Court Opinion

ID: 9784893
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 20:57:08.154395+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:00.829011
License: Public Domain

ZIMMERMAN, Justice,
concurring:
[ 48 I concur in that portion of the opinion of Associate Chief Justice Durham that holds that a proceeding for the determination of marriage must be commenced within a year, but not completed. That is a more reasonable interpretation of the statute, and it seemingly protects the state's interest in avoiding fraud.
149 I concur in that portion of Justice Russon's opinion to the extent it holds that intervention pursuant to the stipulation was properly permitted. Justice Durham looks to cases from other jurisdictions concerning interventions in divorcee proceedings for guidance, and then applies those rules and policies to a proceeding to determine a marriage, labeling the situations "analogous." She would hold that a party in Metropolitan's situation cannot be permitted to intervene, even on stipulation, because it would violate public policy. I cannot accept the easy public policy analogy Justice Durham draws between determination of marriage actions under the Utah statute and actions brought to end an existing legal marriage, particularly where the proceeding to determine a marriage appears to have been commenced solely to give Gonzalez legal entitlement to claim under the insurance policy and to sue Metropolitan. In such a situation, I would hold that the company's interest is not so speculative that Gonzalez cannot be permitted to agree to have the company's challenges adjudicated in the determination proceeding. It may have been tactically unwise for Gonzalez to have stipulated to the intervention in that context, but she did so. I see no overriding public policy against permitting that stipulation to be made effective.
150 Unlike Justice Russon, however, I would not address the broader question of when third parties may properly be permitted to intervene in adjudications concerning a marriage over the objections of a party to the actual or putative marriage in question. Therefore, I do not join in that portion of Justice Russon's opinion.