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THE POSTNUPTIAL AGREEMENT WAS NOT SIGNED UNDER DURESS AND WAS NOT UNCONSCIONABLE, SUPREME COURT REVERSED (FOURTH DEPT).

The Fourth Department, reversing Supreme Court in this divorce action, determined the postnuptial agreement was not signed under duress and was not unconscionable:

Initially, we conclude that the court erred insofar as it held that plaintiff signed the 2017 agreement under duress as a result of defendant’s emotional abuse. An agreement is voidable on the ground of duress “when it is established that the party making the claim was forced to agree to it by means of a wrongful threat precluding the exercise of his [or her] free will” … . Generally, “the aggrieved party must demonstrate that threats of an unlawful act compelled his or her performance of an act which he or she had the legal right to abstain from performing” … . “[T]he threat must be such as to deprive the party of the exercise of free will” … . Here, even accepting as true plaintiff’s allegations that defendant persistently urged him to sign the 2017 agreement and threatened to tell the parties’ children of plaintiff’s wrongful actions in the past, such conduct did not amount to any unlawful acts on the part of defendant sufficient to constitute duress … .

… [P]laintiff failed to sustain his burden of establishing that the 2017 agreement was unconscionable. “An agreement is unconscionable if it is one which no person in his or her senses and not under delusion would make on the one hand, and no honest and fair person would accept on the other, the inequality being so strong and manifest as to shock the conscience and confound the judgment of any person of common sense” … . The fact that defendant was represented by counsel but plaintiff was not is a factor for the court to consider, but is not dispositive … . As relevant here, in the 2017 agreement each party waived his or her rights in the other party’s separate property, which was defined in that agreement. … . …[T]he parties waived any right to receive maintenance. … Plaintiff … signed … three postnuptial agreements during the course of the marriage, and the testimony of both parties revealed that the parties conducted their finances in accordance with the terms of the agreements. … [I]t cannot be said that the 2017 agreement was such that it would “shock the conscience and confound the judgment of any [person] of common sense” … . Campbell v Campbell, 2022 NY Slip Op 04875, Fourth Dept 8-4-22

Practice Point: This decision includes concise descriptions of the criteria for determining whether a postnuptial agreement was signed under duress and whether the agreement is unconscionable.

 

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