Rider v. Rider
| Decision Date | 27 March 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 48A02-9312-CV-0680,48A02-9312-CV-0680 |
| Citation | 648 N.E.2d 661 |
| Parties | Charles R. RIDER, Appellant-Petitioner v. Leslie Anne RIDER, Appellee-Respondent. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Joan Bashaw Gregg, Gregg & Bybee, Anderson, for appellant.
David W. Stone IV, Stone Law Office, and Ronald L. McNabney, Anderson, for appellee.
Charles R. Rider appeals from the trial court's award of maintenance and fees to his former wife, Leslie Anne Rider.
He presents the following issues, 1 for review:
1. Was the trial court's maintenance award an unconstitutional impairment of the parties' antenuptial agreement.
2. Did the trial court err in awarding maintenance to Leslie in contravention of the parties' antenuptial agreement.
We affirm.
Charles and Leslie Rider were married on February 14, 1988. Before they were married, Charles and Leslie signed an antenuptial agreement which provided, in part, that: "It is mutually agreed by and between both parties that each party, in the case of a separation of the parties hereto, shall have no right as against the other by way of claims for support, alimony, attorney fees, legal and court costs, or division of property." Record at 163-64. At the dissolution hearing, Leslie introduced evidence that she suffered from inflammatory neuropathy, which caused her to quit work for health reasons. Her treating neurologist testified that Leslie was unable to work due to her condition. Leslie had no employment income, but she owned a house, had some money in a bank account, received child support from a previous marriage and had personal property of an undetermined value.
The general law of contracts applies to antenuptial agreements. Rose v. Rose (1988), Ind.App., 526 N.E.2d 231, 236, trans. denied; Harlan v. Harlan (1989), Ind.App., 544 N.E.2d 553, 556-57, aff'd, Ind., 560 N.E.2d 1246 (1990). Article I, § 10 of the United States Constitution, in part, provides: "No state shall ... pass any ... law impairing the obligation of contracts...." A similar provision is found in Article I, § 24 of the Indiana Constitution: "No ... law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall ever be passed."
In the nineteenth century state and federal courts interpreted these constitutional provisions as prohibiting impairment of contracts resulting from a change in the judicial interpretation of statutes. In Haskett v. Maxey (1893), 134 Ind. 182, 33 N.E. 358, our supreme court held:
"The sound and true rule is, that if the contract when made was valid by the laws of the state, as then expounded by all the departments of its government, and administered in its courts of justice, its validity and obligation cannot be impaired by any subsequent act of the legislature of the state, or decision of its courts, altering the construction of the law."
Id., 134 Ind. at 191, 33 N.E. at 360 (emphasis added) (quoting Ohio Life Ins. & Trust Co. v. Debolt (1853), 57 U.S. 416, 432, 16 How. 416, 432, 14 L.Ed. 997, 1004). In Haskett, the court did not indicate whether the contract impairment it found was prohibited by the state constitution, the federal constitution, or both. The next year, in Stephenson v. Boody (1894), 139 Ind. 60, 38 N.E. 331, our supreme court also relied upon Debolt in holding that both the state and federal constitutions prohibited contract impairment resulting from changes in judicial interpretation. This interpretation survived into the twentieth century in our decision in Ruf v. Mueller (1911), 49 Ind.App. 7, 12-13, 96 N.E. 612, 614, which relied upon Haskett and Debolt.
Charles contends that our supreme court's decision in In re Marriage of Boren (1985), Ind., 475 N.E.2d 690, specifically authorized antenuptial agreements and required trial courts to enforce such agreements in the absence of fraud, duress, or misrepresentation. Charles then argues that because his agreement was executed after Boren but before more recent appellate decisions which allow a trial court to review an antenuptial agreement for unconscionability, to apply the more recent holdings violates the constitutional prohibition against impairment of contracts resulting from changes in judicial interpretation.
We do not agree with Charles that the holding in Boren limits the trial court's review of an antenuptial agreement to issues of fraud, duress, or misrepresentation. There, the trial court and our supreme court also reviewed the agreement for unconscionability before concluding that it should be enforced as written. Boren, 475 N.E.2d at 694 ().
Since Debolt was decided, the United States Supreme Court has held that the constitutional prohibition against impairment of contracts applies only to legislative action, not to judicial decisions. In Tidal Oil Co. v. Flanagan (1924), 263 U.S. 444, 44 S.Ct. 197, 68 L.Ed. 382, the Court said:
Id. at 451, 44 S.Ct. at 198, 68 L.Ed. at 385 (footnote omitted). See also Barrows v. Jackson (1953), 346 U.S. 249, 260, 73 S.Ct. 1031, 1037, 97 L.Ed. 1586, 1597. Indiana appellate courts must follow decisions of the United States Supreme Court interpreting the United States Constitution. See Waggoner v. Feeney (1942), 220 Ind. 543, 548, 44 N.E.2d 499, 501. Consequently, Haskett, Stephenson, and Ruf have been tacitly overruled in their interpretation of the federal constitution.
Our supreme court has acknowledged the United States Supreme Court's change in interpretation, Rouse v. Paidrick (1943), 221 Ind. 517, 49 N.E.2d 528, ("the authority of the two cases [Haskett and Stephenson ], both based upon a dictum in The Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company v. Debolt (1853), 16 How. 415, is shaken by the later decisions contra of the United States Supreme Court...."), and limited the application of Haskett and Stephenson to changes in longstanding statutory interpretation. Rouse, 221 Ind. at 530, 49 N.E.2d at 533 (opinion on rehearing). Thus, the state constitutional prohibition against impairment of contract resulting from changed judicial interpretation applies only to cases of statutory interpretation where "the statute involved had received uniform judicial construction in numerous cases over a long period of years." Rouse, 221 Ind. at 530, 49 N.E.2d at 533.
The trial court's nonenforcement here of a provision of the antenuptial agreement does not result from a changed judicial interpretation of a statute. Accordingly, the nonenforcement is not an unconstitutional impairment of contract under either the state or federal constitutions. We do not reach the issue of whether Article I, § 24 of the Indiana Constitution is coterminous with the United States Supreme Court's interpretation of the analogous provision of the federal constitution as announced in Tidal Oil and subsequent cases.
Charles next contends that the trial court's award of maintenance was prohibited by the express terms of the antenuptial agreement, is contrary to law, and is an abuse of discretion. Leslie argues that her inability to support herself allows the trial court to disregard the agreement terms prohibiting support or alimony.
Our supreme court has held that antenuptial agreements fixing the property rights of each party upon dissolution of the marriage must be honored and enforced by the courts as written, absent a showing of fraud, coercion, undue influence, or other matters making the agreement unconscionable. Boren, 475 N.E.2d at 694. Generally, our review for fraud, coercion, undue influence or unconscionability has focused on the circumstances surrounding the pre-marriage drafting and execution of the agreement. See, e.g., Matuga v. Matuga (1992), Ind.App., 600 N.E.2d 138, 141, trans. denied. Since Boren, we have had occasion to consider whether events at the time of the marriage dissolution might make an antenuptial agreement unconscionable. In Justus v. Justus (1991), Ind.App., 581 N.E.2d 1265, trans. denied, after review and consideration of many non-Indiana authorities, we concluded that: "If an antenuptial agreement dividing property between the parties would leave a post-dissolution reality in which one spouse would not have sufficient property to provide for his reasonable needs, then the court may refuse to enforce the antenuptial agreement." Id. at 1274.
The same logic that applies to property divisions set forth in antenuptial agreements applies as well to antenuptial provisions limiting or...
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