Tera L. Junion v. Donald J. Junion

CourtCourt of Appeals of Wisconsin
DecidedJune 16, 2020
Docket2019AP000844
StatusUnpublished

This text of Tera L. Junion v. Donald J. Junion (Tera L. Junion v. Donald J. Junion) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Wisconsin primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tera L. Junion v. Donald J. Junion, (Wis. Ct. App. 2020).

Opinion

COURT OF APPEALS DECISION NOTICE DATED AND FILED This opinion is subject to further editing. If published, the official version will appear in the bound volume of the Official Reports. June 16, 2020 A party may file with the Supreme Court a Sheila T. Reiff petition to review an adverse decision by the Clerk of Court of Appeals Court of Appeals. See WIS. STAT. § 808.10 and RULE 809.62.

Appeal No. 2019AP844 Cir. Ct. No. 2015FA455

STATE OF WISCONSIN IN COURT OF APPEALS DISTRICT III

IN RE THE MARRIAGE OF:

TERA L. JUNION,

PETITIONER-RESPONDENT,

V.

DONALD J. JUNION,

RESPONDENT-APPELLANT.

APPEAL from a judgment of the circuit court for Marathon County: MICHAEL K. MORAN, Judge. Affirmed.

Before Stark, P.J., Hruz and Seidl, JJ. No. 2019AP844

¶1 SEIDL, J. Donald (Don) Junion appeals a divorce judgment that terminated his marriage to Tera Junion.1 Don contends the circuit court erroneously exercised its discretion by concluding the parties’ marital property agreement (MPA) was unenforceable. For the reasons set forth below, we conclude there is no basis to disturb the court’s discretionary decision. We therefore affirm.

BACKGROUND

¶2 The parties were married in May 1999. Neither party had previously been married. They have one child, a son born in April 2000.

¶3 Several weeks before their marriage, the parties entered into an MPA. The MPA provided, in most pertinent part, that “all property or interests in real or personal property now held by or hereafter acquired by each party, of whatever nature or description, whether real or personal and wherever situated, shall be owned and classified as that party’s individual property,” subject to certain additional provisions. One of these additional provisions stated that for every year of the parties’ marriage, $6400 worth of Don’s individual property would convert to marital property, “and such sum shall be divided equally between the parties” in the event of the dissolution of the marriage.

¶4 The MPA also addressed spousal maintenance. Specifically, it provided that if the marriage lasted less than eight years, no maintenance would be awarded to either party. If the marriage lasted longer than eight years, however, then maintenance could be awarded.

1 Because the parties share a surname, we refer to them individually by their first names.

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¶5 Tera petitioned for divorce in June 2015. The primary dispute between the parties during the divorce proceedings concerned the enforceability of the MPA. To resolve that issue, the circuit court held a contested divorce hearing on April 18, 2017.

¶6 Tera testified at the hearing that she met and began dating Don in 1994, when she was twenty-three years old. At that time, she had a high school diploma and had completed some college coursework, although she was not actively pursuing an advanced degree. Instead, she was working full-time at a dance studio—employment she kept while the parties were dating and throughout the course of their marriage.

¶7 Don testified that he was eleven years older than Tera. After graduating high school, he immediately began working in the construction industry. He did so until 1993, the year before he met Tera, at which time he began a career as a financial advisor in his father’s office at American Express.

¶8 The parties dated continuously from 1994 until 1997, when they separated for approximately eight months. Both parties acknowledged the reason for this separation was that Don wanted Tera to sign an MPA before they married, and Tera did not wish to do so. Upon their reconciliation, the parties attended a series of counseling sessions, at which they discussed Don’s desire to have an MPA. After the counseling sessions, Tera agreed to sign an MPA and the parties became engaged to be married.

¶9 The parties’ testimony regarding the circumstances surrounding the negotiation and eventual signing of the MPA differed significantly. Tera stated she retained an attorney to help her review a draft of the MPA, which had been prepared by Don’s counsel. The attorney she contacted had previously helped her

3 No. 2019AP844

mother with the sale of a family business, and Tera was unaware whether he had any experience with family law.

¶10 Tera further testified that she met with her attorney only once, for approximately half an hour, to review the MPA before signing it. She had never read any marital property agreement before that meeting, and she could not recall whether she read the entire proposed MPA before she signed it. Tera also stated that her attorney never explained what Wisconsin law provided for, in terms of maintenance or property division, when a long-term marriage dissolved and the parties did not have a marital property agreement.

¶11 Regarding the insertion of certain provisions into the MPA, Tera believed that her attorney proposed allowing for maintenance payments if the marriage lasted longer than eight years. She could not recall, however, who proposed the provision stating that $6400 worth of Don’s individual property would convert into marital property for every year of marriage—although she did not think it was something she would have supplied on her own.

¶12 Tera stated that, to her knowledge, the purpose of the MPA was “to protect anything [Don] had going into the marriage. Whatever he had prior was his, anything from the marriage going forward would be ours and joint, and this [MPA] was to protect anything of his prior to the marriage.” In all, Tera summarized her comprehension of the MPA by stating: “It was a lot of language. A lot of it I did not understand.”

¶13 Don testified that after his attorney drafted the MPA, but before Tera hired her own attorney, he reviewed the MPA with Tera page by page. The two then “had discussions” about the MPA’s contents and “agreed on it.” After Tera subsequently hired her own attorney, however, she proposed modifications to the

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MPA—which modifications were ultimately accepted by Don and incorporated into the final MPA.

¶14 Namely, according to Don, Tera informed him that she desired a provision in the MPA to allow for a certain amount of his individual property to be converted to marital property for every year that they were married. In response, Don proposed the provision converting $6400 to marital property, to which Tera agreed. Don also stated that Tera’s attorney proposed the allowance for maintenance payments to be awarded upon divorce if the marriage lasted longer than eight years.

¶15 Don testified that after the parties had agreed on a tentative final draft of the MPA, he accompanied Tera to her attorney’s office so that they could review the final draft with him. Tera stated she could not recall this meeting, but that if it did occur, it would have been intimidating for her to discuss with her attorney the legal effect of certain terms in the MPA while in the presence of Don. Don acknowledged that they did not sign the MPA at this meeting, but he stated that at the meeting’s conclusion Tera’s attorney signed a certification that Tera was entering into the MPA knowingly and willingly.2

¶16 On April 26, 1999, the parties signed the MPA, and also initialed each page, in the presence of Don’s attorney (and Don’s attorney’s spouse). Don testified that before the parties did so his attorney read aloud every word on every page of the MPA and asked both parties if they understood and if they had any questions. According to Don, Tera had no questions. Tera did not testify whether

2 This certification, dated April 23, 1999, is attached to the MPA that appears in the appellate record.

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492 N.W.2d 633 (Court of Appeals of Wisconsin, 1992)
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Gardner v. Gardner
527 N.W.2d 701 (Court of Appeals of Wisconsin, 1994)
In RE MARRIAGE OF RANDALL v. Randall
2000 WI App 98 (Court of Appeals of Wisconsin, 2000)
In RE MARRIAGE OF WARREN v. Warren
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Dickman v. Vollmer
2007 WI App 141 (Court of Appeals of Wisconsin, 2007)
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2007 WI App 218 (Court of Appeals of Wisconsin, 2007)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
Tera L. Junion v. Donald J. Junion, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tera-l-junion-v-donald-j-junion-wisctapp-2020.