Scherba v. Scherba
| Decision Date | 08 September 1954 |
| Docket Number | No. 9,9 |
| Citation | 340 Mich. 228,65 N.W.2d 758 |
| Parties | Frank SCHERBA, Plaintiff, Cross-Defendant and Appellant, v. Mary SCHERBA, Defendant, Cross-Plaintiff and Appellee. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Louis A. Gottlieb, Detroit, for plaintiff, cross-defendant and appellant.
Joseph Charnoske, Detroit, for defendant, cross-plaintiff and appellee.
Before the Entire Bench.
Plaintiff appeals from a decree of divorce granted to defendant on the ground of extreme and repeated cruelty which awarded her a property settlement in the amount of $14,489.88.
Plaintiff's first contention is that a decree of divorce should not be granted to a cross-plaintiff who comes into court with unclean hands and fails to do equity. This he amply supports with citations but neglects to point out not does the record disclose the applicability thereof to defendant's position in this case.
Plaintiff's further complaints relate to the property settlement provisions of the decree. Parties were married October 19, 1949, no children were born to the marriage and at the time of trial plaintiff was 62 and defendant 53 years of age. The decree was entered February 10, 1953. A socalled antenuptial agreement between the parties, dated and apparently drawn the day before the marriage but signed by them some days thereafter, represented the plaintiff as owning cash and property described therein of a total value of $36,048 and provided that defendant should receive out of plaintiff's estate the sum of $1,000 and a life estate in a dwelling house to be constructed on described premises. On April 13, 1951, the parties signed an agreement purporting to cancel the antenuptial agreement. After trial, but before entry of decree, plaintiff's attorney filed with the trial court a letter to the effect that he had learned, upon consultation with the legal staff of a trust company, that the then present value of defendant's life estate in the dwelling house would be $13,489.88 and the trial court found accordingly. The decree awarded defendant that sum plus $1,000, thus giving her, in effect, what she would have received under the antenuptial agreement had plaintiff predeceased her at that time.
Plaintiff says that the court erred (1) in relying upon mortality tables, rather than defendant's own admissions on trial concerning her poor health, in determining the value of her life estate, (2) in giving effect to the antenuptial agreement without regard to the respective ages of the parties, the state of their health, their previous marriages, the contribution or lack thereof on the part of the wife to the husband's property, etc., (3) in failing to find that defendant by her conduct had forfeited her rights under the antenuptial agreement, (4) in failing to find that the antenuptial agreement had been cancelled by the subsequent agreement, and (5) in failing to find that there had been no consideration for the antenuptial agreement. These are considerations which...
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Marriage of Pendleton, In re, B113293
...46); and Vermont (Stearns v. Stearns (1894) 66 Vt. 187, 28 A. 875). In Michigan, the courts are divided. (Compare Scherba v. Scherba (1954) 340 Mich. 228, 65 N.W.2d 758, 760, with Rinvelt v. Rinvelt (1991) 190 Mich.App. 372, 475 N.W.2d 478.) Mississippi, Washington and Wyoming have not addr......
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Reed v. Reed
...Court had stated that prenuptial agreements in contemplation of divorce were against public policy, see e.g., Scherba v. Scherba, 340 Mich. 228, 231, 65 N.W.2d 758 (1954), the Rinvelt Court rejected such statements as dicta, determining that the concerns that had led some courts to refuse t......
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Posner v. Posner
...123 S.E.2d 115, 133; Stratton v. Wilson, 170 Ky. 61, 185 S.W. 522, 525; Cohn v. Cohn, 209 Md. 470, 121 A.2d 704, 706; Scherba v. Scherba, 340 Mich. 228, 65 N.W.2d 758; Stefonick v. Stefonick, 118 Mont. 486, 167 P.2d 848, 164 A.L.R. 1211; Hillman v. Hillman, Sup., 69 N.Y.S.2d 134, aff'd 273 ......
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Rinvelt v. Rinvelt
...of the other's death. None of them conclusively resolves the issue at hand. Nonetheless, we find them helpful. In Scherba v. Scherba, 340 Mich. 228, 65 N.W.2d 758 (1954), the parties signed an antenuptial agreement providing that in the event of the plaintiff's death, the defendant would re......