Unhappy matrimony: NY divorce law

Chana and Simon Taub can't stand each other.

He claims she is a gold-digging liar. She claims he abused her. Things got so nasty during their divorce case that a court-ordered wall was put up in the feuding spouses' Brooklyn house to keep them apart.

It would seem like an open-and-shut divorce case, with no shortage of reasons to justify ending the marriage once and for all. But it is never that easy in New York, where you can get just about anything except a fast, blameless divorce.

New York is the only state that won't allow the speedy dissolution of a marriage without proof that one spouse is somehow at fault, experts say. Adultery is sufficient grounds, but irreconcilable differences are not. "He beats me" (with proof) works, but "We grew apart" doesn't cut it.

The system has been ridiculed as hopelessly outdated, and sometimes results in endless litigation and spouses leaving the state to evade the law. This week, in what some see as more proof of the law's absurdity, a jury denied the bickering Taubs a divorce.

"I think it's an anachronistic, completely inefficient process," said Bernard Clair, a divorce lawyer. "Today, divorce is really about dividing an economic partnership. The dirty laundry aspects play no role except to jazz up the clients and distract them from the real issues of the case."

Under New York divorce law, couples can split up without either spouse being assigned blame, but only if they first sign a division-of-property agreement and live apart for a year. Couples who want to end a marriage more quickly than that have been known to lie, move or tarnish their own reputations.

If the desire for a divorce is mutual, but neither side wants to wait a year, one common ruse is to have one party take the blame. A popular ground is "constructive abandonment," in which one spouse alleges the other won't have sex. The other spouse agrees not to contest the allegation.

Another approach is what Clair calls "watered-down cruel and inhuman treatment."

The plaintiff, (the wife, let's say) can claim, "He told me he didn't love me anymore, that he wanted his freedom, that he had made a mistake from the beginning." The husband neither admits nor denies the charge.

The moving option often comes into play when the desire to divorce is not mutual. But it doesn't always work.

During his nearly decade-long attempt to get a divorce, Charles Rudick moved to Vermont for 18 months. But his divorce there was denied after the state determined he wasn't really committed to living in Vermont.

Rudick, now 64, said he wanted out of his marriage because he and his wife had grown apart and he was in love with another woman. Eventually, the two came to terms. The divorce was granted on the grounds that he abandoned her.

"It's just ridiculous that we're so backward and antiquated in this state," said Rudick, a retired environmental engineer from Clifton Park.

No-fault divorce laws became popular beginning in the 1960s, but efforts to introduce such a system in New York have long failed. The main reason, observers say, is the lobbying strength of the Roman Catholic Church and the state chapter of the National Organization for Women.

To Catholic leaders, marriage is a sacred contract that should not be ended on a whim. The women's organization views a no-fault system as biased against women.

"The moneyed spouse, with no-fault, can literally hide the assets, take off, get married before the wife even knows what hit her," said Marcia Pappas, head of the state chapter of NOW.

A fault system gives the woman a bargaining chip, Pappas said. For example, she can deny her husband a divorce until she is happy with her share of the property.

Men can use that bargaining chip, too. In the case of the Taubs, the couple separated by the wall, former sweater manufacturer Simon Taub has contested his wife's divorce action, partly because he denies her claim of abuse, and partly because he wants to agree on a division of property first. Chana Taub went the "cruel and inhuman treatment" route as grounds for divorce.

The Taub case has dragged on for about two years. The issue of whether a divorce could be granted finally went before a jury, which rejected the cruel-and-inhuman-treatment claim and denied Chana Taub a divorce Wednesday.

Neither spouse is sure what to do next, their attorneys said.

"A lot of judicial time is wasted," said Chana Taub's lawyer, Irvin Rosenthal. "If two people don't want to be married, why try the case?"

Simon Taub's lawyer, Abe Konstam, agreed and complained that it took more than a day to pick a jury because so many candidates said they wouldn't want to apply the state's fault requirement.

The New York City bar supports a no-fault divorce law, as does the state's chief judge, and the state Women's Bar Association backed the idea in 2004 after long opposing it. But there is no sign the law is about to be changed.