I always liked Good Luck Charlie. I mean it’s no That’s so Raven or Hannah Montana but still, I remember being so excited to watch this show every time it came on. I remember when Spencer cheated on Teddy, I felt like I was the one who was heartbroken. Great show.
For the non-90’s babies, the older 90’s babies and the non-Disney channel watchers, let me give a breakdown of the show. Main character is Teddy. She’s a 15-year-old girl dealing with high school, friends, boys, driving and all the other regular teenage things. She has an older brother and a younger brother. Her parents decided to have another baby, Charlotte a.k.a. Charlie. Teddy then decided to document her life and make videos for Charlie to be able to refer to when she is older. At the end of the videos which usually occur at the end of the episode, she always says “Good Luck Charlie” hence the name of the show. It’s not a bad show at all and it actually still holds up. I refuse to confirm or deny if I have watched episodes of the show recently.
Anyways.
Why is a children’s show featuring in the Cut blog? Who could possibly be getting divorced on Disney? I mean Carrie from Suite life comes to mind. Also, Phineas and Ferb, we were actually never told about Phineas and Candace’s birth father and Ferb’s birth mother. Come to think of it, no parenting time was ever sought by the parents so what was that about?
Okay. None of that is relevant. Let’s get back on track. The reason that this show is being featured in the Cut blog is not for divorce. Family law is not all about separation, sometimes we are there for the inception too. *ahem* inserts plug about how you should retain AP Lawyers for your marriage contracts.
The reason that this is being featured is interesting. So after four children, a mortgage etc, Teddy’s parents, Amy and Bob decided to go on a skiing trip. On this trip, they find out that they were not actually married. Apparently, Judge Lawson, the person who married them was some kind of con man who did fake marriages all the time. They did not realize this at the time, obviously so they thought they were married.
If this had happened in Ontario, what would the courts have done? Luckily, we can look to the case of Swinden and Crowell. It is almost exactly what happened in Good Luck Charlie. In that case, the parties were married but apparently, the Reverend was not qualified to marry them. The Reverend in this case was not a scam artist, she genuinely thought she could marry the parties Now they were looking for a declaration that they were married.
In Swinden, the court held that four elements must be applied for a marriage to be deemed valid under the Marriage Act:
1. The marriage must have been solemnized in good faith;
2. The marriage must have been intended to be in compliance with the Marriage Act;
3. Neither party was under a legal disqualification to contract marriage; and,
4. The parties must have lived together and cohabitated as a married couple after solemnization.
For the first element, I believe the marriage between Amy and Bob was solemnized in good faith. They fell in love, got married and had children. For the second element, I am sure they intended to comply with the Marriage Act of the state that they lived in (Colorado, apparently). Again, we are looking at this as if it happened in Ontario so we assume that yes they did intend to comply with the Marriage Act. For the third, as far as we know, there is no legal disqualification. Off the top of my head, a legal disqualification could be if either person was at that time married to someone else. This would disqualify them from marrying another person as bigamy is not allowed in Ontario. As far as we know, this is not the case. For the final element, Amy and Bob have lived together as a married couple. They own a home together and have 4 children (they eventually have a fifth).
Amy and Bob fulfill all the grounds so likely an Ontario Court will hold that they are still married. They did end up getting married again at the lodge but if this was in Ontario, it would likely have been unnecessary.
