In re the Marriage of Haggerty

380 P.3d 1176, 280 Or. App. 733, 2016 Ore. App. LEXIS 1051
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedSeptember 8, 2016
Docket100463778; A157822
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 380 P.3d 1176 (In re the Marriage of Haggerty) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re the Marriage of Haggerty, 380 P.3d 1176, 280 Or. App. 733, 2016 Ore. App. LEXIS 1051 (Or. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

DEVORE, J.

This is husband’s second appeal challenging spousal support in this dissolution case. Previously, we remanded the case to the trial court for the court to decide whether the parties had entered into a settlement agreement and, if there was an agreement, whether the terms of that agreement were within the range of what would be just and equitable under the circumstances. Haggerty and Haggerty, 261 Or App 159, 322 P3d 1101 (2014) (Haggerty I). After a rehearing, the trial court decided that the parties had not entered into a settlement agreement and that, even if they had, the settlement agreement would not be within the range of that which is just and equitable. Husband assigns error to both rulings and to the award to wife of attorney fees. In response, wife denies that she agreed to a settlement; she asserts that, even if she did agree, her agreement was due to duress or to unilateral mistake; and she argues that the agreement would be outside the permissible range of agreements.

We conclude that the standard by which the trial court determined that wife had not agreed was erroneous. We reverse and remand for the trial court to make a decision on the facts in the record but with the standard we describe here. Because the remaining issues may arise on remand, we conclude that, on these facts, duress and unilateral mistake do not afford a basis to disregard an agreement. We conclude that the putative agreement, if made, was within the range of that which is just and equitable. Finally, we vacate the judgment on attorney fees in light of our remand.

I. BACKGROUND

We begin by recalling the facts from Haggerty I, and then summarize the evidence about the settlement from the rehearing.

“The parties in this case were married for 27 years and, at the time of trial, wife was 61 and husband was 66. Wife was a retired school principal, part-time substitute teacher, and an author of children’s books. Husband was a senior judge with the United States District Court. At the time of the dissolution, husband’s monthly gross income was $17,734, consisting of Social Security of $1,435, [736]*736a veteran’s association pension of $875, PERS benefits of $924, and $14,500 for his work as a senior federal judge. Wife’s monthly gross income from PERS was $2,965. Both parties had had health issues in the past but were medically stable at the time of trial.
“On April 12, 2011, the day before the dissolution trial began, husband filed a motion asserting that, on October 7 and 29, 2010, the parties and their attorneys had met with a mediator and ‘reached an oral agreement which [the mediator] confirmed by reporting the case as settled to Husband’s counsel.’ However, wife did not sign a settlement agreement or a stipulated judgment. According to husband, the terms of the oral agreement were, in relevant part, that (1) wife would receive indefinite spousal support of $4,000 per month, (2) wife would receive $50,000 in life insurance, and (3) the parties would file a joint tax return for 2010. * * * [Husband] asserted that the agreement was ‘final and enforceable’ and that wife ‘had breached her contractual obligation’ and, therefore, husband asked the court to ‘enforce the Mediated Settlement Agreement by signing a general judgment to be tendered by Husband’s counsel.’”

Id. at 161-62 (brackets in original).1

At the time of two mediation sessions in October 2010, wife was represented by attorney Yates. Shortly after [737]*737the second session, wife terminated her engagement of Yates and filed a bar complaint against him. She retained attorney Villa-Smith. Before trial, however, Villa-Smith became a judge and discontinued her representation of wife. Wife went to trial in April 2011 with a third attorney, Pekelder.

At trial, the court denied husband’s motion to enforce a settlement agreement. The court did not, however, make a determination whether a valid agreement between the parties existed. The court divided the parties’ property and concluded that there would be no equalizing judgment. Id. at 163-64. The court awarded wife $7,000 per month in maintenance spousal support. Husband appealed the judgment.

In Haggerty I, we observed that, “even when they are not incorporated into a judgment, marital settlement agreements ‘enjoy presumptive enforceability.’” Id. at 166 (quoting Brown and Brown, 259 Or App 618, 627, 315 P3d 422 (2013), rev den, 355 Or 142 (2014)). We explained that, “where there is a validly executed settlement agreement between the parties, the court must evaluate the terms of that agreement and should enforce them if they are within the range of what is just and equitable under the circumstances.” Id. at 167 (citing Grossman and Grossman, 338 Or. 99, 106 P3d 618 (2005)). We remanded the case for the trial court to determine whether the parties had entered into a valid settlement agreement and, if so, whether the terms of that settlement were within a range of what is just and equitable.

On remand, the parties appeared for a three-day rehearing in June 2014. The trial court properly understood that it should make those two determinations, explaining,

“I believe my instructions from the Court of Appeals are to make a determination whether there was a settlement; and if I find the answer to that question is yes, then I have — still have my authority as a judge to approve it or not approve it, and to decide whether the 4,000 — whether the $4,000— there’s no dispute about what the settlement — I put that in quotes. Whether $4,000 a month and $50,0000 in life insurance is fair and equitable and within the bounds of [738]*738what’s allowed, I’ll put it that way. And that’s the issue * * * »

(Emphasis added.) Wife declared her monthly financial need to be $6,140. On appeal here, she restates that figure as $5,821.2

The parties did not memorialize a settlement agreement in writing. Given the absence of a written agreement, husband offered testimony and exhibits at the rehearing to show that the parties had reached an oral agreement to settle the case on October 29, 2010.

Wife’s first attorney, Yates, testified that, after the first mediation session on October 7, 2010, the parties had reached a “tentative agreement” on “a number of issues” in the dissolution. He mailed wife a “fairly detailed letter outlining what had happened at the mediation, what issues [he] thought [the parties] had tentatively resolved, [and] what issues remained to be resolved.” An email to Yates from wife after that first mediation session stated that she was willing to accept a spousal support award of $4,000 per month “when she started receiving some other source of income that she wasn’t receiving at [the] time [of the first mediation] ,”3

Yates testified that he believed the remaining issues were resolved at the second session on October 29, 2010. At that time, he believed that the parties had reached a settlement “on all the terms.” Yates wrote a letter to wife on November 1, 2010, enclosing a notice of a scheduled court proceeding. Yates told wife that the scheduled proceeding would be necessary in the absence of a settlement, but added, “[W]e are settled, and I will begin drafting the paperwork.”

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Related

Young and Player
323 Or. App. 621 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2023)
In re Siragusa
422 P.3d 337 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2018)
In re the Marriage of Haggerty
391 P.3d 982 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2016)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
380 P.3d 1176, 280 Or. App. 733, 2016 Ore. App. LEXIS 1051, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-the-marriage-of-haggerty-orctapp-2016.