TN Widower Gets Part of Estate Even After Lying About Prior Marriages

Tennessee law case summary on marriage and family law from the Court of Appeals.

In re Estate of Betty D. Gentry Meek – Tennessee marriage law.

In this Tennessee case, Meek didn’t inherit the earth, but he did inherit a share of his wife’s estate.  Paul H. Meek, Sr., was born in 1927, and Betty D. Gentry Meek was born in 1930.  They both grew up in Clarksville, Tennessee.  Betty married Charles C. Gentry, Sr., and the two remained married for more than fifty years, with four children, until Mr. Gentry died in 2002.  During most of this time, Paul lived in Florida.

In 2005, after learning of Mr. Gentry’s death, Paul showed up at Betty’s home, proclaimed his love for her, and stated that he had waited all of his life to be with her.  Early in the relationship, Paul proposed to Betty, but Betty learned that he was married to Sharon Pitts, who was living in California.  Despite being upset by this revelation, the relationship continued, and Betty allowed Paul to live with her, both in Florida and Tennessee.

In 2006, Paul divorced Sharon.  Five weeks later, Betty and Paul applied for a marriage license.  On the marriage license application, Paul wrote that he had three prior marriages.  In truth, however, he had been married seven times.  He also misstated his age and date of birth.  Four days later, the couple was married in Clarksville.

About five years later, Betty died after undergoing back surgery.  Her will expressly excluded Paul as a beneficiary.  Paul then filed a petition with the probate court, the Chancery Court for Montgomery County.  In that petition, he asked the court, Chancellor Laurence M. McMillan, for his Elective-Share, Year’s Support, Exempt Property, and Homestead.  The executors of the estate resisted the petition on the grounds that Paul had a history of lies and deception.  In particular, they argued that the marriage was void from the outset as the result of Paul’s false statements on the marriage license application.  The also argued that he was precluded from taking anything from the estate under the doctrine of estoppel.  Judge McMillan agreed, and denied Paul any portion of the estate.  Dissatisfied by this turn of events, Paul appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The Court of Appeals began by citing a 1911 case pointing out that marriages are presumed to be valid, and that this presumption is very strong.  With that in mind, it set out to determine whether the marriage was void, or if was merely voidable.  The executors argued that the marriage was absolutely void, due to the false statements in the application.  They pointed to a Tennessee statute making such false statements a misdemeanor offense.  But the appeals court noted that nothing in the statute prohibited the marriage from taking place, as would have been the case for a bigamous marriage.  Instead, it merely made the marriage voidable, and would allow the other spouse to seek an annulment.  Therefore, had Betty sought an annulment, she might have had grounds to do so.  But the appeals court went on to conclude that the right to have the marriage declared void terminated upon her death.

The appeals court then went on to examine the alternative ground for the trial court’s ruling, that Paul was precluded from making a claim under the doctrine of equitable estoppel.  In order to establish estoppel, the party asserting the doctrine must show that they relied upon the false statements.  And in this case, the Court of Appeals was unable to find any evidence establishing this reliance.  There was evidence of the false statements.  However, there was no evidence that Betty married him only because of these statements.

For these reasons, the Court of Appeals concluded that Paul was entitled to his share of the estate as the surviving spouse, and reversed and remanded the trial court’s ruling.

No. M2013-01070-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Jun. 4, 2014).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.