Divorce Lawyers Should Be Concerned About Military Default Judgments

Divorce lawyers need to be very careful about entering default judgments against members of the United States military. In fact, it is probably a good practice to have their clients sign waivers stating that they understand that, under the right circumstances, the judgment could be easily overturned resulting in potentially severe repercussions.

This is because the members of the United States’ military and its allies, among others, are protected by the Service Members Civil Relief Act (formerly known for decades as the Stars and Stripes Act.) This act provides lots of special protections against civil suits for member of the military. One of the purposes of such special civil protection is that lives could be lost if a member of the military is missing training in order to defend against a civil lawsuit. Also, when the military issues orders, it is generally the case that members of the military are legally obligated to comply with these orders. In other words, it is unfair to hold a member of the military accountable for failing to respond to a civil suit because it is not necessarily that the case that the service member is voluntarily ignoring the suit. (This is in contract to prisoners who are in jail as a result of their voluntary actions and have time to respond to civil suits.)

Divorce lawyers often get default judgments when a marriage is uncontested. This usually involves the other spouse signing a waiver of service, citation, and all legal delays. If the other spouse refuses to sign a waiver, then they must be served and the legal delays apply. If a military spouse waives service, in addition to all of their rights under the Service Members Civil Relief Act, this wavier should be enough for a lawyer to get a default on.

If the service member refuses to sign the waiver, there could be a potential problem, especially if that service member is on active duty and not working essentially a desk job. This is because service members that are on active duty or are preparing for active duty and are hindered by the military roles from responding may be able to get the default judgment overturned at a later point.

The consequence of having a judgment ending a marriage could be drastic. For instance, what happens when one of the spouses has gone on to marry someone else? Or where one of the spouses acquires a large amount of money and now has to split those proceeds with their former spouse? Dealing with such scenarios will likely be challenging even for the most experienced divorce lawyers. Ideally, you will want to avoid these problems. If your client is insistent upon going through, it seems that your only options will be withdraw from representation or have your client sign a waiver acknowledging and accepting to the risks.

This article on Military default judgments is only for information; it is not legal advice. If you have questions about a legal matter or your case, talk to a lawyer in your area to make sure that you do not lose any of your legal rights. Unfortunately, Will Beaumont only practices law in Metairie and New Orleans, and may only practice in Louisiana.