Court Opinion

ID: 9519639
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:21:05.039119+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:34.794494
License: Public Domain

Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE JOHNSON, dissenting. I respectfully dissent. Fraud, in order to constitute a ground for an • annulment, must go to the essence of the marriage relationship. (Lyon v. Lyon (1907), 230 Ill. 366, 82 N.E. 850.) The degree of fraud sufficient to vitiate an ordinary contract will not afford sufficient ground for annulment of a marriage, and it is not sufficient that plaintiff relied on false representations and was deceived. (Bielby v. Bielby (1929), 333 Ill. 478, 165 N.E. 231.) In order to constitute fraud, for which an annulment of a marriage is properly decreed, the misrepresentation must be of some existing fact, as a legal or physical impediment to the marriage, it must be of something essential to the marriage relation — something making impossible the performance of the duties and obligations of that relation or rendering its assumption and continuance dangerous to health or life. Accordingly, fraudulent misrepresentations as to birth, social position, fortune, character, social standing, personal qualities, good health, and temperament are not enough for annulment. (26 Ill. L. & Prac. Marriage §53 (1956).) I do not believe the fraudulent misrepresentations involved herein go to the essence of the marriage. A case of factual similarity is Wells v. Talham (1923), 180 Wis. 654, 194 N.W. 36. In Wells, cited with approval in Lyon, the wife falsely and fraudulently represented that she was a widow, when, in fact, she had been divorced, and her prior husband was still living. The husband learned these facts, related the same to the Roman Catholic priest of his parish, and was advised that the marriage must be repudiated and he must separate from his wife or suffer excommunication. The court noted that there are accidental qualities which do not constitute the essential and material elements on which the marriage relation rests. The court continued: “It is argued that if the facts had been known to the decedent he would not have entered into the contract and therefore the decedent never gave the consent necessary to the validity of the marriage contract. In other words, the question whether the complaining party would have entered into the contract if the real facts had been known is made quite controlling as to the materiality of the false representations. There is some basis for this argument in some of the New York cases, but it is a view which we cannot accept and which is out of harmony with the decisions of this court and the prevailing rule in America.” (Wells, 180 Wis. 654, 664-65, 194 N.W. 36, 40.) A man who means to act upon such representations should verify them by his own inquiry. The law presumes that he used due caution in a matter in which his happiness for life is so materially involved, and it makes no provisions for relief of a blind credulity, however it may have been produced. I Bishop on Marriage and Divorce, par. 167. Fraudulent representations which induce the other party to marry in violation of religious principle have not been held to be sufficient fraud upon which to predicate an annulment. (Fortin v. Fortin (1965), 106 N.H. 208, 208 A.2d 447; Cassin v. Cassin (1928), 264 Mass. 28, 161 N.E. 603; Oswald v. Oswald (1924), 146 Md. 313, 126 A. 81; Boehs v. Hanger (1905), 69 N.J. Eq. 10, 59 A. 904.) The above cited cases all presented similar factual situations to the case at bar, and in all the cases the courts refused to grant annulments on such bases. In Oswald, the plaintiff sought annulment on the grounds that his wife had fraudulently represented herself to be a widow at the time of their marriage, when, in fact, her previous marriage had ended in divorce. Plaintiff argued that his Roman Catholic religious beliefs did not permit marriage to a divorcee and that, therefore, annulment was proper. In denying the annulment, the court noted: “The question is raised whether members of one church can succeed in nullifying a marriage upon false representations when the same representations would afford no cause of action to members of other churches. We are not inclined to give our sanction to such a proposition.” (Oswald, 146 Md. 313, 317, 126 A. 81, 82.) In analyzing similar facts in Boehs, the court noted that the fraud asserted was not of the essence, in spite of the fact that it contravened the plaintiff’s religious beliefs, because to hold otherwise would wrongfully enhance the church’s law above the State’s, the courts being bound to uphold and administer the latter, not the former. The court in Fortin reminds us that the weight of authority supports the rule that the concealment of a previous marriage terminated by divorce is an insufficient ground for annulment. The court said: “For better or worse we have not considered annulment of a marriage an easy substitute for legal separation or divorce. Deception in the marital quest may result in an unhappy marriage but to grant annulment ‘* * * merely because of deception regarding past conduct would in many cases in practical effect extend the divorce legislation far beyond its limits and restrictions.’ ” (Fortin, 106 N.H. 208, 209, 208 A.2d 447, 448.) In Cassin, the defendant’s misrepresentation of her prior marital status was held to be not sufficiently essential to the marriage to justify relief through annulment regardless of her husband’s religious beliefs. In Villasenor v. Villasenor (1951), 107 N.Y.S.2d 951, 201 Misc. 951, the court found that the defendant’s representation that his prior marriage had been annulled when, in fact, he was divorced was not a sufficiently material misrepresentation to justify annulment. The New York court reached this finding despite a showing by the plaintiff that her religion forbade her marriage to a divorced person. In Braun v. Braun (1955), 142 N.Y.S.2d 627, a New York court held that concealment of a prior marriage was not sufficient to warrant annulment because it did not go to the essence of the marriage contract. Although Mr. Wolfe was aware of his wife’s ex-husband being alive, he took no action until after she had filed for divorce and was seeking alimony. His complaint for annulment was filed after 11 years of marriage and 10 years after the birth of their son. For these reasons, the annulment should be denied.