“In Sickness and In Health”
Video Transcribed: Good day, everybody. This is Oklahoma lawyer Dustin Peterson.
Today’s question, rather than just reading the question, I’ll just tell you the situation. So there are spouses who are in a divorce proceeding and one of them is terminally ill. They received a grant of divorce by the trial court in a court minute, and normally this would have to be finalized through a journal entry or a party’s agreement and finalized order for that to be appealable and final. However, in this situation, prior to the entry of a journal entry or the filing of a journal entry, the terminally ill spouse passed away.
So what happens to that property? Does it continue through the courts and is it subject to equitable division, or is it simply inherited by the surviving spouse? Certainly, if you’re the surviving spouse, you would like the latter. In this situation, however, the Oklahoma Courts carve out an exception for family law cases and the divorce is actually final when the judge pronounces it, not when the appealable order is issued.
So in this case, it won’t matter that the journal entry was never filed. The divorce and property division will proceed as if the terminally ill spouse had survived. Therefore, her heirs or his heirs, whoever the terminally ill spouse is, would have an action to continue that divorce and receive property that way.
If you have questions about the procedure of divorce in Oklahoma, do give me, an OKC divorce attorney, a call at (405) 888-5400, or look me up online at theoklahomacityattorney.com.