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You have to have a couple of screws loose to try and kill someone with a hatchet, but to expect them to still funnel money into your bank account is exceptionally ludicrous. So much so that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has recognized it as a breach of contract. From the ABA Journal:
A husband does not have to make continued payments to his ex-wife under a separation agreement after she tried to kill him with a hatchet, the top court in Massachusetts has ruled.
…
Schenkman had been granted sole legal and physical custody of the couple’s four children in a 2013 divorce judgment….The separation agreement required Schenkman to pay $212,000 over five years in equal monthly payments totaling a little more than $3,500. A life insurance policy would provide money to Rabinowitz in the event of Schenkman’s death.
A Machiavellian reading of that clause might see hastening Schenkman’s death as a way of expediting the process. But hey, nobody would actually do that, right? You would think such an agreement wouldn’t require an explicit “do not kill your ex to get the money and kids” clause, but if the world were actually that simple, there would be a lot fewer lawyers.
“A fact finder could conclude from this evidence that the wife tried to thwart the consequences of the separation agreement by killing the husband, accelerating the property division through the life insurance policy, and obtaining custody of the children,” the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said. “In the judgment of the fact finder, such precipitous and violent conduct could be viewed as a breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.”
I’m not sure if the aspiring Order of the Coif member reading this should update their Contracts or Family Law outline, but one of those needs to have this ruling in it.
Trying To Kill Ex-Husband With Hatchet Violates Separation Agreement’s Covenant Of Good Faith, Top State Court Says [ABA Journal]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
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