Lambertini v. Lambertini, s. 93-2702
| Decision Date | 26 April 1995 |
| Docket Number | 93-2135,Nos. 93-2702,s. 93-2702 |
| Citation | 655 So.2d 142 |
| Parties | 20 Fla. L. Weekly D1001 Olga LAMBERTINI, Appellant, v. Frank LAMBERTINI, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Ellen G. Lyons, Miami, for appellant.
Calzon, Gayoso & Gersten and Maria Del Carmen Calzon, Coral Gables, for appellee.
Before NESBITT, JORGENSON, and GODERICH, JJ.
The wife appeals from the final judgment annulling the marriage between her and her putative husband. We reverse with directions.
In 1948, Olga Lambertini married her first husband in Chile. While living in Argentina in the late 1950's, and having since separated from her first husband, she met and began living with Frank Lambertini. Subsequently, the Lambertinis sought out and paid for the services of an attorney in Buenos Aires who procured Mexican documents that purported to divorce the wife from her first husband and marry her to Frank Lambertini. The couple moved to Nicaragua, where their two daughters were born. During this time, the wife's first husband procured a valid annulment of their marriage. The Lambertinis immigrated to the United States in 1968, where they have since continued to live.
The wife filed her petition for dissolution in 1992. The wife also sought exclusive possession of the marital home, temporary support, a restraining order against her husband, and attorney's fees and costs. The husband answered, raising the invalidity of the Mexican marriage, denying that he should support the wife as he did not have the means to do so, and denying that any jointly held property should be equitably distributed.
After evidentiary hearings, the General Master found that the wife had demonstrated a need for support, and that the husband had the ability to pay. The Master determined that the wife should have possession of the marital home, collect all rentals from the couple's various properties and be responsible for those mortgages, and that the husband should pay the wife an additional $300 per month. Despite the husband's exceptions, the trial court adopted and ratified the entire Report.
Subsequently, the husband filed an amended counterpetition, asking for annulment of the marriage, claiming that the Mexican divorce and re-marriage obtained through the Buenos Aires attorney was void. After trial, the court found that the husband lacked standing to contest the wife's divorce from her first husband, and although the Mexican marriage was of doubtful validity, the husband was estopped to contest the couple's subsequent thirty-year relationship as married persons. The court granted the wife lump sum alimony, equitable distribution of the couple's properties, rents from those unsold rental properties, and ordered that each side was to bear its own fees.
The husband moved for a stay of the judgment and rehearing based on newly discovered evidence, claiming that the court had no subject matter jurisdiction to enter a divorce because a recently acquired copy of Mexican official's certificates of non-existence of the marriage confirmed that the marriage was void ab initio. After rehearing, the court determined in its final judgment that it had no subject matter jurisdiction, terminated the wife's previous grant of...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Cohen v. Shushan
...reasons the husband was equitablyestopped from raising the validity of the marriage, and annulment was improper.Lambertini v. Lambertini , 655 So.2d 142, 143 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995) (citations omitted). So "[t]he law presumes that a valid marriage exists and the person that challenges the validi......
-
FARNHAM v. FARNHAM
...material added.) In support of her claim of a marriage by estoppel under Florida law, Wife particularly relies on Lambertini v. Lambertini, 655 So.2d 142 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995). In that case, the wife married her first husband in Chile. Two years later, they separated and the wife moved to Arge......
-
Lopes v. Lopes
...However, estoppel has also been applied against a non-party to the divorce who married in reliance on the decree. Lambertini v. Lambertini, 655 So.2d 142 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995). In Lambertini, the wife had obtained a divorce from her first husband in Mexico after seeking out an attorney with th......
-
Albassam v. Klob
...by the public generally and their friends and associates that the man and woman are husband and wife." Lambertini v. Lambertini , 655 So.2d 142, 143 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995) (citation omitted). Here, the former husband married and cohabited with the former wife for more than a year and a half bef......
-
Family law proceedings and grounds
...was not aware of all of the material facts and therefore could not have knowingly waived his or her rights. [ Lambertini v. Lambertini, 655 So. 2d 142 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995) (husband was equitably estopped from raising validity of parties’ marriage, and annulment of marriage was improper, regar......
-
Alternatives to physical and testimonial proof
...by the public generally, and the couple’s friends and associates, that the man and woman are husband and wife. Lambertini v. Lambertini , 655 So.2d 142 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995). Validity of second marriage. The presumption of the validity of a second marriage is one of the strongest presumptions ......