Court Opinion

ID: 9586163
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:07:54.727083+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:24:27.207278
License: Public Domain

SEARS, Presiding Justice,
concurring.
I concur with the majority’s holding that Mr. Alexander’s failure to reveal his investment account, despite his claim to have fully disclosed all his assets, rendered his antenuptial agreement with Mrs. Alexander null and void.
I write separately, however, to emphasize that this is the only ground upon which the trial court’s decision can be affirmed. I believe the trial court erred by also holding that the antenuptial agreement was void due to duress and a change in circumstances.
Duress which will avoid a contract must consist of threats of bodily or other harm, or other means amounting to coercion, or tending to coerce the will of another, and actually inducing him to do an act contrary to his free will____The threats must be sufficient to overcome the mind and will of a person of ordinary firmness.3
Here, the only threat Mr. Alexander made was to say that unless Mrs. Alexander signed the antenuptial agreement, the marriage could not go forward. As the precedent quoted above makes clear, that singular statement does not rise to the level of duress required to void an otherwise valid contract.
Similarly, the mere fact that a child was born during the course of the marriage does not create a material change in circumstances that authorizes the nullification of an antenuptial agreement. Our Code provides sufficient guidelines to ensure that adequate support is provided for a child whose parents divorce.4 Such child support issues are wholly separate from the issues that are addressed in standard antenuptial contracts — i.e., the obligations divorcing *119parties will owe to one another after the marriage is dissolved.
Decided March 7, 2005
Reconsideration denied March 28, 2005.
Hicks, Massey & Gardner, Frederick V. Massey, for appellant.
Thomas A. Camp, for appellee.
I am authorized to state that Justice Carley joins in this concurrence.

 Tidwell v. Critz, 248 Ga. 201, 203 (282 SE2d 104) (1981).

 See OCGA § 9-6-1 et seq.