Opinion ID: 1644231
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: whether lawrence and carolee enjoyed a confidential relationship during the negotiation of the property settlement agreement.

Text: We note that the first time this issue was specifically presented to the trial court was in Carolee's ten-page document entitled Defendant's (Carolee's) Objections to Plaintiff's Proposed Findings and Conclusions and Defendant's Additional Proposals. Therein, at paragraph XVIII, she objected to Lawrence's proposed Conclusion of Law IV based upon the following findings and conclusions which are hereby proposed by (Carolee): A. Husband and wife enjoyed a confidential relationship. B. Husband had a duty to wife under that confidential relationship. C. That duty was fiduciary or confidential or of a trust nature. Those subsections were followed by subsections D through R, which generally assailed the property settlement. The trial court endorsed the document as denied. None of Carolee's proposals are specifically designated as findings or conclusions and it is difficult to ascertain Carolee's intent in that regard. Some are obviously findings, some are conclusions and some are mixed. Nowhere in the record does it appear that Carolee raised the confidentiality issue or presented it specifically to the trial court. Although Carolee may have technically preserved the issue, the trial court was certainly placed at a disadvantage and a meaningful appellate review is clearly hampered. We discourage such shotgun tactics. Carolee argues to us that a confidential relationship existed between her and Lawrence which increased Lawrence's duties of disclosure and fairness with respect to the property settlement negotiations and the resulting agreement. She asserts that this relationship placed a duty upon Lawrence to disclose the nature and value of all of the couple's assets. While it is generally true that a husband and wife do enjoy a confidential relationship, see, e.g., SDCL 25-2-10, [4] we do not believe that such a relationship existed here. When the parties to a marriage are negotiating a property settlement, recognizing that their interests are adverse to one another and that they are dealing at arms length, neither spouse owes to the other the duty of disclosure which he or she would normally owe if their relationship remained, in fact, a confidential one. See Collins v. Collins, 48 Cal.2d 325, 309 P.2d 420 (1957); see also In re Marriage of Bradach, 422 N.E.2d 342 (Ind.App.1981), wherein the court noted that the confidential relationship of a husband and wife applies only in those circumstances where they are still living together. Given the fact that Lawrence and Carolee were living apart during the time they were negotiating their property settlement, and that they were negotiating the settlement in contemplation of their divorce, we hold that no unique confidential relationship existed between this couple, and that Carolee was equally responsible for ascertaining the nature and value of the couple's marital assets. While we hold that each spouse must assume equal responsibility for ascertaining such nature and value, we do not intend to grant to estranged spouses any license to hide or misrepresent the value of any marital assets, nor will any such practice be condoned. We must further observe that in entering its extensive findings and conclusions, the trial court found and held that Carolee had knowledge of the couple's property, (although maybe not specific values) throughout their marriage, and that she failed to make efforts to ascertain any additional information during the negotiation process. These determinations are clearly supported by the record.