Court Opinion

ID: 9528713
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:43:18.114179+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:14.058474
License: Public Domain

ON DENIAL OF PETITION FOR REHEARING
PER CURIAM.
The respondent husband on petition for rehearing focuses mainly on this paragraph of the Settlement Agreement: • “The parties agree to and recognize the Wife’s need to acclimatize herself to single par*95enthood and financial autonomy gradually. With that purpose in mind ____” After observing that the husband’s agreement was to pay the wife alimony for 121 months unless she died first, the statement is then made that 121 months was the period of time after the divorce where the wife would have to become accustomed “to single parenthood and financial autonomy.” The contention advanced is that “It was not contemplated that respondent would help the wife achieve financial autonomy after she had remarried someone else. The financial autonomy was to go hand in hand with single parenthood.”
We are not persuaded to deviate from our original opinion. As is most obvious, the parties entertained differing contemplations; hence, the litigation which resulted on the wife’s getting remarried. Although this occasioned her being no longer single, insofar as the minor was concerned she continued to be a single parent. Single parenthood going hand in hand with financial autonomy, as the husband’s brief argues, we do not see that financial autonomy should come to an end while single parenthood continued. To the contrary, and as our opinion pointed out, the creation of the wife’s financial independence from a second husband was a commendable aspect of the Settlement Agreement.
The brief of the husband brings our attention back to the district judge’s observation that “it appears that the omission [as to the effect of the wife’s remarriage] was intentional and that each party was motivated by different considerations.” Again, it is indeed apparent that each party, advised by competent counsel, did take a stand. The wife would not agree to a provision expressly terminating alimony on remarriage; the husband would not agree to a provision which expressly continued it.
In this particular case, in view of the language above quoted, plus the language which stated that the alimony period of 121 months was selected with an eye toward income tax benefits, and plus the language of Section 5 of the Agreement set forth in our opinion, we remain convinced that the agreement to pay alimony in order to give the wife (and mother of the husband’s child) financial autonomy for 121 months was based upon the implicit understanding that this was within the contemplation of the parties a just and equitable provision.
The Petition for Rehearing is denied.