When a married couple recognizes that they would be better off if the marriage was over, uncontested divorce is a good option for the couple. In an uncontested divorce, the spouses reach an agreement on how their assets, including their home, retirement assets and other property, should be divided. Then, one of the spouses hires an attorney who handles the paperwork with the courts.

When spouses can agree on the terms of their divorce, uncontested divorce provides couples with the flexibility of making their own decision on property division, instead of leaving the decision in the hands of a judge. In addition, uncontested divorce is a far more affordable divorce option than contested divorce, which involves litigating divorce issues in court.

People decide to end their marriages for a variety of reasons, and a federal court recently ruled that employers are not allowed to pry into the reasons why their employees get divorced.

The case began when Continental Airlines suspected that nine of its pilots got sham divorces so that their ex-spouses could receive money from the pilots' retirement accounts. According to a lawsuit filed by Continental in 2009, the pilots took advantage of a federal law that allows payments from pension benefit plans to divorced ex-spouses before a worker retires. After their divorces were finalized, many of the pilots then remarried their previous spouses.

On Monday, a U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's ruling that said employers are not allowed to look into the reasons why their employees get divorced. As a result, the court dismissed Continental's lawsuit against the nine pilots.

Source: ABC News, "Pilots Win 'Sham-Divorce' Case Against Continental," David Koenig, 20 July 2011