Arbitration & Mediation

First DCA Upholds Prenuptual Agreement Which Holds "Property... forever free of claim by the other"

By Christopher B. Hopkins, Esq.

Florida law permits prenuptual agreements, including those which prohibit one spouse from ever taking possession of the other spouse's pre-marital property -- even if a spouse dies, rather than in the case of a divorce.

There is probably more to this case than meets the eye as it appears that a minor child may be squaring off in a battle over property against his mother in Joshua Eugene Taylor as only child of Louis Eugene Taylor, deceased, versus Mary Ann Taylor.

We applaud the First District for providing the entire relevant paragraph of the pre-nup for consideration, if not future use. The specific provision states that "all property which belongs to each of the above parties shall be and forever remain their personal estate... and said property shall remain forever free of claim by the other." The husband died at some point thereafter.

The court held the agreement was unambiguous and therefore there was no need to resort to parole evidence. Additionally, Florida Statute 732.702(1) (waiver of spousal rights) supported pre-nuptual agreements. The court made a curious comment that the agreement was "silent" as to whether it affected the rights of the surviving spouse on death; that said, "forever free" seems fairly unambiguous, albeit a bit extreme. Careful drafters may want to improve upon the wording with a death exception.

Full post as published by Florida Arbitration Law on February 02, 2009 (boomark / email).