Delgado v. Cotta de Lopez, 88-2018
| Decision Date | 06 June 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 88-2018,88-2018 |
| Citation | 14 Fla. L. Weekly 1361,546 So.2d 1075 |
| Parties | 14 Fla. L. Weekly 1361 Joseph DELGADO, Appellant, v. Laura Cal COTTA de LOPEZ, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Maria Teresa Cotta-Benitez, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Horton, Perse & Ginsberg and Mallory Horton, Miami, for appellant.
Gladys R. Navarro, Santiago G. Leon, Miami, for appellee.
Before HUBBART, BASKIN and COPE, JJ.
Maria Teresa Cotta-Benitez and Joseph Delgado were married in 1977. In 1983, Maria filed a petition for dissolution of marriage. Joseph was served personally; however, he did not file an answer. During the pendency of the divorce action, the parties entered into a property settlement in which each party waived all rights "that he or she may now have or hereafter acquire as the other party's spouse ... to elect to take against any Will or Codicil of the other party now in force ...; to share in the other party's estate and to exercise any right to dower or curtesy." See § 732.702, Fla.Stat. (1987). The property settlement was incorporated in the final judgment of dissolution of marriage entered on May 30, 1984.
In 1985, the parties remarried each other and remained married until Maria's death on April 1, 1987. Following the submission of Maria's will for probate, Joseph filed a petition to take an elective share of Maria's estate, see § 732.201, and for determination of homestead in certain real property. The court entered an order declaring Joseph Maria's surviving and pretermitted spouse in accordance with sections 732.201 and 732.301, but ruled that Joseph waived his rights under section 732.702. Consequently, the court denied the petition to take an elective share and to determine homestead. Subsequently, Joseph's counsel discovered a written agreement signed by Joseph and Maria on March 22, 1984. In that agreement, the parties revoked the property settlement agreement. Acting on the new disclosure, the court vacated its order, took testimony, and considered the newly discovered agreement and other documents pertaining to the divorce action. The court entered an order granting the motion for judgment on the pleadings filed by Laura Cal Cotta de Lopez, personal representative under Maria's will. Joseph appeals and we reverse.
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Cox v. Cox
...virtue of the parties' remarriage to each other and the trial court abused its discretion in holding otherwise); Delgado v. Cotta de Lopez, 546 So.2d 1075 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989) (concluding that the parties' remarriage to each other rendered the elective-share waiver provision of a prior proper......
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Thomas v. Thomas
...case presents the additional question whether remarriage of the parties serves to abrogate the prior agreement. In Delgado v. Cotta de Lopez, 546 So.2d 1075 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989), as in the instant case, there was a marriage, a divorce, and remarriage. The parties were first married in 1977, a......
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Cox v. Cox
...for any period of time will render a previous contract and settlement of property rights void."); see also Delgado v. Cotta de Lopez, 546 So.2d 1075 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989); Gosline v. Gosline, 435 So.2d 413 (Fla. 5th DCA 1983); Hudson v. Fatolitis, 289 So.2d 41 (Fla. 2d DCA 1974). 2 Professor C......
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Estate of Duggan, In re
...established that in Florida a later reconciliation will invalidate a property settlement agreement. He cited Delgado v. Cotta de Lopez, 546 So.2d 1075 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989), and Mills v. Mills, 460 So.2d 545 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984), but found them factually inapplicable. He emphasized that the cur......