Court Opinion

ID: 9739208
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:10:35.7661+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:10.710708
License: Public Domain

HUSPENI, Judge
(concurring specially).
We must accord great weight to a trial court’s construction of its own decree. Therefore, I support an affirmance in this case. However, I continue to be concerned about the problems of proof which arise when courts are called upon to implement cohabitation clauses in dissolution decrees.
Parties are unlikely to dispute the occurrence of the event which triggers a “remarriage” or “date-certain” provision for termination of maintenance. I fear, however, that parties will rarely be able to agree on the event or circumstance which activates a cohabitation clause. Emotionally and financially burdensome post-decree litigation is almost certain to result from that inability to agree.
Litigation of cohabitation clauses can be avoided, it seems to me, only if parties and attorneys who stipulate to inclusion of such a clause in a dissolution decree scrupulously set forth with the greatest specificity possible what the word “cohabitation” means to them.