## Facts

- Manuel Santolino, age 81, rented a room in his home to Lillian E. Centeno, whom he met in 2000.
- Santolino was hospitalized in March 2004, diagnosed with lung cancer, and returned home in April 2004.
- Santolino and Centeno married on April 27, 2004, in municipal court.
- Santolino was rehospitalized on May 11, 2004, and died on May 20, 2004.
- No will was found; Santolino’s intestate heir, apart from the claimed spouse, was his sister, Mercedes Tabor (acting through a guardian).
- Centeno filed in Probate Part for letters of administration as Santolino’s surviving spouse.
- Tabor filed a caveat, asserting the marriage was invalid under N.J.S.A. 2A:34-1 based on alleged impotence, lack of mental capacity to consent, fraud, and general equitable grounds.
- Centeno moved to dismiss under Rule 4:6-2(e), arguing (i) the sister lacked standing and (ii) any annulment-type challenge was barred because death ended the marriage and foreclosed litigating voidable defects.

## Issues

1. Whether a court may annul a marriage after the death of one party when the asserted defects fall within N.J.S.A. 2A:34-1.
2. Whether alleged incapacity to consent, fraud, or impotence under N.J.S.A. 2A:34-1 renders a marriage void or voidable.
3. Whether an intestate heir may, in a probate dispute over administration and inheritance, bring a post-death challenge to defeat a claimed surviving spouse’s status.

## Decision

- The court granted Centeno’s Rule 4:6-2(e) motion and dismissed the caveat-based claims seeking to nullify the marriage.
- The court held that the statutory grounds invoked under N.J.S.A. 2A:34-1 make the marriage voidable rather than void.
- Because the marriage was voidable, the court held it could not be annulled after one spouse’s death.
- As a result, Centeno remained the surviving spouse for probate purposes and was entitled to proceed as the person seeking letters of administration.

## Legal Principles

- Under N.J.S.A. 2A:34-1, marriages challenged for impotence, lack of capacity to consent, or fraud are treated as voidable and remain valid unless set aside in a direct annulment action.
- A voidable marriage cannot be collaterally attacked and annulled after the death of one spouse; the right to seek annulment on voidable grounds must be exercised during the parties’ lifetimes.
- Probate proceedings cannot be used by collateral heirs to retroactively invalidate a voidable marriage in order to alter intestate succession and administrative priority.
- The void/voidable classification controls post-death remedies: void marriages may be subject to broader collateral challenge, but voidable marriages are not.

## Conclusion

The court dismissed a decedent’s sister’s post-death attempt to invalidate a late-in-life marriage on statutory annulment grounds, holding that such defects render a marriage voidable and therefore not subject to annulment after death, leaving the surviving spouse’s probate status intact.


In re Estate of Santolino, 384 N.J. Super. 567, 895 A.2d 506 (Ch. Div. 2005)