Court Opinion

ID: 9606503
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:50:22.570654+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:13.701036
License: Public Domain

Justice WHICHARD
dissenting.
The majority bases its holding on Murphy v. Murphy, 295 N.C. 390, 245 S.E. 2d 693 (1978), in which this Court held that “sexual intercourse between a husband and wife after the execution of a separation agreement avoids the contract.” Murphy, 295 N.C. at 397, 245 S.E. 2d at 698. The decision in Murphy has been uniformly and severely criticized. An early critique stated:
This decision is supported neither by reason nor by precedent. It directly conflicts with a desirable policy of preserving marriages by encouraging reconciliation attempts between separated spouses who have made a separation agreement, it is a much narrower holding than the facts of *490the case demanded, and it inexplicably rejects case law developed by the court of appeals.
Survey of Developments in North Carolina Law, 1978, 57 N.C.L. Rev. 827, 1096 (1979). Professor Sally Sharp, a leading commentator on North Carolina family law, has observed:
It is impossible, and useless, to speculate about what prompted the supreme court to rule as it did in Murphy. Certainly it would have been difficult for the court to have implied an intent to reconcile and resume marital relations from isolated acts of sexual intercourse. An attempt to reconcile could well be implied, but hardly a fully formed intent. The result of the holding is that parties (or at least one party) will be penalized for trying to reconcile if he or she is unsuccessful in that attempt. The conclusion that this result tends to inhibit efforts to reconcile seems inescapable.
. . . [T]he principle that single acts of intercourse will constitute a reconciliation and therefore rescind a valid separation agreement should be given serious reconsideration. Neither the interest of the state in preserving marriage nor the interests of the parties in relying upon their contract is well served by the present rule.
S. Sharp, Divorce and the Third Party: Spousal Support, Private Agreements, and the State, 59 N.C.L. Rev. 819, 841-43 (1981). See also S. Sharp, The Partnership Ideal: The Development of Equitable Distribution in North Carolina, 65 N.C.L. Rev. 195, 204-05 n.52 (1987) (refers to “the Draconian effect of the Murphy rule” and notes that “[t]he issue . . . remains a serious problem”); Note, Domestic Relations — Enforcement of Contractual Separation Agreements by Specific Performance — Moore v. Moore, 16 Wake Forest L. Rev. 117 (1980) (“[WJhile the isolated-acts test serves the goal of judicial efficiency, it undermines the goal of judicial integrity.”).
Perhaps in response to these critiques of Murphy, the General Assembly provided in the Equitable Distribution Act that parties may make a written agreement providing for distribution of their property “[b]efore, during or after marriage.” N.C.G.S. § 50-20(d) (1987). The Court of Appeals has interpreted the effect *491of this section to be that spouses may now execute a property settlement at any time, without separating afterwards, Buffington v. Buffington, 69 N.C. App. 483, 317 S.E. 2d 97 (1984), and that such settlements are not necessarily terminated by reconciliation, Love v. Mewborn, 79 N.C. App. 465, 339 S.E. 2d 487, disc. rev. denied, 317 N.C. 704, 347 S.E. 2d 43 (1986). In my view those cases were correctly decided and accurately reflect both legislative intent in the enactment of N.C.G.S. § 50-20(d) and sound public policy. If spouses may make an agreement for a property settlement during marriage, it follows that after execution of the agreement, they may continue to live together, or have sexual relations while living apart, without voiding the agreement.
The separation agreement here was entered into subsequent to the effective date of N.C.G.S. § 50-20(d). The agreement recites in paragraph 21 that it constitutes a distribution of marital property pursuant to that statute. Therefore, it was not voided by the parties’ episodic sexual relations.
If Murphy governs, as the majority holds, the agreement is void, and the language used therein is immaterial. The majority thus is incorrect, under its view of the law, in stating that “[t]he resolution of this appeal depends on the interpretation of the words of the agreement ‘if the parties have lived continuously separate and apart for that full [one year] period.’ ” The language of a void agreement is immaterial, so questions of interpretation do not arise.
While Murphy established a clear legal consequence for even a single act of sexual intercourse after entering a separation agreement — a consequence now removed by the enactment of N.C.G.S. § 50-20(d) — it did not give singular semantic or legal significance, divorced from context and intent, to the words “lived continuously separate and apart.” The majority goes beyond the actual holding in Murphy in holding that it did.
The spouses here testified to their differing interpretations of the phrase “lived continuously separate and apart” in the context of their separation agreement. The wife testified:
It meant that in a year’s time if we lived continuously separate and apart that I would sign the house over. At the time I . . . signed the house over I thought that [my husband] *492and I would divide the interest in the house as far as my marital interest even though it was not stated. That’s how I interpreted this paragraph. ... If we lived continuously separate and apart. That meant no contact whatsoever. That I would sign the house over and I would be given my marital interest in the property. ... I was obligated to turn the house over if we had no contact as far as having sex, going anywhere together appearing as husband and wife. If we had had no contact, if he went his separate way, I went my separate way, we did not talk about going back together, then I was going to sign [over] the house and I thought I would be getting my part of the house.
She further testified that she thought that if she and her husband had “sexual relations or even spen[t] the night together ... , it voided [the agreement]. That was, to [her], going back and living as husband and wife.” The husband testified, contrastingly:
Q. What did you think paragraph 4 meant when you signed that agreement?
A. I took it that if we’re not living together after the first year that she would sign the house over to me.
Q. . . . Did you think that if you had sex with her during that year that it would have anything to do with whether or not she was obligated to sign the house over to you?
A. No.
Q. Did anybody tell you . . . that having sex with her might void the provisions of paragraph 4?
A. No.
As a matter of semantics, it cannot be gainsaid that the disputed language is subject to the different and plausible meanings expressed in the foregoing testimony. The language is in fact, and should be in law, ambiguous.
As stated in Justice Meyer’s dissent: “Where the language in question is unclear and the parties’ intentions are in doubt, interpretation of an agreement is for the jury under proper instruc*493tions from the court. Parker Marking Systems, Inc. v. Diagraph-Bradley Industries, Inc., 80 N.C. App. 177, 341 S.E. 2d 92, disc. rev. denied, 317 N.C. 336, 346 S.E. 2d 502 (1986).” And, as stated in Judge Orr’s dissent for the Court of Appeals:
[Resumption of sexual relations does not, as a matter of law, void a N.C.G.S. § 50-20(d) agreement. Therefore, to conclude that the parties “no longer live separate and apart” because of the resumption of sexual relations, is to give the phrase a meaning beyond the context of this agreement and affix to it a meaning reserved for situations other than a property settlement under N.C.G.S. § 50-20(d). There is no basis in our statutes or case law to conclude that the incorporation of the phrase “live separate and apart for one year” into a N.C.G.S. § 50-20(d) agreement means that sexual relations will result in the conclusion, as a matter of law, that the parties no longer live separate and apart. The intent of the parties as to the application of this phrase in their agreement is instead a question to be decided by the trier of fact.
Higgins v. Higgins, 86 N.C. App. 513, 520, 358 S.E. 2d 553, 557 (1987).
By enacting N.C.G.S. § 50-20(d), the General Assembly attempted to put to rest, in the context presented here, “the Draconian effect of the Murphy rule.” S. Sharp, supra, 65 N.C.L. Rev. 195, 205 n.52. The majority today — unfortunately, in my view— resurrects the rule and its effect under the guise of a semantic certainty that is in fact absent. Not only does the majority resurrect Murphy from a well-deserved demise, but in the process it stretches it beyond its original effect. I find the holding of the majority contrary to express legislative enactment and neither required by the statutes and case law nor desirable as a matter of public policy. I therefore respectfully dissent.