Q: Can a Divorce Judgment be thrown out due to ex having sexual relations with her lawyer, got preg and hired at law office
Lawyer was a Municipal Court Judge and was removed for "Wilful Misconduct in Office" and went back to being a lawyer. Due to him hiring his client, sleeping with her, gtg her pregnant, can a divorce judgement from 1999 be thrown out and redone?
A:
In general, it is very difficult to overturn a finalized divorce judgment, even in cases involving misconduct by an attorney. However, the specific circumstances you describe are quite serious and unusual, so it's possible they could potentially be grounds for challenging the judgment, but by no means guaranteed.
Some key considerations under California law:
- There are strict time limits for seeking to overturn or set aside a judgment. In most cases, a motion for relief must be filed within 6 months of the entry of judgment. Since your divorce was back in 1999, the time to challenge it has likely long passed.
- Grounds for setting aside a judgment after 6 months are very limited. They include things like fraud, mistake, inadvertence, newly discovered evidence, etc. Attorney misconduct could potentially fall under fraud if it prevented a fair adversarial hearing.
- The misconduct would likely need to be directly related to the handling of the divorce case itself and materially impact the outcome. An attorney having an affair with a client, while highly unethical, may not be sufficient on its own to overturn a judgment from that long ago.
- Removing the judge from office for willful misconduct suggests serious issues with that individual's ethics and conduct as an officer of the court. This helps establish a pattern of impropriety that could bolster a case for setting aside the judgment.
At the end of the day, overturning a decades-old divorce judgment is an uphill battle. I would recommend consulting with an experienced family law attorney to assess the viability of a motion to set aside the judgment given all the facts and circumstances. They can advise you on the applicable laws, standards, and procedures for challenging a judgment in California.
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