Divorce Attorney - Fault Based Divorce in Louisiana

In Louisiana, a spouse may obtain from a trial court a fault-based end to their marriage (often done with the assistance of a divorce attorney) by showing adultery or a felony conviction at hard labor. Many spouses seek to prove that the other spouse has committed adultery in order to obtain an immediate end to the marriage, but the complaining party must allege that the act was actually and in fact committed. (This can be difficult to do, as courts in Louisiana are often reluctant to label a spouse with the label of adultery, for instance, without some fairly strong evidence that it did in fact occur.)

For example, Harold and Diana are married. After three years of marriage, Harold notices a change in Diana's behavior. She is never available to eat lunch on her lunch break and she comes home late every night. What's even more is that on Friday and Saturday nights she goes out partying until the sun comes up, and she has recently has contacted a divorce attorney. Taking all of this evidence collectively, Harold reaches the conclusion that she is having an affair with someone else. He doesn't have any hard facts are conclusive evidence other than the circumstantial evidence from which he derives his inference.

In this particular fact pattern, a divorce attorney might be reluctant to file a petition on this as a court will likely not grant him an end to his marriage based upon adultery. Why? Well he doesn't have any evidence to prove that the act of adultery has actually happened. He simply takes situations which may or may not be conducive to having an affair, and jumps through leaps of logic to reach his conclusion. For the most part, this is usually not enough. If he had a video camera or pictures of Diana going into a hotel at three in the morning with another man to provide to his divorce attorney this may in fact be more conclusive and the court may be inclined to grant Harold's fault-based relief. Hence it is ever so more important to produce all of this evidence at trial knowing that when appealed the appellate standard is manifest error or clearly erroneous.

The trial court is expected to rule in a reasonable fashion when they are discrepancies in testimony at trial, the trial court is given due deference in evaluating the credibility of witnesses and drawing inferences from them. Hence the trial court's ruling will not be disturbed simply because the appellate court does not agree with what the trial court ruled. The standard is whether or not the trial court's conclusion was a reasonable one needn't go the appellate court may have reached a different conclusion under a reasonable analysis. This is ever so more important when you or your divorce attorney is trying to prove that the other spouse committed adultery. Because reasonable people can disagree with similar circumstances, one must present overwhelming evidence in the trial court in order to err on the abundance of caution. When presenting evidence to the trial court to prove your case, you need credible evidence that is objective and decisive.

Will Beaumont is a lawyer in New Orleans. This article is informational, not legal advice.