Court Opinion

ID: 9570912
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:27:29.230894+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:22:21.772701
License: Public Domain

*7Hunt, Justice,
dissenting.
In the absence of a positive legislative enactment declaring unlicensed, nonceremonial marriages to be void, common law marriages have been recognized in Georgia since at least 1860. Under OCGA § 19-3-1 the essential elements of a marriage, are (1) the parties must be able to contract, (2) there must be an actual contract, and (3) there must be consummation according to law. These three requirements must be met at one period in time in order to form a common law marriage. Brown v. Brown, 234 Ga. 300, 301 (215 SE2d 671) (1975).
When the relationship between the parties begins as an illicit arrangement, the burden is on the party asserting the validity of the marriage to show that the illicit relationship ended and that the parties did actually enter a marriage contract. [Cit.] . . . “This may be done by . . . such circumstances as the act of living together as man and wife, holding themselves out to the world as such, and repute in the vicinity and among neighbors and visitors that they are such, and indeed all such facts as usually accompany the marriage relation and indicate the factum of marriage. The evidence in each case is for the jury.” [Cit.]
Id. at 302.
1. The evidence in support of the existence of a marriage included (1) Grandisonas testimony that “I consider myself as married to Mr. Jerome Ridley. . . . He helped me to see after my child and he did not leave”; and,
Q: After you got to Georgia, did you and Jerome Ridley ever talk about getting married? A: No. I figured that we were already married. He brought me down here.
(2) A witness testified:
I knew personally what their relationship was. I knew that they had not been legally married but nonetheless I considered them married. ... To me they were a couple.
And (3) documentary evidence was presented, showing her signature as “Mae Ridley,” on a credit card application, signed also by Ridley, that classified the parties as “married”; various bills and charge card tickets that identified Grandison as “Ms. Ridley,” “Mae Ridley,” or “Mrs. Ridley”; checks that Grandison wrote on Ridley’s checking account signed by her in his name, and with his permission; and income tax returns on which Ridley claimed Grandison’s child as his son, used a filing status as head of household, and claimed the expenses of *8moving Grandison and her son from Virginia to Georgia.
2. Ridley offered as evidence the parties were not common law married that, in Virginia, each party filed separate income tax returns with Grandison filing as single and Ridley filing as head of household, while neither party ever filed a state or federal income tax return as married; the parties maintained separate checking accounts in Virginia, while in Georgia, Ridley had the only checking account; the parties maintained individual charge accounts in their own names; Grandison completed job applications in Georgia listing herself as single; Ridley listed himself as single on several work-related papers; and neither party ever introduced the other as a spouse.
3. The credit application mentioned above provides some evidence from which the jury could have found that Ridley and Grandison held themselves out as man and wife — if not “to all the world,” at least to a financial source. That evidence, however, is atomized by the following colloquy during the cross-examination of Grandison:
Q: What name is on your driver’s license?
A: Mae Katherine Grandison.
Q: And you list yourself as being single don’t you?
A: Yes I do.
Q: Okay, and when you list yourself — So we don’t get it confused — you understand that being single is not being married; is that your understanding?
A: No.
Q: In other words, if you’re single, are you married? If you’re married, are you single?
A: You’re getting the issue — single for what purpose?
Q: I mean I think either you’re single or married. I don’t think there’s any halfway into it or halfway out of it. Which way is it?
A: I am single. [Emphasis supplied.]
Q: Okay, you’re single? You have listed your other places — Now, you’ve applied and you’ve worked at several places in Georgia and you’ve applied in several other places, have you not?
A: Yes, I have.
Q: Did you list yourself as single or as being married?
A: As single. . . .
Q: Do you ever recall a single incident when he introduced you and said to someone, “This is my wife?”
A: No, I would say, no.
Q: Thank you. You never introduced him to anyone as your husband either, did you?
*9A: No.
Grandison’s statement, “I am single,” defeats her claim. That is, where both parties, as here, deny in court the existence of a marriage contract, characteristics of marriage such as those referred to in Division 1, cannot, by themselves, establish the existence of a marriage contract. I would hold that the trial court should have granted Ridley’s motion for judgment n.o.v. and, therefore, must dissent.
I am authorized to state that Justice Weltner and Justice Fletcher join in this dissent.