Court Opinion

ID: 9862705
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 01:54:30.486747+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:31:06.798317
License: Public Domain

Cliefoed, J.
(dissenting). This opinion is not the occasion for lengthy reflection on the social and legal justification for the recognition of common-law marriage, adverted to in a different context by Justice (then Judge) Francis in Danes v. Smith, 30 N. J. Super. 292, 298-299 (App. Div. 1954). Suffice it here to emphasize that the legislature, in N. J. S. A. 37:1-10, has declared that in any marriage entered into after December 1, 1939 the contracting parties must obtain a marriage license and the ceremony must be performed by or before one authorized to solemnize marriages; “and failure in any case to comply with both prerequisites aforesaid, which shall always be construed as man*169datory and not merely directory, shall render the purported marriage absolutely void.”
The majority agrees that for petitioner and decedent to have “legally” been man and wife, they would have had to comply with the marriage statute. The language of that statute is “broad and sweeping” and its terms are “unusually peremptory,” Dacunzo v. Edgye, 19 N. J. 443, 450 (1955). However, the Court puts aside the legal requirements for the relationship of “wife” as one of those dependent upon the deceased workman at the time of the accident, N. J. S. A. 34:15-13(f), and again bestows its judicial blessing upon a de facto relationship on the authority of Dawson v. Hatfield Wire & Galle Co., 59 N. J. 190 (1971).
I find no authority prior to Dawson for carving out a de facto marriage relationship for the singular purpose of creating a status entitling one to dependency benefits. Chief Justice Weintraub pointed out in his concurring opinion in Dawson that when the compensation statute speaks of a “wife,” he assumed “for present purposes that a de jure wife was intended,” 59 N. J. at 198; but he was of the view that the employer lacked the necessary standing to challenge the validity of the ceremonial marriage in that case. Justice Francis, concurring and dissenting in part, likewise saw the doctrine of a de facto wife being accorded the status of a lawful wife for purposes of workmen’s compensation as “contrary to the intention of the Legislature and the express language of the Workmen’s Compensation Act,” 59 N. J. at 200. He said:
Thus there comes into existence a g"¡í<m-marital status which was hitherto unknown to, and in fact contrary to, the law of our State, and which is to be employed in the administration of death benefits under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. As I see the legislative intention under that act and under the public policy revealed by our marriage laws, a woman is either a legal wife or she is not a wife. Unless the parties are competent to marry and actually comply with the statutory ceremonial prerequisites, they do not become husband and wife regardless of the good faith attending their assumption of the relationship. To illustrate, no matter how fervently and sin*170cerely a man and a woman agree to become husband and wife and to live together as such, in New Jersey they never acquire that status legally regardless of the length of time they live together. The Legislature has condemned common law marriage as “absolutely void.” N. J. 8. A. 37 :1-10.
I agree with this perception of the legislative intention under the Workmen’s Compensation Act.* It thus leads me to conclude that petitioner has failed to establish that she was the lawful wife of decedent. I therefore reach the same result as did the Judge of Compensation and the Appellate Division and would deny dependency benefits under N. J. 8. A. 34:15-13.
Hall, J., concurs in the result.
For reversal—Acting Chief Justice Jacobs and Justices Hall, Sullivan, and Pashman—4.
For affirmance—Justice Clifford—1.

T should add that I also find Justice Francis’s analysis and reasoning in Dawson compelling and would have been drawn to the same conclusion as he and on the same basis — that is, the strong presumption of validity of the second ceremonial marriage fortified by a presumption that the first marriage was terminated by divorce.