va. 606, 625, 34 S.E. 477, 484 (1899). This presumption is not unique to our Commonwealth. “[I]t will be readily conceded that English and American tribunals tend, in construing the marriage acts, to uphold every marriage, if possible, notwithstanding a non-compliance with the literal forms.” 2 James Schouler & Arthur W. Blakemore, A Treatise on the Law of Marriage, Divorce, Separation and Domestic Relations § 1191, at 1446 (6th ed. 1921). In our opinion, this robust presumption withstands all of Levick's arguments against it.
Levick contends that no precedent expressly authorizes the unconventional solemnization that he, his wife, and the rabbi agreed to complete in advance. See Appellee's Br. at 18-20; see also post at 22. True enough. But that contention inverts the burden of proof. As the party challenging the validity of his marriage, Levick bears the burden of proving that it violates Virginia law. See Parker v. American Lumber Corp., 190 Va. 181, 185, 56 S.E.2d 214, 216 (1949). He attempts to shoulder that burden by asserting that Code § 20-13 requires every marriage in Virginia to be licensed and solemnized. Again, this statement is true. But, as the marriage certificate attests, the couple was married on January 21, 2003 — 15 days after he and MacDougall reaffirmed their mutual intent to marry by forwarding their marriage license to the rabbi pursuant to their earlier agreement.7
Levick's contrary view — that “ceremony” and “solemnization” should be treated as exact synonyms — fails to take into account that the Code of Virginia uses the two words for different purposes in different contexts. Compare, e.g., Code § 32.1-267(C) (requiring a “person who officiates at a marriage ceremony” to file the marriage certificate “within five days after the ceremony”), with, e.g., Code § 20-13 (stating that “[e]very marriage in this Commonwealth shall be under a license and solemnized in the manner herein provided”). Although the rabbi may have violated Code § 32.1-267(C) by not filing the marriage certificate within five days of the marriage ceremony that he officiated, neither that statute nor any other statute mandates that the officiant's violation voids the celebrants' marriage. They have no control of whether he files the certificate five, six, or sixty days later. The legal validity of their marriage cannot be so easily extinguished.
Levick also makes much of the fact that the rabbi violated Code § 20-28, which prohibits an officiant from “perform[ing] the ceremony of marriage without lawful license.” Perhaps the rabbi did violate the statute. But his violation of Code § 20-28 does not affect the only two requirements to create a valid marriage under Code § 20-13 — a license and solemnization. “[L]egislation commanding formalities, even punishing those who celebrate marriage contrary to its provisions, or punishing the parties themselves, will not render a marriage had in disregard of it void, unless the statute expressly or by necessary implication declares this consequence.” 1 Joel Prentiss Bishop, New Commentaries on Marriage, Divorce, and Separation § 449, at 192 (1891); see also 2 James Kent, Commentaries on American Law 86-92 (1827) (noting that violations of various statutory regulations of marriage, while they may impose penalties on the officiant, do not ultimately affect the validity of the marriage).12
Finally, Levick turns to Code § 20-14.1, which states in part that a marriage license constitutes “authority for a period of only sixty days from the date of issuance for the solemnization of a marriage of the licensees.” The marriage license issued to Levick and MacDougall, however, was obtained 15 days prior to the culmination of their solemnization agreement — the day on which the rabbi received the marriage register and executed the marriage certificate as promised. Code § 20-14.1 does not address, much less prohibit, the unique sequence agreed to by Levick, MacDougall, and the rabbi. Levick's reliance on Code § 20-14.1 thus rests on the unproven assumption that the last moment of their ceremony ended solemnization as a matter of law.
On several points, we must regrettably part company with our dissenting colleagues. As noted earlier, Code § 20-13 does not say anything about the required manner and sequencing of solemnization. Nor do any other statutes require that a marriage in violation of the dissent's view of solemnization be judicially declared void ab initio — a remedy the General Assembly usually makes quite clear when it intends the courts to award it. See, e.g., Code § 20-43 (declaring bigamous marriages “absolutely void”). Because our duty “is not to make law, but to construe it,” Saville v. Virginia Ry. & Power Co., 114 Va. 444, 452, 76 S.E. 954, 957 (1913), we resist Levick's invitation to interpolate into the marriage statutes an unwritten solemnization requirement that, if violated, would treat a marriage as void ab initio, a legal nullity subject to challenge at any time by anyone.14
Solemnization, therefore, occurred when Levick and MacDougall obtained the marriage register and forwarded it to the rabbi pursuant to their agreement, which they made with him in person at the earlier ceremony, and the rabbi thereafter executed the marriage certificate in accordance with their agreement. By doing so, Levick and MacDougall repeated and reaffirmed to the officiant their joint, unqualified intent to marry — an intent that Levick has never once disavowed. Nothing in any statute or case law forbids Levick and MacDougall from verifying their intent to marry in this manner.15
Even further afield is the speculation over the validity of underage marriages, post at 35-36, “indefinite secret period[s] during which an apparent marriage is in legal limbo,” post at 36, limitation periods for annulment proceedings, post at 36, and “young lovers” who immediately betray each other, post at 37-38. This “parade of horribles,” see, e.g., Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 137 S. Ct. 1773, 1783 (2017), involves factual circumstances wholly dissimilar from the case that we now decide. Though we need not, and should not, offer advisory opinions on such hypotheticals, we can disclaim with confidence the dissent's effort to predict them. As we recently emphasized, “all statements of law” in our judicial opinions “are to be read in connection with the facts of the case to which they are to be applied.” Funny Guy, LLC v. Lecego, LLC, 293 Va. 135, 160, 795 S.E.2d 887, 900 (2017) (quoting Ellerson Floral Co. v. Chesapeake & Ohio R.R., 149 Va. 809, 812, 141 S.E. 834, 835 (1928)).
The dissent's remedy for these unspecified “innumerable problems,” post at 37, however, would be to compound them — as this case so poignantly illustrates. Levick and MacDougall believed that they were legally married from 2003 to 2013, the period of time before Levick first came up with his argument to challenge the validity of the marriage during the midst of divorce litigation. MacDougall still believes that she is married today. The dissent's reasoning, however, sets aside over 10 years of their marriage by declaring it void ab initio. A legal transaction deemed void ab initio can be challenged by any person, in virtually any proceeding, for any reason precisely because the transaction, in the eyes of the law, does not exist. See Singh v. Mooney, 261 Va. 48, 52, 541 S.E.2d 549, 551 (2001); Toler v. Oakwood Smokeless Coal Corp., 173 Va. 425, 432, 4 S.E.2d 364, 367 (1939). No Virginia court has ever applied such a potent remedy to a legal challenge to marriage like the one asserted in this case.
In taking the void-ab-initio path, the dissent overlooks the significant hardships its reasoning would cause. Creditors of one spouse could seek to strip a couple of the protection of a tenancy by the entirety through a challenge to the validity of the marriage, even when the couple is happily married and wants to remain so. See, e.g., Baker v. Speaks, 334 P.3d 1215, 1221-24 (Wyo. 2014). Every legal benefit afforded to lawfully married couples — such as joint-filing status for federal and state income tax filings; rights under wills, trusts, and other estate-planning instruments; beneficiary status in retirement and insurance policies; and a variety of similar benefits that presuppose the existence of a lawful marriage — could be retroactively challenged and expose both parties to the allegedly invalid marriage to a host of unforeseeable financial consequences. See generally 1 Homer H. Clark, Jr., The Law of Domestic Relations in the United States § 3.6, at 246-56 (2d ed. 1987) (discussing the “bewildering variety of situations” arising from the potential retroactive effects of void marriages on certain rights and obligations that turn upon the existence of a valid marriage).
■ whether Code § 20-13, if violated under this sequence of events, provides a mandatory, as opposed to a mere directory, statutory requirement; 19
■ whether a violation of Code § 20-13, if proven, could be cured by Code § 20-31;20
■ whether an allegedly completed marriage, if found to be invalid and incurable, would be declared void ab initio, as the circuit court held, or merely voidable, as the Court of Appeals held;21
■ whether a party in Levick's position would be precluded by the doctrines of equitable estoppel or laches from challenging the validity of his marriage; 22 and
■ whether the marital agreement should be enforced despite a mistaken assumption by the parties at the time of executing it that their marriage was lawful.23
7. Before the circuit court and the Court of Appeals, Levick relied upon an unpublished, per curiam opinion from the United States District Court of the Virgin Islands, In re Khalil, No. 2001/183, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6229 (D.V.I. Apr. 4, 2003). In that case, the federal district court interpreted a marriage statute of the Virgin Islands. The Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands, however, later repudiated Khalil as an erroneous interpretation of its marriage statute. See Hamed v. Hamed, 63 V.I. 529, 540 (2015). Holding that “the fact that [the couple] failed to obtain a license prior to solemnization of their marriage — without more — did not render their marriage invalid,” the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands rejected Kahlil's judicial interpolation of such a requirement into the marriage statute. Id. at 542. That court further discounted Khalil as an unpublished, per curiam opinion, which, as the court issuing Khalil had “itself decreed,” should be regarded as having no “precedential value.” Id.
8. The dissent relies upon an unpublished Court of Appeals opinion, for the proposition that “whatever formalities the [solemnization] requires, at the very least it requires the attendance of both the prospective bride and groom.” Post at 31 n.13 (alteration in original) (quoting Davidson v. Davidson, No. 2356-08-3, 2009 Va. App. LEXIS 313, at *5 (July 14, 2009)). Davidson is completely dissimilar from the present case. To begin, the dissent substitutes “solemnization” for the word “ceremony” in the Davidson opinion — two words that both the majority and dissent agree should not be treated as exact synonyms. See supra at 9-11; see also post at 24 n.3. Second, the ceremony was the only evidence of solemnization in Davidson, which is not true here. Finally, the bride in Davidson made an agreement with the officiant after the ceremony and outside the presence of the groom to re-sign the marriage certificate with a later date of marriage. In this case, both celebrants and the officiant agreed before the ceremony to an alternative solemnization.
9. See, e.g., Bowman v. Bowman, 24 Ill. App. 165, 172 (1887) ( “We think the word ‘solemnized,’ as used in our statute, is not to be construed as meaning only a ceremonial solemnization, whether religious or official ․”); Dyer v. Brannock, 66 Mo. 391, 396-97, 417-18 (1877) (upholding the validity of a marriage solemnization in which the couple merely announced before several family members and strangers their agreement to live together as husband and wife, “to which they both assented by an inclination of the head”); Pearson v. Howey, 11 N.J.L. 12, 17-21 (1829) (“It was never held essential to the validity of the [marriage] contract that it should be made in any particular place, or in the presence of one person more than another, provided that it could be sufficiently proved.”).
18. See also Board of Supervisors of Loudoun Cty. v. State Corp. Comm'n, 292 Va. 444, 453 n.8, 790 S.E.2d 460, 464 n.8 (2016); Hampton Rds. Bankshares, Inc. v. Harvard, 291 Va. 42, 52, 781 S.E.2d 172, 177 (2016); Wooten v. Bank of Am., N.A., 290 Va. 306, 312 n.6, 777 S.E.2d 848, 851 n.6 (2015); Commonwealth v. Swann, 290 Va. 194, 196, 776 S.E.2d 265, 267 (2015); Alexandria Redev. & Hous. Auth. v. Walker, 290 Va. 150, 156, 772 S.E.2d 297, 300 (2015).