Vows Intact for 974 Who Thought They Were Divorced

Nearly a thousand people who thought they were divorced years ago in Orange County will soon learn that their marriage vows to remain together “till death do us part” have come back to haunt them.

The Orange County Superior Court clerk’s office is preparing to notify 974 people that their divorces were never finalized. The unresolved cases were discovered recently in a purge of 30,000 old divorce cases in a campaign to conserve precious space in the paper-crammed clerk’s office.

Eager to solve the mysteries, clerks are now asking: Did the couples kiss and make up? Did they simply forget to file the final papers? Were they victimized by negligent lawyers? Will they be shocked to learn they are still married?

News of the unresolved cases prompted some would-be divorces and divorcees to flood the office with calls, wondering what havoc this would wreak on their lives, Orange County Clerk Gary Granville said.

“Some said, ‘If I am one (whose divorce was not finalized), does that mean I’m a bigamist?’ ” Granville said. “One guy wanted to know if that means he gets all his alimony back. Another guy . . . said he wouldn’t mind taking his first wife back, but he wouldn’t want any part of his second wife.”

The missing link in each of the 487 cases is that the couples cleared the second-to-last hurdle in the divorce process, the granting of an interlocutory judgment. But they never completed the final step, seeking a judgment of dissolution.

There is no need for panic, said Katie Nordbak, assistant county clerk. Couples seeking to finalize their divorces can have their lawyers ask a judge for a final decree and to declare any subsequent marriage valid, she said.

Those who filed for divorce after July, 1984, probably are not affected because the state Legislature streamlined the divorce process at that time and eliminated the interlocutory judgment step, she said.

The clerk’s office will mail notices to everyone whose divorce cases were left open, but Nordbak said they are likely to hit at least one major stumbling block: The addresses of the litigants are five to 15 years old.

But several attorneys specializing in family law said they would not be surprised if most of the cases were left unfinished intentionally to take advantage of tax and insurance benefits of marriage or simply to leave open the possibility of a reconciliation.

One woman discovered in the old files, Concepcion Garber, 54, of Seal Beach, was surprised to learn that her divorce was not final, but said it does not matter because her husband died years ago and she does not plan to remarry.

Another woman received an interlocutory judgment in September, 1983, but never finalized the divorce because of an “emotional attachment” to her husband, said attorney Priscilla C. Kraetzer. The papers lay dormant until August, when the estranged husband showed up at Kraetzer’s law firm asking for a final divorce decree, probably so he could remarry, she said.

Others tell happier stories. Sheri Browning, 30, whose 1982 divorce petition also was left open, said she and her husband kissed and made up six years ago.

“We got married at 17,” she said. “We were high school sweethearts, but we were both too young and we fought too much. We needed to get our heads straight.”

The couple had a boy before they separated, and since their reunion they’ve had a little girl, Browning said. “We’re a lot happier than before,” she said.