The Vermont Statutes Online

Title 15 : Domestic Relations

Chapter 011 : Annulment and Divorce

Subchapter 001 : ANNULMENT

• § 514. Party is mentally incapable of entering into civil marriage

  (a) When a civil marriage is sought to be annulled on the ground of one of the parties’ mental incapability to enter into the civil marriage, it may be declared void on the complaint of a relative of such person at any time during the life of either of the parties.

  (b) When a civil marriage is sought to be annulled on the ground of one of the parties’ mental incapability to enter into the civil marriage, on the complaint of a relative of the person, such marriage may be declared void during the continuance of such mental incapacity, or after the death of the person who is mentally incapacitated in that condition and during the lifetime of the other party to the marriage.

  (c) The civil marriage of a person who is mentally incapacitated may be declared void upon the complaint of the person after restoration to health, but a decree of nullity shall not be pronounced if the parties freely cohabited as spouses after the spouse who was mentally incapacitated had restored capacity.

  (d) If an action is not prosecuted by a relative, the civil marriage of a person who is mentally incapacitated may be annulled during the lifetime of both the parties to the marriage, on the complaint of a person admitted by the court to prosecute as the next friend of such person who is mentally incapacitated.

  (e) The phrases “mentally incapacitated,” “incapacitated,” “mental incapacity,” “mentally incapable,” “mental incapability,” and other similar phrases as used in sections 511-514 of this title shall extend only to persons who have a severe psychiatric, cognitive, or other severe mental disability. (Amended 2009, No. 3, § 12a, eff. Sept. 1, 2009; 2013, No. 96 (Adj. Sess.), § 68.)