Best Child Custody Lawyers in Kansas City, KS

Recently the ruling of the case of In the Matter of the Common-Law Marriage of Heidkamp and Ritter, under case number 125,617 was issued. The Kansas Supreme Court was asked to approve or disapprove the determination of common law marriage. It is an interesting case because there is not a significant number of Supreme Court reviewing decisions on common law marriage. In Kansas, the essential elements of common-law marriage are: 1) the capacity of the parties to marry; 2) a present marriage agreement between the parties and 3) a holding out of each other as husband and wife. When a party asserts the existence of a common law marriage, he or she has the burden of proving that such a marriage exists. In this case, the parties met in 1993 and started dating. While the parties were on a vacation in 1996, Mr. Ritter proposed to Ms. Hiedkamp and gave her an engagement ring. The parties believed, albeit incorrectly, that once they were together for seven years, they were in a common-law marriage. The parties believed that the passage of seven years was sufficient to create this status.