Neldon and Ina Johnson shared their lives for more than 35 years. They were sealed in an LDS temple, had children and celebrated an anniversary each year. They had shared insurance policies and joint tax filings.
Their divorce appeared to be the dissolution of a long, involved marriage — except for the part where they were never actually married.
Seven years after their divorce, amid claims from Ina Johnson that she is owed alimony, Neldon Johnson says that the divorce wasn’t valid because they were never married. On Wednesday, the Utah Supreme Court heard arguments on this complicated case involving common-law marriage laws, deceit and the right of the court to rule on other marriages that aren’t technically legal by state law.
When the couple filed for divorce in 2001, they both indicated that they had been married in 1964 in Arizona, which was the same thing they had told everyone else they knew over the years. The couple went so far as to have their “marriage” sealed in the Manti temple one year after their supposed wedding date.
This is why common law had a recognition of a thing we call “common law marriage.” If you act married and do married couple things, then as far as common law courts were concerned, you were married, regardless of whether you actually said the vows and signed on the dotted line or not.