A recent article in the Chillicothe Gazette detailed a strange divorce case that came before the Ohio Supreme Court and ultimately reveals the importance of knowing the divorce laws in your state. After living in Ohio for ten years, Andrea Barth moved out to California in July 2004 to be with her husband Jeffrey, who had accepted a job and already been living out there since February of that year. After moving to California, Andrea learned that her husband had been cheating on her, and thus returned with her children to Ohio some 40 days later and filed for divorce in the state. Jeffrey Barth filed for a California divorce and motioned that his wife’s Ohio divorce request be dismissed. The case eventually came before the Ohio Supreme Court, which ruled that Andrea did not meet the state’s residency requirement for filing a divorce and thus dismissed her case.

Specifically, Ohio divorce law requires a plaintiff to be a resident of the state in the six immediate months before filing the complaint. Jeffrey Barth had thus based his argument that his ex-wife’s Ohio divorce complaint should be dismissed on the contention that Andrea did not meet the state’s residency requirement. Andrea’s divorce complaint was held up in an Ohio court of appeals before reaching the state Supreme Court. With such information in mind, the Ohio Supreme Court had to determine whether the law creates a strict residency requirement allowing the court to consider one party’s intent and the other’s fraudulent inducement in leaving Ohio.

With that said, the Ohio Supreme Court came to a 6-1 decision stating that the law creates a strict residency test which requires the plaintiff to be a resident in the state for the six months prior to filing the complaint. According to the majority, Andrea had lived in California for 40 days and was thus no longer a resident of Ohio. The majority also added that the court shall not consider the motives of either spouse when trying to determine residency outside of Ohio. Thus, it overturned the appeals court ruling.

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul E. Pfeifer was the lone dissenter in this case and wrote in the Chillicothe Gazette article that he would have affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals. He specifically wrote in the article that Andrea moved to California and left Ohio without knowing the full facts of her situation: that her husband had been cheating on her. Pfeifer added that her time in California was basically “an extended – and very bad – vacation.” Ultimately and unfortunately for Andrea Barth, she not only learned that her husband had cheated on her but also must now go through the divorce on his turf.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 9:20 am and is filed under Divorce Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.