Divorce Attorney: Louisiana's Annulment Laws

It is not common practice for a divorce attorney to annul a marriage. When presented with such a case, it can be a difficult issue to figure out how a court will handle the issues associated with separating the couple. The reason for this is that it is clear what the standards are to annul a marriage, but not so clear regarding how the civil effects between both parties to the marriage will be treated. In other words for the first issue, it is a pure application of law. For the second, it can involve a complicated fact issue for the court to exercise its considerable discretion on.

In order annul a marriage in Louisiana, there must either have been no ceremony or it violated an impediment of marriage as defined by the Louisiana Civil Code. The inhabitants are that you not be related by blood or affinity within the fourth degree to each other, that you not be already married, and that you not be of the same sex. While the last two are fairly straight forward determined, it can be somewhat confusing in order to learn how to count degrees says that you were able to determine what is the fourth degree in determining whether your marriage is null or not.

The way you count degrees is by making a graph and charting out the hierarchy. In other words you are counting the distance between yourself and the person that you married by first going through the common ancestor that you have. You do not count yourself rather you simply count the person who is either above you or below you and then count over to their connection to the person that you married. If you have concerns that you may be marring someone who is within the fourth degree, it is highly advised that you speak with a Louisiana divorce attorney to figure out whether the marriage will in fact be valid.

After determining whether the marriage violates any Louisiana's apartments or whether you do not have a ceremony, it should be fairly straightforward to know whether your marriage is actually no. Civil effects, it can be far trickier as the Louisiana Civil Code is not defined for divorce attorney or other lawyer or for the citizens exactly what good faith is which is the test used to determine whether or civil effects will flow to the people getting married. Most case law references good faith as an honest and reasonable belief that the marriage is valid. But what does this mean? To answer this question you truly need a divorce attorney to research a number of cases that have very specifically define what fact patterns will lead to an honest and reasonable belief. Also, the legislature occasionally passes exceptions to the laws on marriage making an absolutely null marriage fully valid and will full effect.

Will Beaumont is a divorce attorney in New Orleans. This article is strictly informational and not legal advice.