As injustices go, it’s a tiny one. But the everyday citizenry of California has to wait six months after a separation for a divorce decree. Renee Zellweger got around this law by filing for an annulment of her short marriage to Kenny Chesney. Except that annulments are only available on fairly limited grounds. Zellweger plead fraud in her annulment filing—and admitted in a press release within days that there wasn’t any actual fraud, but that she had made the allegation out of convenience. It’s not often that a major celebrity admits committing perjury, and it’s even rarer that a court rewards the admitted perjury with the sought-after relief. But that’s what happened here, and, as of December 20, Zellweger has an annulment that wouldn’t be available to the hoi polloi.

Filed under: divorce, family law