Family Law- Carriere Cases

Front 1

Lee kicks Michelle out of the house they shared, and she (the nonmarital partner) sues, claiming that they had an oral agreement to share accumulated property as a result of their combined efforts (essentially, she asserts her community property rights). Does Michelle have a right to the property?

Back 1

There was an 'express agreement' between nonmarital partners, who may lawfully contract concerning the ownership of property acquired during the relationship. Since a contract between nonmarital partners is unenforceable only to the extent that it explicitly rests upon the immoral and illicit consideration of meretrocious sexual services, and in this case presumably Michelle did not merely provide sex for her share of the property, the contract is likely enforceable.

Front 2

Horn and Jones were an unmarried couple. They bought a house in Ladue and lived there with children from their previous marriages. It was a seven-bedroom house in a fancy neighborhood. There was nothing stopping Horn and Jones from getting married, they just didn't want to. The City of Ladue had a zoning ordinance that had the house in a "single family residential" area. Can the City successfully sue them to prevent them from living in the their house?

Back 2

Likely. The Horn & Jones could argue that the zoning ordinance was unconstitutional for 3 reasons: (1) It infringed on their right to free association (1st Amend); (2) It infringed on their right to privacy (1st Amend); and (3) It improperly discriminated against unmarried people (14th Amend). Horn and Jones could also argue that they met the definition of a family because they lived together and shared duties. However, it is likely that Horn and Jones did not meet the def. of a family because they did not have a commitment to a permanent relationship and a perceived reciprocal obligation to support and care for each other.

The Court found in City of Ladue v. Horn that the ordinance did not violate any constit'l protections, and was a "valid land use legislation reasonably designed to maintain traditional family values and patterns." The Court found that allowing unrelated people to live together in a neighborhood could adversely affect property values, and so there was a rational basis for the ordinance.

Front 3

Form vs. function in defining legal 'families'

A major question of Family Law is what constitutes a family? Is it just people who are related by blood, marriage, or adoption (aka a form family), or does it include adults who intend to be a family (aka a function family)

Back 3

FORM v. FUNCTION : A “family” is people who are related by blood, marriage, or adoption (a form family) with a commitment to a permanent relationship and a perceived reciprocal obligation to support and care for each other; adults who are merely living together are not a form family but a function family. City of Ladue

Front 4

After fifteen years of holding themselves out as husband and wife, the Ms, Hewitt seeks a divorce from her husband and is denied. She then tries to seek compensation, based on an agreement. The Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act, disfavors the grant of mutually enforceable property rights to knowingly unmarried cohabitants.....What gives?

Back 4

On one side of the argument (as the appellate court stated) he parties had outwardly lived a conventional married life, plaintiff's conduct had not "so affronted public policy that she should be denied any and all relief." But the Supreme Court in this case said that Plaintiff's claims that she be entitled to half of the property accumulated by she and the ∆ during their 15-year cohabitation are unenforceable for the reason that they contravene the public policy.

Front 5

Public policy & unenforceable agreements between nonmarital partners (Hewitt)

Arguments in support of the holding against compensation for Ms. Hewitt

Back 5

Ruling for the plaintiff would judicially impose upon the state the insitution of common-law marriage, an institution that was legislatively abolished in Iowa in 1905
Deciding whether unmarried cohabitants should be able to engage in arrangements of this sort (arrangements that essentially constitute common-law marriage) is a question best left to the legislature.
Permitting this sort of informal relationship would discourage a couple from getting married, because it would permit the couples to make arrangements that would not be available to marital partners (contracting around child support, for instance). Thus, such an arrangement would run counter to public policy of strengthening and preserving the integrity of marriage.

Front 6

Arguments against the holding barring Ms. Hewitt from compensation

Back 6

While the reasoning of the Supreme Court is sound (relying on public policy, noting that a ruling for the plaintiff would result reestablishing a system of common-law marriage, saying such decisions are best left to the Legislature), the outcome smells. The court is punishing her to the tune of half the profits and properties the parties accumulated in their 15 years together for not going to the courthouse and saying "I do" before a Justice of the Peace. A ruling like this would certainly fall the hardest on women who, like Virginia Hewitt, have devoted their lives to the needs of their husbands and children. Such a ruling devalues the work such women do, and bolsters the feminist argument that the doctine of the common-law marriage should be expanded. Of course, the court could have fashioned a narrow rule to give women in Virginia Hewitt's position relief without instituting common law marriage (it could have ignored the fact that the appellate court narrow exception which would provide relief to those who had been living in a "conventional family relationship" and imposed that test for the purposes of Illinois law, for example). Or it could have simply reinstituted the doctrine of common law marriage and applied in retroactively to the ∆.

Front 7

In Louisiana, can a concubine assert a cause of action for compensation?

Back 7

In absence of marriage, some relationship, other than sexual one, must exist between parties in a concubinage case for civil benefits to flow to person acting as pseudo wife.

Even though it was theoretically and legally possible for parties to establish a commercial or some partnership other than universal partnership or to marry and create legal partnership based on sexual relationship, alleged oral agreement by defendant that he would share all of his property with plaintiff, his concubine, was universal partnership, which was invalid due to fact that agreement was not in writing and was unenforceable due to fact that agreement was meretricious.