Seven Day Cooling Off Period for Prenupital Agreements and Premarital Contracts in Family Code Section 1615

An interesting decision came down yesterday from the Court of Appeals for California, First District, Division Four regarding the enforceability of premarital agreements.  

Family Code Section 1615(c) creates a presumption “that a premarital agreement was not executed voluntarily” unless the court makes five designated findings (In re Marriage of Friedman (2002) 100 Cal.App.4th 65, 72). One of the designated findings is that the party against whom enforcement is sought had at least seven calendar days between the date he or she was “first presented” with the agreement and advised to seek independent counsel, and the time he or she signed the agreement.

In the case of In re Marriage of Cadwell-Faso and Faso, Cari Cadwell-Faso and Joe Cadwell were negotiating a premarital agreement during their engagement.  Both Cari and Joe were represented by independent counsel throughout the duration of their negotiations, and both had ample time for their counsel review their agreement.  At the time of marriage, Cari’s net worth was estimated to be $1million, while Joe, a retired business man had an estimated net worth of $30million.  Cari was 43 years old and Joe was 21 years her senior.  At the time of their engagement, Cari owned and operated two businesses that generated sufficient income to support her lifestyle.  However, Cari agreed to sell her businesses upon marrying Joe so that the two of them could travel and live a life of “semi-retirement”.

Cari and Joe went back and forth with four different versions of the premarital agreement until finally, Cari threatened to call off the wedding due to their inability to agree.  After Cari called off the wedding, Joe said “Let’s just get this thing done” and the two resumed negotiations.  Cari had her attorney send over the fifth and final version of the addendum to the premarital agreement on May 19th.  On May 22nd, Joe faxed it to his attorney.  On May 25th, Joe and Cari met in Joe’s attorney’s office, where Joe’s attorney inserted one single word (the word “reasonable” relating to health care costs).  The couple got married two days later on May 27th.  

Eighteen months later, Cari filed for divorce and sought to enforce the addendum to their premarital agreement that was signed two days before their wedding.  Joe fought enforcement of the agreement saying that he did not have the benefit of the seven day waiting period and therefore the agreement was unenforceable in this situation.    

Joe Faso testified that he did not want to sign the addendum, but did so because Cari indicated that “her attorney said that we had already passed the time of limitation between when you agree upon the agreement and when you sign the agreement and when you get married.”  His own attorney confirmed that notion.  When the parties were in Faso’s attorney’s office, he told them both that the Addendum was not a binding agreement “and the only way that it’s going to be is if you come back and sign a post-nuptial.”

The trial court concluded that the seven-day rule designated in Family Code Section 1615 applied regardless of both parties being represented by attorneys from the outset.  The court of appeals concluded that the trial court erred in deeming the execution of the addendum was involuntary and therefore unenforceable, reversed the judgment and awarded costs to Cari Cadwell-Faso on appeal.  In making their ruling, the court of appeals ruled that the Legislature, in drafting Family Code Section 1615 was concerned with protecting unrepresented parties and the purpose of the statute is to allow each party the opportunity to seek and obtain legal advice prior to execution.  In this case, both parties were represented throughout the negotiations and therefore received the benefits and protection intended in Family Code Section 1615.

This opinion should be interpreted and applied narrowly, as the court was careful to note that the parties were represented from the “outset of the proceedings”.  Further, the court spends a great deal of time on the legislative history stating the the cooling off period was for unrepresented parties, not those with ongoing representation.  Finally, , the party who was trying to set aside the agreement had an estate of $30million and the trial court found “there was strong evidence that H (Joe Faso), a sophisticated business executive, was . . . playing ‘hardball’.  He was refusing to negotiate with W (Cari Cadwell-Faso) and at the very end when she threatened to call the wedding off, he agreed to sign only because the matter had come to a head within the seven day window and he had legal advice that he could sign with impunity.  Rather than being a ‘victim’ of circumstances, H shrewdly maneuvered W to the alter [sic] in a manner that frustrated her desire to reach a mutually acceptable agreement.”


Parent One, Parent Two to replace references to mother, father on passport forms

In a decision that follows the end of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, the State Department has decided to make U.S. passport application forms “gender neutral” by removing references to mother and father.

Likely hoping to diffuse some of the attention this decision was sure to garner, the announcement was buried at the end of a December 22 news release, titled “Consular Report of Birth Abroad Certificate Improvements,” that highlighted unrelated security changes.

Fred Sainz, vice president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights advocacy group, called the news “a positive step for all American families.  It was time that the federal government acknowledged the reality that hundreds of thousands of kids in this country are being raised by same-sexx parents.”

Click here for the full article on WashingtonPost.com

Sir Elton John Welcomes a Baby Boy via Surrogacy

Sir Elton John and his partner, David Furnish welcomed their son Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John on December 25, 2010.  The birth of their child is significant for multiple reasons in the social acceptance and understanding of surrogacy, adoption and family formation.

Attempting Adoption from Ukraine

Last fall, the couple visited an orphanage in the Ukraine and planned to adopt a 14-month-old boy named Lev and his HIV-positive brother Artyom.  After visiting the orphanage, John told reporters that “Having seen Lev today, I would love to adopt him.  I don’t know how we can do that but he has stolen my heart.  And he has stolen David’s heart and it would be wonderful if we can have a home [together]”. 

Although the public has seen many celebrities adopt babies from all over the world, seemingly with ease and sans red tape, celebrities, just like everyone else, are bound by the laws in various countries and must abide by strict regulations. 

After John announced his desire to adopt Lev and Artyom, Youth and Sports Minister Yuriy Pavlenko said that the adoption could not happen because adoptive parents must be married and because John is too old. 

The singer is 62 and Ukranian law requires a parent to be no more than 45 years older than an adopted child.  In 2005, John and Furnish formalized their relationship in one of the first legalized civil unions in Britain, but Pavlenko said Ukraine does not recognize gay unions as marriage.

Gay Rights in Ukraine

After John and Furnish were denied the ability to adopt Lev and Artyom from Ukraine, Svyatoslav Sheremet, head of Ukraine’s Gay Forum, a leading gay rights organization in Ukriane, said the regulations were depriving the boy of a chance to find a family and love. 

Overall, Ukraine is a conservative, mainly Orthodox Christian, country.  Households headed by same-sex couples in Ukraine are not eligible for the same legal protections available to opposite-sex couples. 

In a December 2007 survey by Angus Reid Global Monitor, 81.3% of Ukrainians polled said that homosexual relations were “never acceptable”, 13% answered “sometimes acceptable” and 5.7% “acceptable”. 

Surrogacy

Despite reported heartbreak from their failed attempt at adoption in Ukraine, John and Furnish welcomed a baby boy via a surrogate this week into their family.  Their son, named Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John, was born on Christmas day, and weighed 7 pounds and 15 ounces. 

Although John and Furnish will not provide any details about their surrogacy arrangement and intend to protect and respect the privacy of the surrogate mother, their quest for a family has engaged the media and helped educate the public about adoption, surrogacy, gay rights and family formation.  

National Adoption Day 2010

It feels like a wonderful twist of fate that our blog is launched today, November 20, 2010, on the tenth annual National Adoption Day, an annual event that has resulted in the adoption of more than 30,000 children into their “forever” families between 2000 and 2009.

For our first blog entry, we would like to highlight some important statistics on adoption in the U.S.

Currently, in the United States, more than 114,000 children are living in foster care and are available for adoption.

Who are these waiting children?

  • There are an estimated 463,000 children in foster care in the United States, and more than 114,000 of them are waiting to be adopted.
  • These children enter foster care as a result of abuse, neglect and/or abandonment.  
  • The average child waits for an adoptive family for more than two years.
  • 19 percent spend 5 years or more waiting for a family (24,300 children).
  • The average age of children waiting for an adoptive family is 8.
  • More than 29,000 children reach the age of 18 without ever finding a forever family.

If you are interested in more information on the California adoption process, or would like to schedule a consultation with The Kesten Group, please call 310.598.6428 or email info@TheKestenGroup.com


*Statistics are provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration and Families Administration on Children, Interim Estimates for FY 2008