Rescission

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The Second Department has imposed what may be an impossible burden of proof needed to correct a mathematical miscalculation (the alleged mutual mistake) in a divorce settlement agreement. That is the effect of the March 19, 2014 decision  in Hackett v. Hackett.

After 22 years of marriage, the husband commenced an action for a divorce in 2005. A year later, the parties executed a written settlement agreement, which was incorporated, but not merged into their judgment of divorce.

Under the terms of the settlement agreement, the wife received the marital residence, which the parties estimated to be worth $465,000, and she assumed responsibility for repayment of a first mortgage and a home equity loan with combined outstanding balances of $195,124. The husband retained sole ownership of his restaurant business, which had an appraised value of between $360,000 to $385,000, but which the parties agreed to value, for purposes of their settlement, at only $325,000. The wife also agreed to waive valuation of the husband’s certification as a public accountant, which he acquired during the marriage. “Schedule A” to the divorce settlement agreement listed the dollar values of the assets being allocated to each party. The settlement “purportedly” [the Court’s word] equalized the division of assets by requiring the husband to pay the wife $19,336.

Approximately two years later, the ex-husband commenced this action, seeking to reform the settlement agreement on the ground that an alleged mutual mistake had resulted in the unequal division of the marital assets. He alleged that the settlement agreement contained a “computational error” on Schedule A. As a result the wife’s share of the marital assets was undervalued, resulting in a windfall to her in excess of $100,000. The husband maintained the expressed intent of the agreementcertain was to equally divide the parties’ assets.Continue Reading “Clear and Beyond Doubt” is Burden of Proof for Correction of Mutual Mistake in Divorce Settlement Agreement

The failure of the now-deceased wife to disclose that she was suffering from terminal cancer at the time the parties entered their divorce settlement agreement was not a basis to set aside that agreement. So held the Appellate Division Second Department in its August 28, 2013 decision in Petrozza v. Franzen.

Richmond County Supreme Court Justice John A. Fusco had granted summary judgment dismissing the complaint in the husband’s plenary action to rescind the agreement brought against the executors of the wife’s estate. The husband had alleged that his wife had fraudulently and actively concealed her illness. That illness resulted in the wife’s death after the execution of the settlement agreement, but before the entry of a final judgment of divorce.

Affirming that dismissal, the Second Department noted that to demonstrate fraud, a plaintiff must show that the defendant “knowingly misrepresented or concealed a material fact for the purpose of inducing [him] to rely upon it, and that [he] justifiably relied upon such misrepresentation or concealment to his . . . detriment.”Continue Reading Concealing Terminal Cancer Not Basis to Invalidate Divorce Settlement