Los Gatos Weekly-Times

David Prince

David Prince continues battle against no-fault divorce laws

By Jeff Kearns

Los Gatos attorney David Prince is taking aim at California divorce laws again, this time in a state appellate court.

Prince filed an appeal of an earlier Superior Court case Sept. 9, in which he challenges the constitutionality of the no-fault divorce laws created by the state Family Law Act of 1969.

Prince authored a statewide ballot initiative this year that failed to qualify for the November ballot when supporters couldn't gather the necessary 433,000 signatures by the April deadline. Called the "Family Reconciliation Act," the measure would have made it harder for married couples with children to get divorced but would not have had an effect on childless couples.

Prince said he received the support of talk-show hosts Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Michael Reagan. Some women's groups spoke out against the measure. Prince, a Republican, also pushed the divorce issue in his failed bid for Jim Cunneen's 24th Assembly District seat in the June primary.

"No-fault divorce is a failed social policy," says Prince, sitting in his home law office in the hills behind downtown. "Everything leans toward releasing the party that wants to leave, but there's no policy or incentive to stay in the marriage. ... It's failed to accomplish any of its goals."

Prince became acquainted with the client in the appeal case when he was working on the ballot initiative. Morgan Hill resident Clarence Parker told Prince about his wife's decision to end their marriage.

Prince's opening brief tells the story of the couple, who were married--with no record of abuse, adultery or frustration--for 44 years, until Clarence's wife, Dolores Parker, filed for divorce out of the blue, told a judge there was no hope of saving the marriage and was granted a divorce.

Prince says the no-fault law is unconstitutional because it violates the due-process, equal-protection and contracts clauses of the 14th Amendment. Prince, 36, knows how traumatic divorce can be for kids; his own parents split up when he was in his teens, after the no-fault laws went on the books in 1970. But Prince doesn't like to talk about that. His interest in the subject, he says, comes more from an article he read "as a fluke" that was critical of the no-fault divorce laws. "And I realized they were right," he says.

A hearing date will be set after another round of briefs are filed by both sides, and Prince says he expects a decision sometime early next year. If he's denied, he says he plans to appeal to the state Supreme Court, and if that's not successful, petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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