The Florida Supreme Court, in Burger v. Burger, 166 So. 2d 433 (Fla. 1964), has said that it is in the best interest of society that a judicial determination of the invalidity of the marriage be obtained. The Court considered that the state has a substantial interest in the stability of the domestic relationship, so in a case where two people innocently contract marriage when they are incapable of doing so, it is to the best interest of the community as well as the parties that all doubts regarding the legality of the marriage be determined. Either party can, and according the Florida Supreme Court should, bring an action to annul the marriage as being void, and when that has been accomplished then the parties may validly marry one another. Alternatively, you can raise the invalidity of the marriage as a defense to a divorce action.

Can a spouse challenge the validity of a present marriage by asserting that a prior divorce was not validly obtained? The court, in Keller v. Keller, 521 So. 2d 273 (Fla. 5th DCA 1988), held that the husband was not allowed to assert the alleged invalidity of his Mexican divorce from his first wife as a defense against second wife's claim for alimony and property in dissolution of marriage action, where his second wife did not take any part in the procurement of the Mexican divorce, there was nothing in the record to indicate that even if she knew of the divorce, she had no reason to know it was not a valid divorce, and parties were married about 20 years with no allegation that the marriage was void until the claim was made for alimony and property distribution. A similar conclusion was reached in Lambert v. Lambert, 524 So. 2d 686 (Fla. 4th DCA 1988), in which the husband tried to assert that his Dominican Republic divorce was invalid and therefore his current marriage of 13 years was invalid as well. This was rejected.