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Court of Appeal:
Bigamist Is Not Barred From Receiving Spousal Support
By a MetNews Staff Writer
A woman who participated in a 2011 marriage ceremony unaware that a divorce for which she had petitioned in 2006 had not been finalized and, once she became aware of the bigamy, never revealed it to her supposed second husband, was properly awarded spousal support from him following their separation in 2020, Div. Two of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has declared in a case with a singular fact situation.
Jessica Vulovic, proceeding in pro per, filed for a dissolution of her marriage to Alexander Vulovic in 2006; she apparently had the notion that a divorce would automatically become final in six months; she purportedly married Pedro Aviles in March 2011; two months later, in seeking support from Alexander Vulovic, a judge advised her at a hearing that she was still married because there was no judgment in her dissolution action.
She did not mention this revelation to Aviles. Even after she obtained a final judgment of divorce in March 2012, she didn’t happen to bring the matter up with the man who supposed that he was her lawful spouse.
The 2011 wedding had taken place in Las Vegas and, inferably from the opinion, not in a church. At Aviles’s urging, a wedding ceremony was conducted in a Catholic church in April 2013, and vows were again exchanged in September 2013, before 200-or-so guests, at a winery.
Mo Marriage Certificate
However, civil formalities were not observed; there was no marriage certificate.
Aviles did not learn of the invalidity of the 2011 marriage until after he filed for divorce in 2020.
There was no valid marriage, Aviles asserted, in opposing Jessica Vulovic’s motion for spousal support. He pointed to Family Code §2201(a) which declares that “[a] subsequent marriage contracted by a person during the life of his or her former spouse, with a person other than the former spouse, is illegal and void” unless the previous marriage had been dissolved or nullified, or if the previous spouse is, by law, presumed dead.
Nor was the woman to whom he thought he had been wed was a “putative spouse,” entitled to treatment for some purposes as an actual spouse, he maintained, in light of having committed bigamy.
Contention Rejected
In an opinion filed Thursday, Presiding Justice Manuel A. Ramirez responded: “Pedro notes that a person who marries a bigamist in reliance on the bigamist’s false representation that he or she is unmarried can be a putative spouse. He leaps to the conclusion that a bigamist can never be a putative spouse, because he or she is never relying on the other spouse’s false representations. However, this is only one example of a putative spouse. We see no reason why a person who believes, mistakenly but in good faith, that he or she has been divorced cannot qualify as a putative spouse.”
In support of that proposition, he cited a Florida case and a Louisiana case.
The presiding justice continued:
“Pedro ‘challenge[s]’ Jessica to find a ‘case in California in which the bigamist spouse has been determined to be a putative spouse.’ Actually, it is Pedro, as the appellant, who has the burden of demonstrating that the trial court erred. But in fact, there is a case that supports Jessica’s position….”
He pointed to Estate of Hafner, decided Aug. 27, 1986 by Div. Three of this district’s Court of Appeal. In that case, both parties to a purported marriage were bigamists; Charles Hafner knew that he was, but Helen Hafner thought, erroneously, that she had obtained a divorce and was unaware that her supposed new husband was not lawfully wed to her.
The court said:
“We note that Charles was not the putative spouse of Helen. That status belongs only to the party or parties to a void marriage who the trial court finds to have believed in good faith in the validity of the void marriage….The trial court did not so find in this case.
“Helen was the putative spouse….of Charles….”
Family Code Section
The opinion cites Civil Code §4452, which is now Family Code §2251. Subd.(a) provides:
“If a determination is made that a marriage is void or voidable and the court finds that either party or both parties believed in good faith that the marriage was valid, the court shall: [¶] (1) Declare the party or parties to have the status of a putative spouse.”
Ramirez relied on that section in responding to Aviles’s contention that once Jessica Vulovic realized in May 2011 that she was still married, she ceased to be a putative spouse. He wrote:
“Putative spouse status, however, requires that the spouse ‘believed in good faith that the marriage was valid’…— i.e., in the past, at the time of the marriage. It does not require that the spouse ‘believe’ the marriage is valid in the present. That requirement would be unworkable; such a spouse would not realize that he or she needs to prove putative spouse status.”
1948 Decision
Aviles maintained that the 1948 Court of Appeal decision in Lazzarevich v. Lazzarevich supports his position.
There, the parties were married in 1921; the husband sued for divorce and an interlocutory decree was entered on March 18, 1932; unbeknownst to him, his lawyer had a final decree entered on Sept. 6, 1933; the parties reconciled in July 1935, thinking they were still married; on Aug. 10, the woman’s lawyers, whom she consulted about getting a divorce, advised her of the 1933 final divorce decree.
The parties separated from Aug. 1, 1945, until Oct. 1, 1945, and they lived together until April, 1946. The woman sued in quantum meruit for services performed for her former husband from July 1935, to April 1946, “cooking for him, washing defendant’s clothes, and performing the entire household services for defendant.” The Superior Court awarded her damages for that full period, but the Court of Appeal held that her cause of action terminated upon learning of the final divorce decree, saying:
“The essence of the right of a putative wife to recover for services rendered the putative husband is her belief in the validity of a marriage between them. After August 10, 1945, plaintiff was no longer an innocent, deluded, putative wife. She no longer believed that she was defendant’s wife. She knew that she was not. The relationship between the parties was meretricious after October 1,1945. Plaintiff was fully aware of the nature of the relationship.”
Case Found Inapposite
Ramirez found that case inapplicable, explaining:
“…Lazzarevich held that knowledge that the marriage was invalid cut off the wife’s right to recover in quantum meruit. The case has no bearing on a putative spouse’s right to recover spousal support or attorney fees. A spouse is entitled to these even after separation—indeed, even after divorce—based on the fact that a marriage used to exist. Likewise, a putative spouse is entitled to them based on the belief that a marriage used to exist, even though that belief has since been dispelled.”
He declared:
“We conclude that the trial court properly found that Jessica was, at a minimum, a putative spouse. We therefore need not decide whether the April 2013 or September 2013 ceremonies gave rise to a lawful marriage.”
The case is In re Marriage of Aviles and Vulovic, 2022 S.O.S. 2478.
Jessica Vulovic has pled not guilty in Riverside Superior Court to one count of embezzlement and one count of grand theft in connection with $50,502.49 allegedly taken from a fund set up to benefit students at Great Oak High School in Temecula. She is due in court July 19 for the purpose of exploring the possibility of an agreed upon disposition.
Two Days Earlier
The opinion by Ramirez came just two days after his division rendered an opinion in another case involving a bigamous marriage. In that case, a woman married a man in Lebanon knowing that he already had a wife there.
However, polygamy is lawful there.
One San Bernardino Superior Court judge held that the marriage was lawful; a second judge of that court ruled that while it was lawful under Lebanese law, it was void under California law, citing Family Code §2201(a).
The woman appealed from a judgment of nullity, and Div. Two affirmed, in an opinion by Justice Codrington who said:
“[A]lthough normally…the law of the jurisdiction where a marriage is entered determines whether the marriage is valid, California law supersedes the other jurisdiction’s law if the marriage violates California public policy against bigamy.”
That case is In re Marriage of Elali and Marchoud, 2022 S.O.S. 2460.
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