Considine v. Rawl

In Considine v. Rawl, 39 Misc 2d 1021, 242 N.Y.S.2d 456, the decedent's first wife, after his death, sought to have a "Mexican mail order divorce" that she had obtained declared invalid so that she rather than the woman that the decedent had thereafter married would receive certain insurance and civil service retirement benefits. The Considine court held that even though the void Mexican divorce decree would not have estopped the decedent's first wife from commencing a matrimonial proceeding against the decedent while he was alive, the pending action, regardless of its label, was not really a matrimonial action inasmuch as any marriage involving her and the decedent had been terminated by the decedent's death and that she could be estopped from receiving any personal gain from the decedent's insurance or retirement benefits.