The Universal Seduction: Court affirms gays' equal access to state divorce law

On August 14, 2003, Darrin Ellis and David James Arriaga notarized a declaration of domestic partnership that they had both signed. Arriaga never mailed the form, and thus the partnership was never recorded with Secretary of State.

On September 8, 2006, Ellis filed to officially dissolve the union. Arriaga filed a motion to have the case dismissed due to the fact that the partnership was never recorded, and therefore, not legally valid. The trial court agreed, and dismissed the case.

Ellis, backed by Lambda Legal and later California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr., appealed the court's decision on Ellis v. Arriaga in March of 2007, arguing that AB 205, the California Domestic Partner Rights and Responsibilities Act of 2003, was intended to give domestic partners equal protection, including in putative spouse cases. The Fourth Appellate District Court unanimously agreed on Tuesday.

"Here," the ruling states, "the trial court erred in its conclusion that the putative spouse doctrine could only apply if Ellis and Arriaga had registered their domestic partnership. The whole point of the putative spouse doctrine is to protect those whose marriage was not or could not be properly formalized, or was void, voidable or otherwise invalid. The Domestic Partner Act was intended by the Legislature to extend to registered domestic partners the legal rights and responsibilities held by married couples to the extent permitted by law...There is no sound reason under California statutory law to deprive domestic partners of the rights granted to registered domestic partners if they reasonably believed they were so registered."

"I'm happy I'll finally be able to put all this behind me," Ellis said. "This was supposed to be a simple divorce, which was painful enough, but unlike straight spouses I had to prove that my relationship should be treated the same as anybody else's. This never would have happened if I had been able to get married in the first place."

California's putative spouse doctrine was first established in the state's Supreme Court in 1943 and codified by the Legislature in 1969 as Civil Code section 4452, later Family Code section 2251(a). The code was put in place to protect the financial and material interests of people who believed they were married and lived as legal spouses who discover that, for whatever reason, their marriages were never valid; such spouses get the same access to family court that legally married couples do.

"We're pleased the court found in Darrin's favor, but this case shows that domestic partnerships are not adequate to fully protect same-sex couples," said Lambda Legal staff attorney Tara Borelli. "Gay and lesbian couples are forced to rely on a continuous legal patch job to fix gaps in the law. Without marriage equality, we'll be doing constant legal patch jobs to make sure that same-sex couples are treated the same as everyone else under the law. No one should have to walk through life with a constitutional lawyer on one side and the legislature on the other, trying to patch up an inadequate system."

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