Court Opinion

ID: 9627383
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:42:53.929069+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:45.461637
License: Public Domain

ORME, Judge
(concurring in the result):
I agree that the trial court’s judgment should be affirmed and agree with much of what is said in the main opinion. I write separately because I cannot agree with my colleagues’ endorsement of'the trial court’s finding that defendant’s rejection of plaintiffs proposal of official marriage shows her lack of consent under the implied marriage statute. Quite the contrary, I think it is absolutely typical of “just living together” arrangements, whether or not they have ripened into an implied marriage under our statute, that one or both parties have rejected “normal” marriage. It is at best an entirely neutral consideration, as can be readily demonstrated by this case: Did defendant refuse plaintiffs proposal because she was adamant that she wanted nothing “marital” to do with him or did she reject his proposal because she considered herself already married to him under the statute and wished to avoid, as many in this situation do, the involvement of the church or state; the hassle and expense of a license, ceremony and reception; or the embarrassment of making such a production of remarrying someone she had already married once and divorced?
Because the statute requires all six elements in order to find an implied marriage, and because the “uniform and general reputation” prong is so clearly lacking here, I see no need to reach the “consent” element. If we have to reach it, it seems to me we should do two things: First, distance ourselves from the suggestion that one who rejects a proposal for official marriage has necessarily registered her lack of consent to enter into a contract of the sort contemplated in section 30-1-4.5, and second, remand for the trial court to reassess the consent element because, unlike with its treatment of “reputation,” the trial court' here specifically tied its analysis to the incorrect “clear and convincing” standard, concluding “[tjhere is no proof to the legal standard required that Laura consented to the existence of a marital relationship after the previous divorce.” (Emphasis added.) It is obviously an open question whether the trial court would have reached the same conclusion had it ignored the irrelevant rejected-proposal evidence and employed the less onerous “preponderance” standard of proof.
*938I join my colleagues in affirming the judgment appealed from, but register my disagreement with their unnecessary — and incorrect — treatment of the consent element.