In its March 21, 2018 decision in Elkins v. Mizrahi, the Appellate Division, Second Department, struck a credit issued at the time a father’s new child support obligation was established. That determination tacitly affirmed the new obligation, after a lower court found that a prior waiver of future child support, to which both parties had stipulated, violated public policy. However, the same lower court had previously discharged prior arrears and terminated the father’s support obligation in the order entered that had incorporated that prior stipulation of the parties.

The parties, who have three children together, were divorced in March 2008. In 2014, the parties entered into a stipulation whereby they agreed, inter alia, that the father would pay the mother a lump sum of $50,000.00 in full satisfaction of his accrued child support arrears, which, at that time, exceeded $70,000.00, and that the father’s child support obligation would be terminated going forward. The mother received the $50,000.00 payment on November 21, 2014.

In an order dated January 29, 2015, Nassau County Family Court Judge Ellen R. Greenberg gave effect to the stipulation, terminated the father’s future child support obligation, and directed that the father’s remaining child support arrears of $21,385.46 be deemed satisfied.Continue Reading Waiver of Future Child Support Voided, But Miscalculated Credit Struck

In its August 24, 2016 decision in Maddaloni v. Maddaloni, the Appellate Division, Second Department, upheld the rulings of Supreme Court Suffolk County Justice Justice Carol Mackenzie that invalidated the all-but-complete maintenance waiver contained in a 23-year-old postnuptial agreement, awarding the wife maintenance for 10 years. The appellate court also upheld Justice Mackenzie’s award to the wife of 25% of the $2,000,000 appreciation during the marriage in the value of the husband’s pre-marital business, Maddaloni Jewelers of Huntington.

The Maddalonis were married in January, 1988. At the time of the marriage, the husband owned several cars, a house, and a jewelry business, and he was in contract to buy a shopping center. On August 22, 1988, less than eight months after the parties were married, they experienced marital difficulties and entered into a postnuptial agreement. Among other things, this agreement provided that, in the event that the parties divorced after the first five years of marriage, the wife agreed to accept the sum of $50,000, payable in five equal annual installments of $10,000, “in full satisfaction of any and all claims of whatsoever kind and nature she may have at that time for past or future support or for distribution of assets.”Continue Reading Maintenance Provision of Postnuptial Agreement Voided; Wife Awarded 25% of Appreciation of Husband’s Premarital Business

College Fund 3Should a court reinterpret a divorce settlement agreement in light of New York’s public policy? It is one thing to void a contract provision as violative of that policy. It’s another to pretend that the contract was intended to be consistent with that policy.

Take, Monroe County Supreme Court Justice Richard A. Dollinger’s recent decision in Luken v. Luken. There, the parties’ June, 2014 separation agreement provided that the couple would jointly finance the college education for their sons. At the time of the agreement the older son had completed his first year of college; the younger son was in high school. The husband was to pay 70 percent of the college cost, the wife the remaining 30 percent, up to a combined cap of $42,000. The agreement also gave the husband a college expense credit against his child support obligation:

The father shall be entitled to receive a credit against his child support for payments for college educational expenses as set forth herein.

The agreement had obligated the father to pay child support of $33,996 annually for his two sons. The amount was calculated using the $141,000 C.S.S.A. “cap,” even though the couple’s combined family income substantially exceeded that amount (the wife estimated the husband’s income at $600,000).Continue Reading Crediting Child Support With Payments for College Expenses

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

On the wife’s motion for temporary relief, Supreme Court, New York County Justice Deborah A. Kaplan in Lennox v. Weberman, awarded the wife tax-free maintenance of $38,000 per month, plus the wife’s unreimbursed medical expenses up to $2,000 per month, interim counsel fees of $50,000, and expert fees of $35,000.

By its February 26, 2013 decision, the First Department modified that order, on the facts, to provide that such pendente lite relief would be treated as an advance on the 50 percent of the parties’ joint funds to which the wife is entitled pursuant to the parties’ prenuptial agreement.

Notwithstanding that the wife had waived any claim to a final award of alimony or maintenance in the parties’ prenuptial agreement, Justice Kaplan was entitled, in her discretion, to award pendente lite relief in the absence of an express agreement to exclude an award of temporary maintenance.

As to the amount of the temporary maintenance award, the appellate court found that Justice Kaplan properly applied the new temporary maintenance formula set forth at Domestic Relations Law § 236(B)(5–a)(c)(2)(a). Specifically, Justice Kaplan had listed all 19 of the enumerated factors, explained how 7 of them supported an upward deviation to $38,000 per month from the $12,500 a month in guideline support, and found that $38,000 per month was not “unjust or inappropriate.”Continue Reading Pendente Lite Award Prospectively Charged as an Advance Against Wife’s Share of Marital Property

Two decisions within the last 10 days confirm the need for agreements relating to support to be in (an acknowledged) writing, and then incorporated in a court order.

In one, the Second Department affirmed the award of maintenance arrears without a hearing despite the claimed reduction of maintenance under an oral modification of the parties’ separation agreement. In the second, Albany County Family Court Judge W. Dennis Duggan directed a father to pay 71% of his older son’s private middle school expense, despite the mother’s conceded agreement to pay the full tuition.

In its January 30, 2103 decision in Parker v. Navarra, the Second Department affirmed the award of maintenance arrears by Dutchess County Supreme Court Justice James V. Brands. The ex-husband alleged that he and his ex-wife had orally modified the maintenance provisions of their separation agreement and, alternatively, that the ex-wife should be equitably estopped from enforcing the maintenance provisions of the separation agreement. The ex-husband had requested an evidentiary hearing so that he could present the testimony of witnesses on those issues. Justice Brands denied the request for an evidentiary hearing, awarding arrears on the basis of the parties’ submissions.

The Second Department affirmed, noting that the ex-husband failed to make a showing sufficient to entitle him to a hearing on this issue:

Where, as here, the parties’ separation agreement contains a provision that expressly provides that modifications must be in writing, an alleged oral modification is enforceable only if there is part performance that is unequivocally referable to the oral modification. The defendant did not demonstrate that the plaintiff’s acceptance of reduced monthly maintenance payments was unequivocally referable to an alleged oral modification by, for example, demonstrating that consideration was given in exchange for the plaintiff’s alleged oral agreement to accept reduced maintenance payments.

Moreover, to establish a defense of equitable estoppel, the ex-husband was required to have shown that the ex-wife’s conduct induced his significant and substantial reliance upon an oral modification. Again, the ex-husband was required to have shown that the conduct relied upon to establish estoppel was not otherwise  compatible with the agreement as written.Continue Reading Support Modification Agreements: Get’em in Writing; Get’em into Court (Part II)