Opinion ID: 1890553
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the appeal by the estate of charles spencer

Text: The estate maintains that it was entitled to summary judgment because the EdwardJones account cannot be deemed to have been given to Faye. It insists that under paragraph 12 of the ante-nuptial agreement, as quoted above, any gift of Charles's property to Faye during the marriage was to be memorialized in writing with the writing attached to both copies of the agreement. Because that requirement was not met, the estate argues, the agreement's strict terms should be given effect and the presence of Faye's name on the joint EdwardJones account should be disregarded. As the estate correctly notes, ante-nuptial agreements are a recognized type of contract in Kentucky, Gentry v. Gentry, 798 S.W.2d 928 (Ky.1990), and like other contracts, they are to be construed so as to give effect to the parties' intentions. Pressman v. Pressman's Administrator, 275 Ky. 45, 120 S.W.2d 739 (1938). Unlike other contracts, however, ante-nuptial agreements are often negotiated and entered into when the parties are not truly bargaining at arms length, and they are often sought to be enforced long after their creation when the parties' circumstances may have changed substantially. For these reasons, we have insisted that courts retain broad discretion to modify or invalidate all or part of an ante-nuptial agreement where enforcement is unconscionable. Lane v. Lane, 202 S.W.3d 577, 579 (Ky.2006). Further, we have long held that such agreements are to be construed liberally, not in deference to the strictly technical meaning of the words used, but with reference to the whole instrument. . . and evidence, also, of the situation of the parties, the surrounding circumstances, and all other means that will throw light on the intention of the parties. Collins v. Bauman, 125 Ky. 846, 102 S.W. 815, 816 (1907). The trial court and the Court of Appeals both ruled that, considered as a whole, the ante-nuptial agreement was not intended to preclude gifts between the parties and that the memorandum requirement of paragraph 12 was not so inflexible a requirement as to defeat on purely technical grounds a transfer of property that was clearly intended to be a gift. That gift provision of the agreement should be understood, rather, as requiring that, for gifts between the parties, the giver's intention be clearly evidenced by a writing. We agree that this is a reasonable construction of paragraph 12, which clearly was not meant to frustrate gifts between the parties, but only to prevent gift claims by the alleged recipient where the giver's intention had not been made manifest. We agree with the lower courts too, then, that the EdwardJones Authorization Letter executed by Charles, even though it was not attached to the ante-nuptial agreement, satisfied the agreement's requirement that gifts between the parties be memorialized in writing.
The estate next contends that, even granting this construction of paragraph 12that it could be satisfied by a clear manifestation of the giver's intent even if the gift memorandum was not attached to the agreementthe Court of Appeals erred by ruling that the creation of the joint EdwardJones account amounted to a clear manifestation of Charles's intent to give an interest in the account to Faye. It concedes that, generally, when one person causes intangibles, such as stock certificates, notes, bonds, cashier's checks, or bank accounts to be issued by a second person in favor of another, individually or jointly, the latter becomes a third party beneficiary of the transaction, and is vested with the rights evidenced by the instrument. Hensley v. Ball, 380 S.W.2d 279, 283 (Ky.1964) (stock certificates, bonds, cashier's check); Saylor v. Saylor, 389 S.W.2d 904 (Ky.1965) (bank savings account). The estate argues, however, that here the fact that Charles did not comply with the strict terms of the ante-nuptial agreement could be viewed as evidence that he did not intend to confer upon Faye the rights usually incident to joint ownership. In that way, the estate maintains, an issue of material fact arises, which should have been submitted to a jury and which thus precludes the summary judgment in favor of Faye. We agree with the Court of Appeals, however, that notwithstanding the ante-nuptial agreement, Charles's creation of the joint EdwardJones account was clearly intended to confer upon Faye an interest in the account. That, as noted, is the consequence Kentucky law presumes. The estate has suggested no other reason for creating the joint account, and we do not attribute to Charles a senseless act. The ante-nuptial agreement, in sum, neither entitles the estate to summary judgment nor precludes the summary judgment awarded to Faye, and on those points, accordingly, we affirm the Court of Appeals.
The estate raises one additional issue in its appeal. The EdwardJones account, which held the bulk of Charles's assets, was the main focus of the parties' dispute, but the estate's complaint also alleged that it was entitled to Charles's half of household items jointly acquired during the marriage and to the return of household items that Charles brought to the marriage or acquired separately during marriage. The complaint sought a declaration defining both sets of household contents. This aspect of the complaint appears to have been forgotten during the dispute over the EdwardJones account. Neither party's summary judgment motion indicated that what was being sought was only a partial summary judgment or that issues in addition to those relating to the brokerage account remained to be addressed. Accordingly, the trial court's order granting summary judgment to Faye closed the entire case by reciting that the plaintiffs Complaint is dismissed with prejudice. The summary judgment prompted the estate's motion to alter, amend, or vacate, a motion which also requested the trial court to enter findings and conclusions in support of its ruling. At the hearing on that motion, the estate, for the first time apparently, asserted that the summary judgment had not addressed the household property questions and so requested either that the judgment be withdrawn until those questions could be addressed or that the summary judgment be made partial but final-and-appealable. From the bench, the trial judge acknowledged that the household property issues had not been addressed, but, apparently accepting counsel's suggestion that he could piecemeal the judgment, entered Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law explaining the summary judgment on the EdwardJones issue, otherwise denied the estate's motion to alter, amend, or vacate; and recited that the denial of the estate's motion was a final and appealable order. Neither the order nor the judgment itself recited that there was no just reason for delay as provided in Kentucky Rule of Civil Procedure (CR) 54.02. The estate did not renew its motion to have the judgment altered nor did it otherwise object to the trial court's order. On appeal, however, it contends that the Circuit Court obviously erred in dismissing the entire claim, when the motion brought by the Estate was for a partial summary judgment. Faye's counsel, the Estate's counsel, and the Circuit Court Judge, all conceded in the oral arguments at the hearing held on January 12, 2007, that the entire case should not have been dismissed and other issues remained for further litigation. Unfortunately, when the Order was entered it was again listed as a total dismissal of the claim. As the Court of Appeals observed with respect to this assertion by the estate, when the trial court entered its order denying the estate's motion to alter or amend, the parties' and the court's expectation appears to have been that the Court of Appeals would address the EdwardJones account issue and would then remand for additional proceedings concerning the household property. Unfortunately, although CR 54.02 allows in certain circumstances for an appeal in a multi-claim action from a partial judgment disposing of less than all the claims, that rule requires that the partial judgment recite both that the judgment is final and that there is no just reason for delay. Watson v. Best Financial Services, Inc., 245 S.W.3d 722 (Ky.2008). Absent those certifications, the rule is not invoked. [1] The judgment here did not certify that there was no just reason for delay, and thus we are confronted with a situation in which the judgment the estate recommended to the court and acquiesced in is now challenged by the estate, essentially, as having been interlocutory and non-appealable. Although we are not unsympathetic to the estate's plight, given that all involved apparently expected that the household items portion of the estate's claim would be addressed after this appeal, the hard fact is that it was the estate's responsibility to ensure that the judgment was in the proper form to invoke CR 54.02. Signer v. Arnold, 436 S.W.2d 493 (Ky.1969). Not only did the estate fail to advise the trial court of the proper form of a partial judgment pursuant to CR 54.02, but it suggested and acquiesced in the improper form the court employed. The estate will not be heard on appeal to claim that it is entitled to relief from its own mistake in the trial court. The Court of Appeals did not err, therefore, by refusing to grant relief on this ground.