Monday, March 26, 2001

By Carlos Bongioanni
Okinawa bureau

An Okinawan court ruling last week that invalidated an Internet divorce is a victory for women’s rights, a lawyer in the case said.

And the court decision should prompt Americans stationed overseas to take heed when considering online divorces, said Capt. Christopher Nowicki, a military lawyer at Kadena Air Base.

Okinawa’s Naha District Court nullified a divorce that Anthony Gannon, 52, an American civilian base worker on Okinawa, obtained through an Internet divorce agency in 1999. The agency arranged the divorce through the Dominican Republic’s court system, which has a reputation for processing "super fast" divorces.

"The decree granted by the Dominican court was invalid, because the court determined the wife was not given any notice on such litigation," said Hiroaki Yoshizawa, an attorney for Fusako Gannon, the plaintiff.

Fusako Gannon, 53, contested the Dominican court ruling after her husband gave her the purportedly legal divorce documents in June 1999. Efforts to reach Anthony Gannon for comment were unsuccessful.

"The court ruling is very significant from the standpoint of protecting human rights of women from such unreasonable treatment," Yoshizawa said. "The status of wifehood would be in constant jeopardy" if Internet divorces were accepted carte blanche, she said.

If Anthony Gannon had gone through a U.S. court in the state of which he is a resident, then his divorce proceedings may have turned out differently, Yoshizawa said. But since neither he nor his wife are residents of the Dominican Republic and not under its legal jurisdiction, divorce documents from there are not always recognized internationally.

Internet divorces are risky and could turn out to be a waste of time and money, Nowicki said.

"In some cases, these guys have remarried," Nowicki said. "I’ve seen guys start sweating when they learn they are now bigamists and still legally married to the woman they thought they divorced."

People should not skirt the normal legal process when seeking divorces, Nowicki said. They must give other parties in the suit notice and an opportunity to respond.

"I believe a person is opening himself up to all sorts of legal hazards if he tries to complete such a divorce without detailed legal guidance," he said.

Retirement pay is one issue that becomes convoluted when Internet divorce settlements are challenged, Nowicki said. Divorced spouses who received a certain share of a servicemember’s retirement pay based on the date the Internet divorce became effective may be entitled to a larger cut, once that divorce becomes null and void, he said.

Nowicki said such sites are not "technically" scams since what they sell are pieces of paper. "But the product purchased has no value in most court systems," he said. "In general, these divorces are not valid."

Online divorces are valid when all the requirements of the law are met, said Rodolfo Rivera, an attorney who offers the Dominican divorces on the Internet, in an e-mail message. There are lawsuit decisions from New York, Tennessee and Ireland that uphold the divorces, he said.

Dominican law, though, requires mutual consent from both parties in a divorce, he added. And it requires at least one person to physically appear in court in the Dominican Republic to finalize the divorce. Web sites that advertise otherwise, he said, are fraudulent.

The Web site of the lawyer whom Anthony Gannon contacted in May 1999 had said his Dominican divorce could be completely handled via the Internet or fax, without anyone ever setting foot in the Dominican Republic.

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