Case Name: Saad ALBASSAM, Appellant, v. Afnaan Faize Yousef KLOB, Appellee.
Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2018-03-07
Citations: 238 So. 3d 311
Docket Number: No. 4D17–1403
Parties: Saad ALBASSAM, Appellant,
v.
Afnaan Faize Yousef KLOB, Appellee.
Judges: 
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Third Series
Volume: 238
Pages: 311–315

Head Matter:
Saad ALBASSAM, Appellant,
v.
Afnaan Faize Yousef KLOB, Appellee.
No. 4D17-1403
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
[March 7, 2018]
Jonny Kousa of The Law Offices of Jonny Kousa, P.L., Coconut Creek, and Michael R. Bass of Michael R. Bass, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.
No appearance for appellee.

Opinion:
May, J.
In this appeal from an order denying a rule 1.540 motion, the former husband argues that his 2014 dissolution of marriage judgment should be vacated because the former wife's 2000 Jordanian divorce from her first husband was invalid. We affirm the order. The former husband cannot now equitably reach back and litigate the validity of the foreign divorce entered seventeen years ago.
The former wife has been married three times. In 2000, a Jordanian court issued a divorce decree in her first marriage. She remarried and divorced a second husband. She then married the former husband in 2011.
In his 1.540 motion, the former husband argued that the Jordanian divorce from the first husband over a decade earlier was not valid under Florida law because neither party lived in Jordan when the decree was entered. He suggests the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to dissolve his marriage. The trial court denied the motion after a hearing.
We review the trial court's order for an abuse of discretion. Cunha v. Cunha , 92 So.3d 918, 919 (Fla. 4th DCA 2012).
The marriage that was dissolved by the judgment at issue is presumed to be legal and valid. Cobo v. Sierralta , 13 So.3d 493, 497 (Fla. 3d DCA 2009) (citing Stewart v. Hampton , 506 So.2d 70, 71 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987), and Grace v. Grace , 162 So.2d 314, 317 (Fla. 1st DCA 1964) ). This presumption has been recognized as "one of the strongest presumptions known to the law." Teel v. Nolen Brown Motors, Inc. , 93 So.2d 874, 876 (Fla. 1957). "The presumption of a marriage's existence grows out of long and continuous cohabitation, the establishment and maintenance of a home and family, and recognition by the public generally and their friends and associates that the man and woman are husband and wife." Lambertini v. Lambertini , 655 So.2d 142, 143 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995) (citation omitted).
Here, the former husband married and cohabited with the former wife for more than a year and a half before separating and filing for divorce. The former husband did not raise bigamy as a defense or seek to annul the marriage. In fact, he petitioned for the dissolution in Florida in September 2012, having known of the wife's Jordanian divorce entered more than 15 years ago. He did not question the legitimacy of the wife's prior Jordanian divorce throughout his marriage to her and for nearly two years after this divorce had become final.
At the hearing, the former wife's counsel explained that, pursuant to the dissolution, she had sold real property and paid off marital debts. The trial court had been the same court to issue the dissolution in 2014, and noted that it had equally divided the liabilities.
The former husband presented no excuse for his delay in raising the alleged invalidity of the Jordanian divorce. In fact, his attorney also represented his sister in selling real property as a result of the Florida dissolution judgment. He challenged the validity of the Jordanian divorce on technical legal grounds; i.e., that neither party lived in Jordan when the decree was entered.
The trial judge determined it would be inequitable to allow the former husband to attack the validity of the Jordanian divorce, relying on Keller v. Keller , 521 So.2d 273, 274-76 (Fla. 5th DCA 1988). Citing to the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 74 (1971), Keller recognized that "[a] person may be precluded from attacking the validity of a foreign divorce decree if, under the circumstances, it would be inequitable for him to do so." 521 So.2d at 274.
The rule may be applied whenever, under all the circumstances, it would be inequitable to permit a particular person to challenge the validity of a divorce decree. Such inequity may exist when action has been taken in reliance on the divorce or expectations are based on it or when the attack on the divorce is inconsistent with the earlier conduct of the attacking party.
Id. (quoting Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 74 cmt. b (1971) ).
The trial court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that it would be inequitable to allow the former husband to attack the validity of the 2000 Jordanian divorce decree in 2015 after having relied on it to marry and dissolve his 2011 marriage to the former wife.
Affirmed.
Taylor, J., concurs.
Forst, J., dissents with opinion.