La Clare v. La Clare

California Court of Appeal Sep 6, 1968 No. Civ. 31925Published

Before: Moor

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Holding. The trial court erred by limiting its inquiry to the wife's competency to sign a private alimony waiver agreement, as the court must exercise its independent statutory discretion to modify support decrees rather than relying solely on private agreements between parties.

Issues

Whether a trial court may terminate alimony based solely on a private agreement between parties without considering statutory factors for modification.
Whether the trial court erred in excluding evidence regarding the wife's state of mind at the time she signed the waiver agreement.

Disposition. reversed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The parties to a divorce action may not modify prospectively that portion of a divorce decree providing for the payment of support money to the wife by the simple act of agreeing to do so.”

“The power to modify a decree of divorce in this respect is reserved to the courts alone.”

“The more serious error, however, was the fact that the court obviously limited itself in this hearing to the sole question of the competency of the wife to sign the agreement”

MOOR, J, pro tem.

Plaintiff commenced an action for divorce on October 6, 1964. There then followed a period of approximately eight months until a property settlement agreement was made between the parties with the aid of their counsel. The property settlement agreement made provisions for the division of the community property whereby plaintiff was awarded $3,000 in cash plus a half interest in the family home from which she later realized $14,000. The terms of the property settlement agreement were incorporated in the interlocutory judgment, which judgment also ordered the defendant to pay to appellant the sum of $50 per week alimony. The court retained jurisdiction to modify or discontinue the support and maintenance of the wife.

On May 26, 1965, when the interlocutory decree of divorce was filed the parties had been married for 22 years.

On July 29, 1965, and before the entry of the final judgment of divorce, defendant persuaded plaintiff to sign a written agreement, acknowledged by a notary public on the same date, whereby for $1,200, an amount equal to six months’ advance alimony, she released defendant from “any further alimony or support to me for the rest of his life from this day of July 29,1965 forward.”

This agreement was signed outside the presence of the attorney for either party and without the advice, knowledge or consent of plaintiff’s attorney.

On January 24,

1967,

the superior court, pursuant to an order directing plaintiff to show cause why the interlocutory judgment of divorce should not be modified, and after hearing thereon, terminated permanently the alimony provisions of the interlocutory decree.

Plaintiff appeals from this order.

Plaintiff opposed the termination of her alimony on several

[513]

grounds among them being that throughout the litigation she had been represented by an attorney and that the defendant contacted her in her home and through the use of coercion, duress, undue influence and implied threats of physical violence and without the knowledge of plaintiff’s attorney did force plaintiff to accept the sum of $1,200 as payment of the ensuing year’s support to clear the matter for that year; that defendant insisted that plaintiff not have her attorney read the document before she signed it, and she did sign it not knowing that the same was a waiver of all of her future rights to alimony or support, and further, that during this period and at all times in the litigation, she was in an upset and distraught state of mind.

La Clare v. La Clare

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