IN RE MORRISON
FAVROT: Marriage obliges the spouses to fulfill the reasonable sex drives of the other spouse and the parties cannot agree otherwise.
STREGACK: In Florida probate courts, no disclosure of each spouse's estate shall be required for an agreement, contract, or waiver executed before marriage. In other words, disclosure is required in order for an antenuptial agreement to be valid in terms of assent distribution upon separation but not upon the death of one of the spouses.
SHIELS: Wife stated evidence sufficient to sustain a challenge to a separation agreement where she alleges that, at the time of her signing, she was debilitated, indigent, nervous, hysterical, her signing was not her free voluntary and responsible act.
SIMEONE: Full disclosure must be made in order for a prenuptial agreement to be valid. The presumption is that fill disclosure was made where the ageeement says disclosure was made, but the presumption is rebuttable by clear and convincing evidence.
KNIPPEL'S ESTATE: Law of the jurisdiction of the matrimonial domicile governs disputes arising from agreements arising from the personal property of one spouse, despite that agreement's being signed in another jurisdiction. In this case, the court held that giving up rights upon death is valid in Wisconsin but not in Arizona.
NORRIS:
- Parties to an antenuptial contract may specify the chose of law they wish to govern as long as thee is some reasonable relationship with the jurisdiction specified.
- Parties had sufficient contacts with the jurisdiction in which they chose to govern conflicts arising from an antenuptial contract where the agreement was signed in the jurisdiction and where the husband had a second vacation home in the jurisdiction.
- Antenuptial contract is invalid as unfair in Florida where no provision is made for the wife, who was worse off after the marriage than she was before, where the husband, who sought to have the agreement upheld, failed to meet the burden of proving that he fully disclosed his income and where she signed the document one hour before the ceremony at her husband's demand.
LEWIS: Where a contract is made in one state but concerns property in another state, the court should decide which state would have the strongest interest in seeing its laws applied to that particular case in determining which law should govern. In this case, the agreement was signed in New York but concerned property in Hawai'i. Hawai'i, where the wife had lived continuously for six years and where the husband had been a resident since for five years and where the property in question was located in Hawai'i, had the stronger and primary interest in seeing its laws applied to the case because it was most directly affected by the respective financial positions of the husband and wife.
The general rule is that a court will inquire into the fairness of antenuptial or separation agreements between spouses. Norris is the general rule, Simeone is the odd case.
TROSSMAN: Parties to an antenuptial agtreement may seek declaratory judgment in the validity of distribution of property provisions on the prior death of a spouse where litigation on the issue is imminent, notwithstanding the fact that both spouses are still living.
DONNELL:
- A contract between parties who are living together is not deemed invalid merely by virture of the fact that their relationship had not been solemnized in a formal marriage.
- Trial court erred in holding a contract between two people engaged in a martial-like relationship unenforceable on the ground that it promoted or facilitated divorce where the contract was entered after the divorce final and after the adultery had ceased.
- Sexual consideration, if at the heart of an agreement, renders the contract unforceable, but can be servered from the contract of if not at the root of an agreement supported by valid consideration.
GLICKMAN: Separation agreement not promotive of divorce if entered into where teh marriage had so deteriorated that legitimate grounds for divorce existed and where there was little hope of reconciliation.
COHEN: Separation agreement in which husband was to pay his wife $400 per month in support payments can be charged against his estate as an exception to the general rule that a husband's obligation to support his wife terminates with the husband's death where he stated his intent to charge the payments against his estate by providing that they should continue to the wife until she dies or remarries, where it was anticipated that the payments would be the wife's sole source of income and where the wife was required, by the terms of the agreement, to provide for the maintenance and upkeep of the marital home.
In order to bind the estate of one spouse, a separation agreement must either specifically provide for the continuation of payments or evince, from the terms of the ageement read as a whole, a clear intention that support payments continue, notwithstanding the husband's death.
MARTIN: A separation agreement will be set aside if, and only if, overreaching or unconscionability ("a bargain is such that no man in his senses and not under delusion would make on the one hand and ... no hontes or fair man would accept on the other") is established by the party seeking to deem the contract invalid.
MOORE: