Post-Death Divorce – Update

Earlier on this blog, I reported on a recent situtation from Blairsville, Pennsylvania, in which the estate of a man who was murdered the day before he had planned to sign his divorce papers sought to finalize the divorce even after the man’s death.  The man’s attorneys alleged various grounds for doing so from carrying out the man’s intent to preserving an already approved property settlement.

On July 26, 2006, Common Pleas Judge Carol Hanna refused to grant the post-death divorce.

The man’s wife will now have standing the challenge his will which named his adopted son as the primary beneficiary.  However, it appears that the wife did not object to the granting of the divorce.

In rendering her opinion, Judge Hanna, in part quoting prior cases, stated:

A man can no more be divorced after he is dead than he can be married or condemned to death. Marriage is the union of two lives which can be dissolved either by death or by process of law, but after it has been dissolved in one of those ways, you cannot dissolve it again; you cannot untie a knot which has already been untied.

Note that the quotation is not entirely accurate because under the law of some countries, such as France, a person may become married even after death.

For more information about this case, see Paul Peirce, Judge: No divorce after death in Pa., Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, July 27, 2006.

Special thanks to Neil E. Hendershot of the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania law firm of Goldberg Katzman, P.C for bringing this development to my attention.