Hi Frank Gray partner with the Law Firm of Jimeno and Gray we're going to talk about the divorce
process specifically choosing a cause of action for divorce in Maryland now this may seem like
it's a really simple topic but it's actually a nuanced decision that you have to get right
because the worst thing you can do is to pick a cause of action that you can't prove you're
going to go through all the time and trouble of the contested litigation process and end up not
getting anything that you're asking for as always if you're watching this on our YouTube channel
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we're pushing out more content that'll help you learn about family law all right picking a cause
of action and divorce Maryland is a really odd state because you really have to spend some time
picking your cause of action understand the premise Maryland is an old colonial state one of
the original 13 colonies what that meant was they wanted to make it really easy for people to get
married until Las Vegas was built Elton, Maryland was actually the marriage capital
of the United States for several years why the reason was because it was right off of i-95
so it was easy for people up and down the Eastern seaboard to get to you didn't need your parents
permission you could get married young there was no waiting period no blood test and maryland just
makes it really easy to get married even today it's one of the easier states to get married in
what it's not is one of the easier states to get divorced in because Maryland had a public
policy of wanting to keep people married we're going to talk about a few of the recent changes
but i'll tell you it's still one of the more difficult states to get divorced and compared
to colleagues that i hear talk about how easy it is to get divorced in New York or how easy
it is to get divorced in California so the first concept we have to talk about when you're getting
divorced is what kind of a divorce are you getting there's actually two different kinds of divorce
in Maryland not many states have different kinds of divorces but there's a limited divorce and an
absolute divorce a limited divorce is not really what you think of when you think of a divorce when
you think of a divorce you're thinking about an absolute divorce where everything is done and over
you can move on with your life a limited divorce is a divorce for some purposes but not others
a limited divorce allows the court to deal with child custody to deal with
alimony to deal with child support to deal with use and possession of a home and personal property
what it doesn't allow the court to do is to give you the right to remarry
to deal with marital property like pension distributions and to give you your name back
if you took your spouse's name when you got married you can't get that name back as part of
divorce process and a limited divorce only in an absolute divorce the only people that really get
limited divorces are people who don't qualify for an absolute divorce the only reason you might want
to consider getting a limited divorce instead of an absolute divorce is so that one of the spouses
can stay on the group health insurance policy of the other because when you get an absolute divorce
you're going to be a prohibited person from continuing as soon as you get divorced with a
limited divorce there are some plans that will let you stay as the spouse for the purposes of
health insurance i'm not even really going to talk about the the cause of action for a limited
divorce because they're basically the same as an absolute divorce they just don't contain the same
time limits we're going to talk about so now let's talk about an absolute divorce they fall
into two different categories fault-based ground and non-fault-based ground let's talk about the
fault-based grounds first first is adultery that means that your spouse has had voluntary
intercourse with someone other than you during the marriage and that you didn't forgive or condone it
you have to prove opportunity and disposition it means you have to prove that your spouse had the
opportunity to commit adultery not that they were necessarily in a conference room in the middle of
a day in a business setting more like they went into a motel room with someone in the middle
of the day and you have to prove disposition it means you have to prove that there's some
degree of an amorous relationship between the two it may be a note that one wrote the other maybe
a picture of them holding hands something like that next is desertion desertion is
actually two different causes of action there's actual desertion and constructive desertion
actual desertion for an absolute divorce means your spouse literally left you and you've lived
separated apart with no hap no cohabitation for at least 12 months before you file constructive
desertion means that you left your spouse you have to prove that they made it necessary for you to
leave to preserve your dignity your health your self-respect and your safety if that's lasted for
12 months after you left your spouse you can file for an absolute divorce based on desertion if that
cause of action hasn't lasted 12 months you could use it as a cause of action for a limited divorce
next is imprisonment this is a weird one if your spouse was sentenced to serve
three years of imprisonment after they serve 12 months you can file for divorce
the next is insanity if your spouse has been institutionalizing in a mental institution for
a period of three years after three years if you can get two doctors to testify that your spouse
is incurable with their mental condition you can use that as a cause of action for divorce
next is two causes of action that have kind of blended together over the year
there's excessively vicious conduct and there's cruelty of treatment of the spouse or of a child
of the spouse they've kind of blended together over the years and in the over 20 years i've been
practicing i've seen this area change quite a bit it used to be that there had to be some sort of
significant violence for court to grant a divorce based on excessively vicious conduct or cruelty
of treatment i would tell you that in the more recent years more contemporary judges they just
don't stand for any kind of violence and any kind of allegation of actual physical violence will get
you a divorce based on cruelty of treatment or excessively vicious conduct next are the
non-fault-based grounds hopefully this is where you are when you're choosing your cause of action
if you've lived separate and apart for one year which means you haven't cohabitated together
you haven't slept under the same roof you haven't been intimate with each other after one year you
can file for a non-fault-based ground based on the one-year separation the next and last cause
of action we're going to talk about is mutual consent this is the newest cause of action what
this means is that you and your spouse both want to get divorced you've come up with a separation
agreement that deals with all of your issues custody child support marital property alimony
all of your issues are settled if you tell the court you want to be divorced by mutual consent
they'll expedite that divorce for you and you can even still be living together unlike the other
non-fault-based ground there's nothing the court can do to stop you if you want to get divorced
even if you're still living in the same house i hope you found this information helpful as always
if you want more information about family law topics in Maryland download a copy of the book