Is common‑law marriage legally recognized in Wisconsin?
No. Some states recognize couples as married after they agree to marry and live together for a specified time even though they never formally marry. Wisconsin requires a marriage license and an official ceremony. After filing for divorce, one spouse went into the other spouse’ s email account and printed off a bunch of emails without permission. Now that spouse is trying to use the information he/she got from the emails against the other spouse to get a better settlement. Can this happen? Most likely not. Unauthorized access to opened and saved emails that are stored on computers through electronic communications services, such as Gmail, Yahoo! and Hotmail, may be a violation of the Stored Communications Act. By taking information from email accounts without permission, the spouse may be subject to criminal charges as well as subject to civil monetary penalties. In either case, the information taken from the emails may not be used as evidence.
