• The system of no-fault divorce has been adopted throughout the United States. By 1974, 45 states had adopted no-fault divorce; by 1985, every state but New York had adopted some form of it. In New York — one of the last bastions of fault grounds for divorce — the closest equivalent is a conversion divorce one year after legal separation or a legal-separation agreement. Cf. fault divorce; hotel divorce. [Cases: Divorce 12. C.J.S. Divorce §§ 13–18, 70.]
no fault divorce
A divorce in which the parties are not required to prove fault or grounds beyond a showing of the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage or irreconcilable differences.
