1-1  By:  Goodman, Thompson (Senate Sponsor - Harris)       H.B. No. 336
    1-2       Combs
    1-3        (In the Senate - Received from the House May 4, 1995;
    1-4  May 5, 1995, read first time and referred to Committee on
    1-5  Jurisprudence; May 16, 1995, reported favorably by the following
    1-6  vote:  Yeas 7, Nays 0; May 16, 1995, sent to printer.)
    1-7                         A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-8                                AN ACT
    1-9  relating to proceedings to prove certain informal marriages.
   1-10        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
   1-11        SECTION 1.  Section 1.91(b), Family Code, is amended to read
   1-12  as follows:
   1-13        (b)  If a <A> proceeding in which a marriage is to be proved
   1-14  under Subsection (a)(2) is not <this section must be> commenced
   1-15  before the second anniversary of <not later than one year after>
   1-16  the date on which the parties separated and ceased living together,
   1-17  it is rebuttably presumed that the parties did not enter into an
   1-18  agreement to be married <relationship ended or not later than one
   1-19  year after September 1, 1989, whichever is later>.
   1-20        SECTION 2.  (a)  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995.
   1-21        (b)  The change in law made by this Act to a suit brought to
   1-22  prove the existence of an informal marriage applies only to a suit
   1-23  commenced on or after the effective date of this Act.  A suit
   1-24  commenced before that date is governed by the law in effect on the
   1-25  date the suit was commenced and the former law is continued in
   1-26  effect for that purpose.
   1-27        (c)  The change in law made by this Act to Section 1.91,
   1-28  Family Code, does not permit an action to be commenced on or after
   1-29  the effective date of this Act to prove the existence of an
   1-30  informal marriage for which an action was barred before the
   1-31  effective date of this Act for failure to bring the action before
   1-32  the first anniversary of the date the relationship ended.
   1-33        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-34  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-35  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-36  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-37  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.
   1-38                               * * * * *