A New Hampshire couple's request to undo their 2014 divorce was rejected by the state Supreme Court.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court this month upheld a lower court's decision not to vacate a New Castle couple's divorce after 24 years of marriage, the Associated Press reported.
Couple Terrie Harmon and ex-husband Thomas McCarron appealed that their divorce was erroneous as they have already reconciled and are back together. The justices, however, said on a Dec. 2 decision that they can only grant divorce and not undo it.
In Illinois, Nebraska, Mississippi, Arkansas, Maryland and Kentucky, courts can undo the divorce within a time frame or under certain circumstances at a couple's request. New York and South Dakota have no authority to undo a divorce.
Lawyer Joshua Gordon, appointed to defend the lower court's ruling, said, "Divorce is a uniquely fraught area of litigation."
"For divorced couples, it is often important to have the solace of knowing that their former spouse is indeed former," he said.
The New Hampshire couple got married in 1989 and filed for divorce in January last year. The divorce was finalised in July the same year. Last March, they filed a joint motion to undo the decree.
New Hampshire law allows divorces to be set aside for reasons of fraud, accident, mistake or misfortune.
However, Gordon said none of these happened to the couple and that any financial consequences the couple claimed were "self-imposed."
He said by trying to undo the divorce, "I think it was partly sentimental and partly that they had some business interests that a divorce and remarry would be more complicated than undoing the divorce."
Harmon, a lawyer, said in court filings that a couple should not have to show the decree was legally flawed if they reconcile, adding that the test is "designed to balance the interests of adverse parties."
Lawyer Kysa Crusco, head of the family law section of the New Hampshire Bar Association, said Harmon's argument was "creative" but the law is clear.
"People just have to be cautious in making sure divorce is what they really want," she said.
