Lowerschuss v. Lowerschuss,
590 A.2d 297 (1991).



Procedure:Plaintiff wife appealed an order from the trial court (Pennsylvania) that dismissed her divorce complaint against defendant husband. Plaintiff claimed that defendant was estopped from asserting the invalidity of her prior foreign divorce because he continued to hold her out as his wife after he discovered she was not properly divorced. Defendant claimed that he did not consider himself married once he discovered the divorce's invalidity.

Facts: Mrs. Lowerschuss (P) filed a complaint for divorce against Mr. Lowerschuss (D). D filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on jurisdic-tional grounds that they were not married because the divorce ending P's prior marriage was invalid. The state granting the prior divorce did not have jurisdiction to grant the divorce. P had followed the advice of her attorney in procuring the prior divorce and did not know it was invalid. D learned the divorce was invalid nine years after they had been married, but continued to live in the community with P. They had four children. The trial court granted D's motion to dismiss the complaint and denied P'y motion that D be estopped from asserting the invalidity of the marriage.

Issue: If both parties know the truth or have equal access to the truth, can there be estoppel?

Rule:One may be estopped from attacking validity of a foreign divorce decree if, under the circumstances, it would be inequitable for him to do so.

Holding: Yes. Judgment reversed. The Court held that husband, who relied in good faith on wife's Alabama divorce from her previous spouse when parties married in 1965 and continued to rely on that divorce at a minimum until 1974 when he allegedly became fully aware of invalidity of wife's Alabama divorce and who thereafter continued to live with his wife as he had before, was estopped from asserting the invalidity of wife's 1964 Alabama divorce, notwithstanding fact that husband began to file his tax returns as a single head of household.

Analysis: Equitable estoppel in challenging the validity of the marriage i; limited to classical equitable estoppel but can be applied whi would be inequitable to allow a person to do so as stated in section 74 of the Restatement (Second) Conflict of Laws.