Not Your Mother's Divorce by Kay Moffett

Author:Kay Moffett [Moffett, Kay; Touborg, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-48818-3
Publisher: Harmony/Rodale
Published: 2003-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

What Does “No-Fault” Mean?

Here’s an odd fact about how the term “no-fault” came into common divorce parlance: it was originally a shorthand expression journalists invented to describe changes in automobile insurance legislation in the seventies. It was used so widely in the press that it was then appropriated by the courts to describe the growing number of divorces where no specific blame was asserted. A hundred bad (but maybe apt) metaphors come to mind: your marriage was an accident waiting to happen, you and your husband got involved in a head-on collision, and so on. Indeed, the terms “fault” and “no-fault” are mercifully ordinary compared to some of the legalese you’ll encounter in getting divorced.

All states now have some version of no-fault divorce. According to the American Bar Association “a no-fault divorce is one in which neither the husband nor wife officially blames the other for the breakdown of the marriage.” Some sixteen states, including California and Florida, are exclusively no-fault, meaning that blame cannot be asserted on either you or your husband. Even in a no-fault state, however, you need to specify a basis or cause of action for divorce. Common bases for a no-fault divorce include irreconcilable differences, incompatibility, irrevocable breakdown, and separation. Note, however, that not all of these bases are available in all no-fault states. Common bases for a fault divorce include adultery, cruelty, drug or alcohol addiction, and incurable insanity. For the very latest information, we suggest you check the family law section of the American Bar Association’s website: www.abanet.org.

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