Null
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
Destitute of force; inefficacious; inoperative; invalid; void of effect. Nullity: lack of force or efficacy; entire lack of operative qualities; also, particularly in the plural, acts or proceedings which are destitute of efficacy, or are wholly void. Null and void. It is extraordinary that there should be cases in which it has been held that the words "null and void" should not have their usual meaning; but the word void has certainly been construed as voidable, when the proviso was introduced in favor of the party who did not wish to avoid the instrument.
Pease v. Morrice, 2 Ad. & E. 94.
Nullity of marriage. Besides the power to entertain suits for divorce, which assume that there was a valid marriage which requires to be dissolved, there is a jurisdiction of courts to entertain a suit founded on a complaint that an assumed or pretended marriage never had any validity in law, but, from relationship of parties, incapacity of either, want of compliance with essential requirements, &c., was void from the outset. This is called a suit of nullity of marriage. The object of a suit instituted for the purpose of having marriages declared null and void is twofold: 1. Where, although the marriage is ipso facto null and void, and no declaratory sentence is absolutely necessary, yet it is expedient to procure a sentence, in order to prevent any pernicious consequences which might take place hereafter, from the death of witnesses or other contingencies, rendering the proof of the invalidity of the marriage difficult or impossible; as, where at the time of its celebration one of the parties had been previously legally married, and the marriage had not been dissolved by death or judicial sentence; also a suit for the purpose of having a marriage de facto declared void by reason of legal invalidity, arising from a non-compliance of the marriage law, or from force.
2.
Where the marriage is voidable only; for, should a judicial sentence of the divorce court not be obtained during the lives of both the parties, the marriage cannot, after either's death, be questioned anywhere.
Wharton.