In its August 19, 2015 decision in Hof v. Hof, the Second Department, almost matter-of-factly, addressed a number of pendente lite and pre-nuptial agreement issues.
To begin, the Court affirmed the determination of Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice John B. Collins, that after a hearing upheld the parties’ prenuptial agreement. By that agreement,
The Second Department seems to have taken another bite out of prenuptial agreements. My March 25, 2013 post asked, Is it Open Season on Prenuptial Agreements? That post discussed the Second Department’s February, 2013 decision in Cioffi-Petrakis v. Petrakis and its December, 2012 decision in Petracca v. Petracca. Both cases affirmed Supreme Court Nassau County decisions setting aside the prenuptial agreements in issue,
Now, in an October 15, 2014 decision in McKenna v. McKenna, the Second Department modified an order of Nassau County Supreme Court Justice Margaret C. Reilly that had granted a husband summary judgment motion declaring the parties’ prenuptial agreement to be valid and enforceable. Justice Reilly had also denied the wife’s motion for an award of pendente lite maintenance and counsel fees.
Holding that summary judgment was not warranted, the appellate court may have increased or changed the burden needed to uphold a prenuptial agreement; changing the role of a contract’s “merger clause.” That clause declares that no factual representations not specifically referenced in the contract may later be used to claim the contract was fraudulently induced. Typically, it is a shield used to protect the agreement from attack.
In McKenna, the Second Department suggests a merger clause may be used as a sword: preventing a court from learning the wife’s actual knowledge of the husband’s finances at the time the prenuptial agreement was entered. As that knowledge could only have come from representations of the husband, the merger clause would bar proof of such representations not referenced by the agreement.Continue Reading It Just Became Tougher To Validate Prenuptial Agreements
The premarital agreement of the parties limited their rights to obtain spousal support upon divorce. It also contained a waiver of their rights to counsel fees.
Nevertheless, recently-retired New York County Supreme Court Justice Saralee Evans awarded the wife $6,000 per month in unallocated pendente lite support (an award not specifying how much of it