Divorce Decree • Settlement Agreement • Validity • Equitable Estoppel

Bienert v. Bienert, PICS Case No. 17-1288 (Pa. Super. Aug. 7, 2017) Solano, J. (15 pages).

The trial court did not err in denying wife's petition seeking to invalidate the parties' property settlement agreement as its properly chose to adhere to its prior rulings and barred wife from seeking to invalidate an agreement she had successfully enforced. The court affirmed a trial court order denying wife relief.

The parties were married in 1995 and separated in 2014. Around the time of separation, they signed a property settlement agreement using a form husband pulled from the internet. The agreement said that wife would receive the parties' boat while husband would receive the former marital residence. Husband filed a complaint in divorce in March 2014. The parties simultaneously filed the agreement with a request that the court incorporate the agreement into a final divorce decree. The trial court entered the agreement as an order on March 27, 2014. In late 2014, wife unsuccessfully petitioned for alimony pendent lite. The trial court finding that the parties' agreement was intended to be a final settlement of all claims arising from the marriage, denied wife's petition. Thereafter, wife filed multiple petitions seeking to enforce the agreement, including a petition seeking title to the boat and other items granted her under the agreement. Moreover, the parties each filed motions seeking to hold each other in contempt for failing to comply with the agreement. The trial court granted certain of wife's petitions but dismissed others, including the parties' petitions for contempt. In June 2016, wife filed a counseled petition to void the parties' property settlement agreement. She claimed that husband used fraud, duress and misrepresentation to induce her to sign the agreement. The trial court denied the petition without holding a hearing. On wife's appeal, the appellate court found that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying wife's petition to declare the agreement void. By the time wife filed her petition, the trial court had already made several rulings based on the agreement. In fact, the court had made several rulings on wife's own petitions to enforce the agreement. While the trial court referenced the doctrine of res judicata, the appellate court found that the more appropriate legal principles at issue here were the law-of-the-case doctrine, which expressed the practice of courts generally to refuse to reopen what has been decided, and equitable estoppel. The trial court was not barred by the law-of-the-case doctrine from reconsidering its prior rulings regarding the parties' agreement and its validity. However, the court acted appropriately in deciding to adhere to those prior rulings to maintain the consistency and uniformity of its decisions that law-of-the case principles favor, the appellate court reasoned. Moreover, under the doctrine of judicial estoppel, a party to an action is estopped from assuming a position inconsistent with her assertion in a previous action if her contention was successfully maintained. In this matter, as in Ligon v. Middletown Area Sch. Dist., 584 A.2d 376 (Pa. Commw. 1990), wife took inconsistent positions regarding the validity of the parties' agreement throughout the proceedings. The trial court did not err in refusing to permit wife to seek to invalidate of the agreement after she had successfully advanced arguments in favor of the agreement, the court concluded. Thus, wife was not entitled to relief on appeal.

Divorce Decree • Settlement Agreement • Validity • Equitable Estoppel

Bienert v. Bienert, PICS Case No. 17-1288 (Pa. Super. Aug. 7, 2017) Solano, J. (15 pages).