In Re Marriage of Sokolowski

597 N.E.2d 675, 232 Ill. App. 3d 535, 173 Ill. Dec. 701, 1992 Ill. App. LEXIS 1143
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedJuly 14, 1992
Docket1-90-2650
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 597 N.E.2d 675 (In Re Marriage of Sokolowski) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re Marriage of Sokolowski, 597 N.E.2d 675, 232 Ill. App. 3d 535, 173 Ill. Dec. 701, 1992 Ill. App. LEXIS 1143 (Ill. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

JUSTICE McCORMICK

delivered the opinion of the court:

Petitioner, Maria Sokolowski (Maria), appeals from a judgment of dissolution entered by the circuit court. Maria argues that the trial court abused its discretion in upholding an agreement she drafted and signed prior to her marriage to Richard Sokolowski (Richard). Maria also contends that the trial court erred in determining the parties’ interests in the marital home and in finding that nonmarital assets owned by Richard were not transmuted into marital property.

Facts

Maria and Richard were married on January 30, 1985. On May 26, 1989, Maria filed for dissolution of the marriage, charging Richard with mental cruelty and requesting maintenance and a portion of the parties’ marital property. While the hearing on the petition for dissolution was pending, Maria filed a motion in limine seeking to bar Richard from presenting evidence of an alleged prenuptial agreement signed by Maria. Maria argued that the agreement was invalid because (1) there was not full disclosure of Richard’s assets; (2) Richard did not sign the agreement; and (3) Maria was not represented by counsel at the time the agreement was signed.

A hearing was held on the petition for dissolution in August 1990. At the start of the hearing, the trial court stated that it would hear the evidence on Maria’s motion in limine along with the evidence on the petition for dissolution and enter a ruling on the motion prior to rendering judgment.

It was established at the hearing that Maria was born in Poland in 1937. In May 1984, she came to America on a six-month visitor’s visa to make funeral arrangements for her first husband.

Maria testified that in November 1984 she was introduced to Richard by Janina Dziengiel and that sometime in the second half of November, Richard proposed marriage. The parties were married on January 30, 1985. Maria stated that she was employed throughout the marriage and that all the money she earned was turned over to Richard.

In April 1985, the parties purchased a residence in Schiller Park, Illinois, for $70,000. At the time of the hearing, the house had a fair market value of $100,000.

Title to the property was taken in joint tenancy with right to sur-vivorship. A $14,000 down payment was made on the home and Maria testified that she furnished the entire amount from the proceeds of her late husband’s insurance. In March 1986, Maria’s two children from her first marriage came to America and moved into the home with Richard and Maria.

According to Maria, everything in the marriage was fine until Richard received a telephone call from Janina Dziengiel shortly before Christmas 1988. Maria testified that after Dziengiel’s telephone call, Richard held a gun to her head and threatened to kill her. Maria filed for divorce five months later.

When cross-examined about the prenuptial agreement, Maria acknowledged that she wrote out and signed the document, which was in Polish. However, Maria testified that she did not know what the document meant, that no one ever explained the document to her, that Richard did not request that she sign the document and that Richard did not disclose his assets to her prior to the marriage. Maria stated that after signing the document, she gave it to Janina Dzien-giel and that she did not see it again until after the petition for dissolution was filed.

Maria testified that at the time of the trial, she did not have a savings account and her daughter, Margaret Slusarczyk, denied having a joint account with Maria. Margaret testified that she had her own savings account, that the account had a balance of only $299 and that Maria had not contributed any amounts to the account.

On cross-examination, Margaret acknowledged that her 1988 and 1989 Federal tax returns showed that her gross earnings were $5,948 and $11,549, respectively, and that she reported $433 in interest income for 1989, after reporting only $63.79 in interest income in 1988. Later in the hearing, Richard introduced into evidence a bank signature card for a joint account in the names of Margaret and Maria.

Janina Dziengiel was called as a -witness on Richard’s behalf. Dziengiel, who was born in Poland and came to America in 1966, testified that she had known Richard for 20 years and that she met Maria in May 1984, when Maria came here to bury her husband. Dziengiel testified that she and Maria became close friends and that Maria often told her that she wanted to stay in America.

Dziengiel testified that during the summer of 1984, she had a conversation with Maria during which Maria stated that she wished to find someone to marry so that she could stay in this country. Dzien-giel further testified that in December 1984, she arranged a meeting between Maria and Richard.

Dziengiel stated that after the second time Maria and Richard had seen each other, Maria told her that she was anxious to marry Richard but that she was afraid Richard would not marry her and that she would have to return to Poland. Dziengiel suggested that Richard might agree to marry Maria if Maria prepared some kind of agreement stating that she did not want to take Richard’s property or money. Dziengiel testified that during this conversation, she told Maria that Richard probably was worth more than $100,000.

Dziengiel testified that at Maria’s request, she prepared an example of a premarital agreement. The example was in English, and Dziengiel explained to Maria what it meant and told her to prepare and sign a similar agreement in Polish.

Dziengiel testified that shortly before the marriage, Richard showed her a Polish-language version of the agreement that had been handwritten, signed and notarized by Maria. In it, Maria stated that she waived “all [her] rights to [Richard’s] property or his financial assets” and “all the rights as a wife and claims toward property.”

Dziengiel testified that Richard did not know of her involvement in the preparation of the agreements, and that he did not tell or ask her to prepare them. Dziengiel also testified that at the time the agreements were prepared, Maria and Richard were not engaged to be married.

Richard, who was born in Poland and came to the United States in 1946, testified that he met Maria in December 1984 and that at their second meeting Maria told him that she was scheduled to fly back to Poland on December 19. Richard suggested that Maria cash in her ticket and remain here so that they would have a chance to get to know each other better. Richard testified that he told Maria that if things did not work out, he would buy her return ticket.

Richard testified that over the next month, he and Maria met two or three times a week but that the meetings never lasted more than an hour. It was at one of these meetings that Maria gave Richard the Polish and English versions of the premarital agreement.

Richard testified that he did not ask Dziengiel to prepare or obtain the document, nor did he ask Maria to prepare it.

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Bluebook (online)
597 N.E.2d 675, 232 Ill. App. 3d 535, 173 Ill. Dec. 701, 1992 Ill. App. LEXIS 1143, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-marriage-of-sokolowski-illappct-1992.