Title: Konzelman v. Konzelman
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: a-189-97
State: new-jersey
Issuer: new-jersey Supreme Court
Date: May 12, 1999

(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that, in the interests of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized). HANDLER, J., writing for a majority Court. The issue raised on this appeal is the enforceability of a divorce judgment incorporating a property settlement agreement that authorized the termination of the husband's support and maintenance payments in the event of the wife's cohabitation with an unrelated male. The Konzelmans had been married for twenty-seven years at the time of their divorce. Their final divorce decree, dated October 28, 1991, incorporated a Property Settlement Agreement both parties had entered into with the benefit of legal representation. Section 1(D) of the agreement concerned alimony and provided that Mr. Konzelman's alimony payment of $700 per month would terminate should Mrs. Konzelman undertake cohabitation with an unrelated male for a period of four continuous months. In February of 1993, Mr. Konzelman hired a private investigator to verify whether Mrs. Konzelman was living with anyone. The investigator watched Mrs. Konzelman's residence for a period of 127 days. The investigator reported to Mr. Konzelman that there was an unrelated adult male, Mr. Liput, at Mrs. Konzelman's residence most evenings and leaving most mornings to go to work. Liput was observed gaining access to the home through the garage door and parking his car in the garage; he also did yard work around the home. Relying on the information obtained by the private investigator, Mr. Konzelman terminated alimony payments on June 26, 1993. On August 4, 1993, Mrs. Konzelman filed a Notice of Motion and accompanying certification denying cohabitation and demanding, among other things, the resumption of alimony payments and the payment of arrears. In response, Mr. Konzelman filed a cross-motion, seeking to terminate support and maintenance. The court ordered Mr. Konzelman to pay support arrears and resume payment until a plenary hearing could be held. The plenary hearing was held over thirteen days and included twenty-six witnesses. At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court determined that Mr. Konzelman had establishes cohabitation. Nonetheless, the court held that the provision of the Agreement authorizing termination of alimony on cohabitation was invalid. Because Mr. Konzelman had established cohabitation, the court conducted a plenary hearing to determine to what extent Mr. Liput was providing to or receiving support from Mrs. Konzelman. The trial court determined that Mrs. Konzelman was receiving at least $170 per week from unidentified sources, which was attributed to Mr. Liput. Mr. Konzelman's support obligations were reduced accordingly. Mr. Konzelman appealed, challenging the trial court's refusal to enforce the cohabitation provision of the Property Settlement Agreement. Mrs. Konzelman cross-appealed, contesting the factual determination of cohabitation and the subsequent modification of alimony. The Appellate Division reversed, construing cohabitation as a domestic relationship whereby two unmarried adults live as husband and wife. The court then held that the anti-cohabitation clause, freely entered into by the parties, was enforceable. The Supreme Court granted Mrs. Konzelman's petition for certification. HELD: Based on minimum standards to assure their mutuality, fairness and voluntariness, cohabitation agreements may be enforced. 1. New Jersey favors the use of consensual agreements to resolve marital controversies; therefore fair and definitive arrangements arrived at by mutual consent should not be unnecessarily disturbed. Although settlement agreements, if found to be fair and just, are specifically enforceable in equity, they are not immutable and may be modified by a showing of changed circumstances that render their continued enforcement unfair, unjust and inequitable. (pp. 5-8) 2. The primary purpose of alimony is to permit the spouse to share in the accumulated marital assets to which he or she contributed. The Legislature has articulated a public policy that the legal obligation of the supporting spouse is superseded and ends on the remarriage of the dependent spouse. Marriage justifies the termination of alimony without regard to the economic circumstances of the dependent spouse who has remarried. (pp. 8-9) 3. Cohabitation constitutes a change of circumstances only if coupled with economic consequences; the economic benefit running to either cohabitor must be sufficiently material to justify relief. Under the economic needs test, the reduction in alimony is granted in proportion to the contribution of the cohabitor to the dependent spouse's needs. The policy considerations that allow the termination of alimony on remarriage support the termination of alimony based on cohabitation provided that both parties mutually have agreed to this contingency. The enforcement of a cohabitation agreement terminating alimony comports generally with the legislative and public policy of New Jersey's matrimonial laws. (pp. 9-11) 4. Where the parties to a property settlement agreement have agreed that cohabitation will constitute a material changed circumstance, and that agreement has been judged fair and equitable, the court should defer to the agreement. Thus, a property settlement agreement that provides for termination of alimony where the dependent spouse enters into a relationship that has all the indicia of marriage is enforceable and the court need not delve into the economic needs of the dependent former spouse. (pp. 11-13) 5. Agreements to terminate alimony on the condition of cohabitation must be voluntary, consensual, fair, equitable and fully informed. Fairness must be assessed in light of all circumstances on a case by case basis. Because of the inequality in bargaining power, it is essential that courts inquire into the voluntariness of an agreement and its overall fairness in light of all relevant circumstances. Privacy concerns may be addressed and mitigated by judicial supervision over agreements. (pp. 13-18) 6. Cohabitation involves an intimate relationship in which the couple has undertaken duties and privileges that are commonly associated with marriage. A romantic, casual or social relationship is not sufficient to justify enforcement of a cohabitation clause terminating alimony. Mr. Konzelman demonstrated cohabitation to the satisfaction of the trial court. That finding was based on sufficient credible evidence in the record. Mrs. Konzelman's relationship was sufficiently stable and enduring to render the enforcement of the cohabitation clause fair and equitable under the circumstances. Moreover, the cohabitiation provision of the property settlement agreement was voluntary, knowing and consensual. (pp. 18-21) Judgment of the Appellate Division is AFFIRMED. JUSTICE O'HERN, dissenting, in which JUSTICE STEIN joins, is of the view that the Court fails to afford proper weight to the uneven economic playing field on which this contest takes place. According to Justice O'Hern, a civilized society cannot buy a woman's right to choose her companions; therefore, a husband should not be able to demand an exchange of that freedom as a bargaining tool. By abandoning the economic needs test in this case, the Court has equated cohabitation with marriage. The Courts approach ignores the economic needs and dependency test that underpins an alimony obligation. It is manifestly unfair to relieve Mr. Konzelman of all alimony obligations based on Mrs. Konzelman's choice of companionship with another man, when economic need is the true measure of alimony. Moreover, the enforcement of cohabitation agreements places an unnecessary burden on the judiciary and the matrimonial bar. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES POLLOCK, GARIBALDI and COLEMAN join in JUSTICE HANDLER'S opinion. JUSTICE O'HERN has filed a separate dissenting opinion in which JUSTICE STEIN joins. KATHLEEN KONZELMAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LAWRENCE KONZELMAN, Defendant-Respondent. Argued January 4, 1999 -- Decided May 12, 1999 On certification to the Superior Court, Appellate Division, whose opinion is reported at 307 N.J. Super. 150 (1998). G. Dolph Corradino argued the cause for appellant (Mr. Corradino, attorney; Grant W. Waterson, on the briefs). Edward S. Snyder argued the cause for respondent (Weinstein, Penza &amp; Snyder, attorneys; Mr. Snyder and Cynthia Borsella Lindemann, on the brief). The opinion of the Court was delivered by HANDLER, J. The issue raised in this appeal is the enforceability of a divorce judgment incorporating a property settlement agreement that authorized the termination of the husband's support and maintenance payments in the event of the wife's cohabitation with an unrelated male. Alimony, maintenance and support, for a dependent spouse, may clearly be the subject of a voluntary and consensual agreement undertaken as part of the termination of marriage and divorce. Schlemm, supra, 31 N.J. at 576-82 (1960); Sobel v. Sobel, 99 N.J. Eq. 376, 379 (E. &amp; A. 1926). The issue of maintenance and support between divorced parties implicates important statutory and policy concerns. New Jersey requires that a dependent spouse receive alimony to assure maintenance sufficient to support that spouse based on the living standards of the couple during marriage. N.J.S.A. 2A:34-23; Innes v. Innes, 117 N.J. 496, 503 (1990); Koelble v. Koelble, 261 N.J. Super. 190, 192-93 (App. Div. 1992). The primary purpose of alimony is to permit the spouse to share in the accumulated marital assets to which he or she contributed. Mahoney v. Mahoney, 91 N.J. 488, 500-01 (1982). Like other spousal agreements, those covering alimony may be modified in light of changed circumstances. "The equitable authority of a court to modify support obligations in response to changed circumstances, regardless of their source, cannot be restricted." Lepis, supra, 83 N.J. at 149. Permanent alimony terminates automatically on remarriage. N.J.S.A. 2A:34-25. In enacting that basis or condition for discontinuing alimony, the Legislature articulated a public policy that the legal obligation of the supporting spouse is superseded and ends on the remarriage of the dependent spouse. In effect, the new marriage bond itself creates a change of circumstances that the Legislature deemed sufficiently fundamental and important to require the automatic termination of alimony. The legal obligation of post-divorce alimony is derived from the antecedent marriage; a new marriage supplants that obligation. Gayet v. Gayet, 92 N.J. 149, 151 (1983). Hence, remarriage justifies the termination of alimony without regard to the economic circumstances of the dependent spouse who has remarried. A property settlement agreement that provides for termination of alimony where the dependent spouse enters a relationship that has all the indicia of a marriage is therefore enforceable. E.g. Quillen v. Quillen, 462 S.E.2d 750 (Ga. 1995) (recognizing freedom of divorcing parties to contractually alter alimony obligation based upon the occurrence of certain events); Bergman v. Bergman, 487 S.E.2d 264, 267 (Va. App. 1997) (interpreting settlement agreements as any other contracts, including the enforcement of provisions terminating alimony upon cohabitation). Where the court considers a motion for reduction of alimony based on a change of circumstances, the dependent spouse's finances and economic resources are ordinarily the court's only consideration. E.g., Gayet, supra, 92 N.J. 149. Nevertheless, a specific consensual agreement between the parties to terminate or reduce alimony based on a predetermined change of circumstances does not require an inquiry into the financial circumstances or economic status of the dependent spouse so long as the provision itself is fair. Thus, where the parties have agreed that cohabitation will constitute a material changed circumstance, and that agreement has been judged fair and equitable, the court should defer to the arrangements undertaken by the parties. In that situation where the dependent spouse has entered into a new marriage-like relationship, the court need not delve into the economic needs of the dependent former spouse. New Jersey courts have recognized the enforceability of contractual arrangements between cohabitants to provide support. E.g. Crowe v. DeGioia, 90 N.J. 126 (1982). It appears entirely consistent with that policy to allow divorcing persons to enter into a mutual agreement that recognizes the reality and viability of cohabitation relationships. See Gordon, supra, 675 A.2d at 548 (acknowledging significance of cohabitation relationships and the fairness of support agreements that take such relationships into consideration);See footnote 1 In re Marriage of Schroeder, 238 Cal. Rptr. 12, 15 (1987) (stating that the purpose of a statute codifying cohabitation provision was "to protect the supporting spouse from an unfair advantage being gained by the supported spouse who cohabits with a person of the opposite sex"). We conclude that based on minimum standards to assure their mutuality, voluntariness and fairness, cohabitation agreements may be enforced. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES POLLOCK, GARIBALDI and COLEMAN join in JUSTICE HANDLER'S OPINION. JUSTICE O'HERN has filed a separate dissenting opinion in which JUSTICE STEIN joins. KATHLEEN KONZELMAN, Plaintiff-Petitioner, v. LAWRENCE KONZELMAN, Defendant-Respondent. O'HERN, J., dissenting. The private lives of divorced women are no business of the law. We have enough to do without inquiring into such matters. However, the economic needs of divorced women are the business of the law. We settled these points in Gayet v. Gayet, 92 N.J. 149 (1983). The majority downplays the woman's loss of freedom or autonomy by asserting that the case is not about sex, but that it is about money, the freedom of contract, and whether the anti-cohabitation provision entered into was voluntary, knowing and consensual, ante at ____ (slip op. at 21) and based upon mutuality, voluntariness and fairness. Ante at (slip op. at 13). It offends our intelligence for defendant to suggest that the anti-cohabitation clause in this case is not about sex. If the clause were not about sex, why then is cohabitation with another person of the same sex permitted without a reduction in support? For reasons rooted in our past, social conventions [still seek to] . . . deny women the same chance of sexual happiness as men . . . . Alan Ryan, Cultural Perversions, N.Y. Times Book Review at 16 (Mar. 14, 1999) (reviewing Martha C. Nussbaum, Sex and Social Justice (1999)). There is a double standard at play here that views women as having a lesser need than men for companionship of the opposite sex, yet . . . universally punishe[s] [women] if they display evidence to the contrary. . . . Natalie Angier, Men, Women, Sex and Darwin, N.Y. Times Magazine, Feb. 21, 1999, at 51. The danger against which courts have guarded in the past concerns the numerous ways in which a spouse can use [economic power associated with spousal support] to exert unjust and inappropriate control over the recipient's personal life. Sara Z. Moghadam, The Maryland Survey: 1995-96: C. Dismissing the Purpose and Public Policy Surrounding Spousal Support, 56 Md. L. Rev. 927, 927 (1997). Modern constitutional development of privacy rights [views] a decision of continued alimony based on the sexual habits of either a man or woman highly suspect. Evan J. Langbein, Post-Dissolution Cohabitation of Alimony Recipients: A Legal Fact of Life, 12 Nova L. Rev. 787, 788 (1988). Whether one defines [the right to privacy or personal development] as a 'right to intimacy and a freedom to do intimate things,' or 'a right to the integrity of one's personality,' see Henkin, Privacy and Autonomy, 74 Colum. L. Rev. 1410, 1419 (1974), the essence of the matter is that governmental regulation of private personal behavior . . . is sharply limited. State v. Saunders, 75 N.J. 200, 213 (1977) (internal quotations omitted). The Court repeats the reasoning of the Appellate Division that there are no considerations of public policy which should prevent competent parties to a divorce from freely agreeing [to an anti-cohabitation clause]. . . . Ante at ____ (slip op. at 11) (quoting 307 N.J. Super. at 161). In other words, a deal is a deal. Not so long ago in the Baby M. decision, Chief Justice Wilentz dispatched such reasoning in a single sentence. He wrote: There are, in a civilized society, some things that money cannot buy. In re Baby M., 109 N.J. 396, 440 (1988). In a civilized society, money cannot buy a woman's right to choose her companions. A husband should not be able to demand an exchange of that freedom as a bargaining tool. [Bell v. Bell, 468 N.E.2d 859, 863 (Mass. 1984) (Abrams, J., dissenting) (citing Knox. v. Remick, 358 N.E.2d 432 (1976), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1027, 105 S. Ct. 1392, 84 L. Ed 2d (1985)).] See also Guglielmo v. Guglielmo, 253 N.J. Super. 531, 543 (App. Div. 1992) (holding to same effect). Dependency acquired during the marriage based on the marital roles assumed by the parties is at the heart of an alimony obligation. It is manifestly unfair to relieve Mr. Konzelman of all alimony obligations based upon Mrs. Konzelman's choice of companionship with another man, when economic need is the true measure of alimony. The law is casting this partner of twenty-seven years into poverty for what, a sin? If her relationship ends, she will not even have, from the partners' once-shared earning capacity, a dollar a week to live on while Mr. Konzelman will be permitted to reap the benefits of an increased earning capacity built up during the marriage. Some states have enacted anti-cohabitation statutes that terminate alimony if the dependent party cohabits with a member of the opposite sex. Burnett Sharp, supra, 76 N.C. L. Rev. at 2099. New Jersey has not done so. Nor is it likely to do so. These laws are Hydra-like statute[s] that [are] misguided, ambiguous, overinclusive, punitive, possibly void for vagueness, and . . . [have] effectively thrown out the baby -- proof of changed economic circumstances -- with the bathwater. The change of circumstances standard, focusing on the economic contributions . . . is a considerably more sensible and easy to follow standard. Ibid. Id. at 2106. Although the majority bases its decision upon the first Gayet policy consideration that upon remarriage, a new bond . . . eliminates the prior dependency as a matter of law, Gayet, supra, 92 N.J. at 151, the Court disregards Gayet's latter consideration of an individual's personal affairs and the right to be free from governmental interference. Ante at ____ (slip op. at 12). The two policies are inextricably intertwined. In Melletz, supra, Judge Dreier punctured the hypocrisy attendant to anti-cohabitation clauses by asking the rhetorical question: could a divorced wife obtain a similar promise from her husband in return for less alimony? 271 N.J. Super. at 365-66. That court concluded that the agreement could not be upheld because it represented an attempt to control the former spouse's conduct and to attach conditions to [the] receipt of . . . alimony which are unrelated to her financial status [and] would contravene the very purpose of alimony. Id. at 367 (citation omitted). [Bell, supra, 468 N.E.2d at 863 (Abrams, J., dissenting).] I agree. I would reverse the judgment of the Appellate Division and reinstate that of the trial court reducing Mrs. Konzelman's alimony by $170 per week. Justice Stein joins this opinion. NO. A-189 KATHLEEN KONZELMAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LAWRENCE KONZELMAN, Defendant-Respondent. DECIDED [I]f the ex-spouse and the cohabitant share expenses, the ex-spouse collects support form two sources. Alternately, if the cohabitant does not pay a fair share of household expenses, then it follows that part of the support payment supports the cohabitant rather than the ex-spouse. In either situation, we believe it would be inequitable to require the spouse paying support to continue payment despite cohabiting parties' de facto remarriage.