Court Opinion

ID: 9778283
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:58:16.567313+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:06.817462
License: Public Domain

LAMBERT,
Justice, concurring.
The opinion of the Court correctly observes that antenuptial agreements are favored, provided the requirements of the law are met. A principal requirement is disclosure, but deciding precisely what disclosure is sufficient has been troublesome. At one extreme parties would be required to make written disclosure of every asset together with appraised values. At the other extreme, a vague oral disclosure in which the parties provided one another with some general information would be sufficient.
We have heretofore said that the law favors antenuptial agreements, but as a practical matter, the more complete the disclosure which is required, the greater the likelihood that the agreement will ultimately be held invalid. A requirement of precise disclosure would therefore defeat what has been determined to be sound public policy. On the other hand, if we uphold agreements on the basis of just “any old disclosure,” then the disclosure requirement will have been essentially eliminated from the law.
A better approach would be to borrow from our decision in Chenault v. Chenault, Ky., 799 S.W.2d 575 (1990), which dealt with the precision required for tracing non-marital assets upon dissolution of a marriage. Che-nault recognized that precision of asset tracing might be appropriate for skilled business persons, but would be inappropriate and disadvantageous to those of lesser business skills or those essentially indifferent to such matters. To soften some of the possible inequity, Chenault declared that mathematical certainty with respect to tracing would not be required.
Accordingly, we shall adhere to the general requirement that nonmarital assets be traced into assets owned at the time of dissolution, but relax some of the draconian requirements heretofore laid down. We take this position, in part, in reliance upon the trial courts of Kentucky to detect deception and exaggeration or to require additional proof when such is suspected.
Id at 579.
There is sufficient analogy between the process of tracing assets in the course of dissolving a marriage and reviewing evidence as to the extent of disclosure made at the time of an antenuptial agreement. Both require fact finding based on what may be stale evidence of distant events. As such, the trial courts of this Commonwealth should be granted considerable discretion to determine whether disclosure was adequate to support the agreement. Such agreements should not *4be held invalid unless there appears to have been deception, fraud or material omission.
REYNOLDS and SPAIN, JJ., join this concurring opinion.