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of as she wishes,” provided that wife took on the “responsibility for liabilities related to
that estate.” Our intermediate appellate court agreed that a valid agreement “respecting
the ownership of property which by its terms justified a finding of no marital property,”
id. at 552, existed, contrasting Falise and applying traditional contract principles of offer,
acceptance, consideration, and intent, as well as knowledge of the assets and
voluntariness in its analysis:
Unlike the parties in Falise, who, by a bilateral agreement, relinquished all
right, title and interest in and to each other’s property (known and unknown, then
owned or thereafter acquired), Julian Carsey made a unilateral offer to Nancy
Carsey whereby “all properties assigned jointly or under my name singularly are
Nancy S. Carsey’s privilege to dispose of as she wishes” if she undertook
“responsibility for liabilities related to that estate.” The trial judge found, and we
agree, that Nancy, through her conduct, accepted the unilateral offer; ergo, a valid
agreement. That valid agreement specifically authorized Nancy to dispose of the
property as she pleased, thus manifesting a clear intent, albeit “in some other terms
specifically [to] exclude the property from the scope of the Marital Property Act.”
[]
Furthermore, in Falise, unlike here, the property sought to be excluded by the
agreement was property acquired by the husband during the parties’ separation
pursuant to the agreement.
Here, the trial court in effect found as a fact, and justifiably so, that the note
and the tape transcript, when viewed in light of appellant’s actions, evinced
appellant’s clear intent to be rid of the liabilities of marriage as well as the
benefits; in short, appellant intended to completely sever any and all connections,
present and future, he had with his marriage, i.e., to chuck it all for now,
henceforth, and forevermore. Supplementing his words, appellant’s conduct also
reflected that he was offering to give up his marital rights to be free of his marital
obligations, just as he was willing to give up property rights to be free of his debts.
The supportive evidence is ample. The note and the transcript speak with
unmistakable clarity. And appellant’s actions provide the exclamation point: he
was fully aware of the parties’ assets; his leaving was volitional, not coerced; aside
from leaving without a hint of warning, so far as the record reveals, during the
more than two years from departure to the filing of his answer to appellee’s
divorce action and his counter-bill for divorce, he never communicated with
appellee; and, even more to the point, he neither inquired nor evidenced any
concern about the property he now claims to be marital property. Furthermore,
appellant himself testified that before leaving, among other things, he decided his
marriage was over and should be dissolved and, having made that decision, he left.