The Last Temptation of Mac - S6-E6
Harry Stone: How the hell did you get down?
Irwin: Well we must have been up at least a couple thousand feet when the Air Force picked up Winkie on their radar screens and shot us down.
Bull Shannon: Those gutless bunny killers.
Irwin: I guess to them we looked like a Soviet MiG. Oh, I'd be a sidewalk pizza if it hadn't been for that awning on the Weatherbee Hotel.
Mr. Barsotti: An awning broke your fall?
Irwin: Are you kidding? Mr. Barsotti, I bounced off it right into this big fall clearance banner on the front of the store across the street. Which, which flung me on to the top of a passing bus. The driver took a sharp turn at Battery Park and threw me off. Right to a bed of chrysanthemums. That's what broke my fall.
Harry Stone: Irwin, you've gotta be the luckiest man in the world.
Irwin: No. Dan Quayle is.
Answer: Being declared legally dead is called "death in absentia", meaning there is no evidence of death (i.e. a body), but the individual is presumed dead. This can happen to anyone, not just MIA soldiers. If a spouse petitions the courts to grant a divorce on the presumption of death and all criteria are meet, they are legally divorced and free to remarry. The return of the presumed dead would not change the divorce ruling. However, if a spouse does not go through the legal steps prior to remarrying, then the return of the presumed dead spouse would nullify and void the 2nd marriage immediately (and the remarried spouse could face bigamy charges).
Bishop73