From In re Marriage of Elali & Marchoud, decided yesterday by the California Court of Appeal (written by Justice Carol Codrington and joined by Presiding Justice Manuel Ramirez and Justice Douglas Miller):
While Mr. Samir Elali was married to Ms. Angeles Elali and resided with her in California, Samir married Ms. Mayssa Marchoud in Lebanon. {Samir[ testified] that he married Angeles in 1987, and had remained married to her for almost 35 years, including when he married Mayssa in Lebanon in 2012.} After Samir attempted to terminate the Lebanese marriage, Mayssa filed a petition in California for spousal support without dissolution against Samir. The trial court ruled the Lebanese marriage was bigamous and therefore void under Family Code section 2201, subdivision (a)…. We … conclude the trial court did not err in ruling the bigamous Lebanese marriage was void under section 2201(a)[:]
[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:
(1) The former marriage has been dissolved or adjudged a nullity before the date of the subsequent marriage.
(2) The former spouse (A) is absent, and not known to the person to be living for the period of five successive years immediately preceding the subsequent marriage, or (B) is generally reputed or believed by the person to be dead at the time the subsequent marriage was contracted.] …
Under [Family Code] section 308, "[a] marriage contracted outside this state that would be valid by laws of the jurisdiction in which the marriage was contracted is valid in California." … Mayssa argues that although Samir had two simultaneous marriages, the second marriage in Lebanon was valid because Lebanese law permits bigamy….
