On June 6, 2013, the Nassau County Supreme Court refused to enforce a prenuptial agreement between divorced spouses. In this case, "Husband" had a net worth of "several million" dollars with an income of over one million dollars in 2011. "Wife" was a part-time teacher's assistant making $5,000 per year.
Prior to their engagement, Wife said she was willing to sign any prenuptial agreement if it meant they can get married. Days before the wedding, Husband presented Wife with a prenuptial agreement that had been drafted without her knowledge. Husband hired a lawyer for Wife, whom she met for the first time on the day she was to sign the agreement.
The Wife's attorney was a commercial litigator who had some matrimonial experience. He was told that the agreement was non negotiable, and he did not obtain any financial information from Wife.
The prenuptial agreement gave Wife no consideration in the event of divorce and only allowed her to keep gifts Husband had given to her. If enforced, Wife would have been left with no home, no assets, no bank account and no maintenance.
Not surprisingly, the court overturned this prenuptial agreement, which clearly violated standard protocol for preparing a prenuptial agreement. In its opinion, the court stated that "one can predict with confidence that if each spouse retains a lawyer of his or her own choosing, is provided with a proposed agreement with sufficient time to give due consideration to the serious consequences of the proposed terms, is given fair and adequate disclosure, and is presented with an agreement that does not scream inequity or will leave one party practically destitute, it will be upheld."
