Barnes v. Barnes

• Decision Date: 17 May 2006
• Citation: 193 S.W.3d 495
• Parties: Randy Alan BARNES v. Amy Robertson BARNES.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

193 S.W.3d 495

Randy Alan BARNES v. Amy Robertson BARNES.

Supreme Court of Tennessee, at Jackson.

April 5, 2006 Session.

May 17, 2006.

Mitchell D. Moskovitz and Adam N. Cohen, Memphis, Tennessee, for the appellant, Amy Robertson Barnes.

William T. Winchester, Memphis, Tennessee, for the appellee, Randy Alan Barnes.

OPINION

WILLIAM M. BARKER, C.J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which E. RILEY ANDERSON, ADOLPHO A. BIRCH, JR., JANICE M. HOLDER, and CORNELIA A. CLARK, JJ., joined.

In this appeal, we must determine whether the trial court had the authority to enforce the marital dissolution agreement signed by the parties when one of the parties repudiated its terms prior to court approval. The parties entered into and signed, in the presence of a notary public, a marital dissolution agreement. Shortly thereafter, the husband filed a complaint for divorce in which he expressed his repudiation of the agreement. The wife filed a motion to enforce the agreement as a validly executed contract. The trial court granted the husband a divorce, but enforced the terms of the marital dissolution agreement as a valid contract between the parties. The Court of Appeals overruled the trial court's enforcement of the agreement, holding that the trial court did not have authority to enter a consent judgment because one of the parties had withdrawn his consent prior to the entry of judgment. We granted the wife's application for permission to appeal and hold that the marital dissolution agreement was an enforceable agreement, and reinstate the opinion of the trial court.

Factual Background

Randy Alan Barnes ("Husband") and Amy Robertson Barnes ("Wife") were married on August 9, 1997. One child was born of the marriage on June 2, 2000.

On June 4, 2003, Husband and Wife signed a written "Marital Dissolution Agreement" ("the agreement") in the presence of a notary public who acknowledged their signatures. Wife had obtained a form for the written agreement from the internet. Neither party was represented by counsel at the time they signed the agreement. The agreement provided that Husband pay child support and alimony and divided the marital property.

On June 18, 2003, two weeks after the parties signed the agreement, Husband filed a complaint for divorce. In his complaint, Husband asked that the agreement be disavowed.¹ Wife filed an answer and counter-complaint for divorce in which she denied that the agreement should be set aside; she asked, in the alternative, that the marital property be equitably divided. Wife filed a motion for mediation, which was granted. In mediation, the parties agreed to a parenting plan, but all other issues remained unresolved. Wife then filed a motion to enforce the agreement. Hearing the motion on the day the divorce was set for trial, the trial court held that the agreement was a binding, enforceable contract between the parties. The court then heard testimony concerning grounds for the divorce, at which time Wife admitted to having an affair during the marriage.

The trial court entered an order enforcing the agreement as a contract between the parties, expressly finding that Husband had no valid defense to that contract. The court's final divorce decree awarded Husband a divorce on grounds of inappropriate marital conduct, given Wife's testimony admitting fault. Issues concerning the parties' assets, liabilities, and spousal support were resolved in accordance with the agreement.

Husband appealed. The Court of Appeals did not address the agreement's enforceability as a contract but rather determined that "the real issue presented by this appeal is whether the trial court was in a position to enter a valid consent judgment when it readily appears, from the record, that there was no agreement between the parties at the time the judgment was entered." The intermediate court held that the trial court had erred in adopting the agreement because Husband had withdrawn his consent to the agreement prior to the entry of judgment by the trial court.

We granted Wife's application for permission to appeal.

Standard of Review

Our review is de novo upon the record of the proceedings below with a presumption of correctness as to the trial court's factual findings unless the evidence preponderates against those findings. Tenn. R.App. P. 13(d). The trial court's conclusions of law, however, are accorded no such presumption. Union Carbide Corp. v. Huddleston, 854 S.W.2d 87, 91 (Tenn.1993).

A marital dissolution agreement is a contract and thus is generally subject to the rules governing construction of contracts. Johnson v. Johnson, 37 S.W.3d 892, 896 (Tenn.2001); Honeycutt v. Honeycutt, 152 S.W.3d 556, 561 (Tenn.Ct.App. 2003). Because "the interpretation of a contract is a matter of law, our review is de novo on the record with no presumption of correctness in the trial court's conclusions of law." Honeycutt, 152 S.W.3d at 561 (citations omitted).

Analysis

Wife, the appellant, contends that the agreement is a valid and binding contract even though Husband repudiated the terms of the agreement prior to the trial court's entry of judgment incorporating that agreement. Husband, on the other hand, argues that absent his consent at the time the judgment was entered, the agreement was unenforceable. Thus, the question before us is whether a marital dissolution agreement that has been signed by both parties but has then been repudiated by one of the parties prior to the judgment of the trial court is enforceable.

I. Marital Dissolution Agreement as a Contract

We have previously held that a marital dissolution agreement "is a contract and as such generally is subject to the rules governing construction of contracts." Johnson, 37 S.W.3d at 896; see also Matthews v. Matthews, 24 Tenn.App. 580, 148 S.W.2d 3, 11 (1940) (holding that the separation agreement was a valid and enforceable contract absent a showing of fraud or coercion). This is consistent with the Court's treatment of other agreements made respective to marriage, in which we seek to determine the rights of each spouse in the marital property and to resolve other issues, such as spousal support. These types of agreements consistently have been found to be valid and enforceable contracts between the parties. See, e.g., Bratton v. Bratton, 136 S.W.3d 595, 600 (Tenn.2004) (post-nuptial agreements); Kahn v. Kahn, 756 S.W.2d 685, 694-95 (Tenn.1988) (prenuptial agreements); Hoyt v. Hoyt, 213 Tenn. 117, 372 S.W.2d 300, 303-04 (1963) (reconciliation agreements).

Additionally, settlement agreements made during or in contemplation of litigation are enforceable as contracts. See, e.g., Envtl. Abatement, Inc. v. Astrum R.E. Corp., 27 S.W.3d 530, 539 (Tenn.Ct. App.2000) (stating that "[a] compromise and settlement agreement is merely a contract between the parties to litigation and, as such, issues of enforceability of a settlement agreement are governed by contract law"); Harbour v. Brown for Ulrich, 732 S.W.2d 598, 600 (Tenn.1987) (stating that a settlement agreement may be "a binding contract, subject to being enforced as other contracts"); Ledbetter v. Ledbetter, 163 S.W.3d 681, 685 (Tenn.2005) (stating that "a mediated agreement is essentially contractual in nature"). Just as prenuptial and post-nuptial agreements are contracts, and as written marital dissolution agreements reached in mediation are contracts, so too are written and signed marital dissolution agreements reached independently by the parties.

A marital dissolution agreement may be enforceable as a contract even if one of the parties withdraws consent prior to the entry of judgment by the trial court, so long as the agreement is otherwise a validly enforceable contract.² In Matthews, the wife filed a complaint for divorce, alleging that the two separation agreements that she entered into with her husband were fraudulent and void. 148 S.W.2d at 5-6. Despite this clear repudiation by the wife, the Court of Appeals held that the separation agreements were valid and enforceable absent a clear showing of fraud or coercion. Id. at 13.

Recently, this Court addressed the issue of whether a marital dissolution agreement, reached though mediation but not reduced to a signed writing, was enforceable after one of the parties withdrew consent. Ledbetter, 163 S.W.3d at 682. We affirmed the trial court's ruling that the agreement was unenforceable, holding:

[W]e conclude that because Mr. Ledbetter repudiated the terms of the agreement prior to its presentation to the court, the trial court lacked authority to enter a judgment on the agreement. Further, because the agreement had not been reduced to writing and signed by the parties, it is not an enforceable contract.

Id. at 683. The Court in Ledbetter determined that the agreement was not enforceable as a contract because it had not been reduced to writing and, based on evidentiary provisions in Supreme Court Rule 31 (regarding mediation)³ and Rule 408 of the Rules of Evidence,⁴ the agreement should not be enforced as an oral contract. Id. at 685-86.

Unlike the agreement at issue in Ledbetter, the agreement at issue here was reduced to writing and signed by both parties, as witnessed by a notary public. Therefore the agreement is a contract, the enforceability of which is governed by contract law.

II. Enforceability of the Marital Dissolution Agreement

In enforcing the agreement as a contract, the trial court found that Husband did not have a valid defense to the agreement. In his complaint, Husband failed to plead any specific grounds for finding the agreement unenforceable. However, in his deposition, Husband testified that there were two reasons why the agreement should be set aside. First, he alleged that he was under duress at the time he signed the agreement because Wife threatened to remove the children from this state. Second, he alleged that because Wife committed adultery after the agreement was signed, the agreement was no longer...