In the end, Layton v. Layton 2025 Pa. Super. 111 is more about procedure than substance but the message from our appellate courts about what constitutes duress in a premarital contract continues to be garbled.
Russel and Nicole Layton are married in 2008. The Dauphin County case number suggests a 2019 divorce filing but the action to set aside the prenuptial is begun in 2022. Dauphin County assigns the matter to a hearing officer to evaluate whether the agreement is voidable for duress or non-disclosure and the master comes back with a report in May 2023 finding that the prenuptial agreement should be set aside on both grounds. Husband takes exceptions and the matter is scheduled for briefing and argument before a commissioned judge. That jurist knows the parties from his own experience hearing custody matters and those proceedings have colored his views. He opines that both parties are “well practiced in playing the role of victim.” And while noting his obligation to give weight to the credibility findings of the apppointed hearing officer he elects to reverse the hearing officer because wife has failed to sustain her burden of proof. Her claims are dismissed and the prenuptial is upheld. Husband is directed to file papers to conclude the divorce in accordance with the terms of the prenuptial.
Wife appeals. And, on May 23, a panel issued its precedential ruling reversing the trial court with instructions to review how it made its credibility determinations and, perhaps to conduct further proceedings.
In most counties in which this writer has practiced, the business of assessing whether a prenuptial agreement should be set aside is usually done by a judge. But the appellate opinion correctly notes that courts are empowered to send ancillary proceedings like this to a hearing officer, subject to review on exceptions. 23 Pa.C.S. 3321. The panel of the Superior Court is agitated by the fact that it has clearly written credibility and factual findings by the hearing officer which the trial court has upended without making his own assessments on the relevant facts related to the prenuptial but strong impressions about the parties from the custody proceedings.
Fair enough, except that the actual decision of the trial judge was that wife had not met her burden. (Superior Ct. opinion at p. 7) The Superior Court is saying to do that, the reviewing judge is going to have to substitute what facts and credibility he finds in a setting where he did not hear the facts or the witnesses. And by implication, it would seem that the trial judge needs to reject the report and conduct de novo proceedings.
This presents its own set of problems because the ruling suggests that fights over the validity of prenuptials should be held before judges and not passed off to hearing officers. But the court relies heavily on another recent prenuptial duress case, Lewis v. Lewis, 234 A.3d at 715. Lewis is quoted as saying:
“In our case law, the duress claimant’s ability to consult with an attorney has often proved to be fatal to the claim. No matter how reprehensible the negotiation tactics were, if the claimant was able to consult with an attorney, the danger or restraint could not have been sufficiently severe to constitute legal duress.”
Lewis is similar in that wife is purported to have met with husband’s attorney months before signing the prenuptial agreement. Yet, she claimed duress. Respectfully, the language cited is far too broad. Suppose the meeting had taken place and wife rejected the prenuptial. Suppose husband had responded by threatening to kill wife, her family or perhaps her pet hours before the wedding unless the prenuptial was signed. That’s duress by an measure and no one would reasonably argue that time spent with an attorney before the threat somehow washes the injustice away. Meanwhile, as we noted in a blog written about the Lewis case on another platform in 2016, the case also ignores the responsibility of the aggrieved party to rescind the agreement as soon as the threat subsides.
In the Layton case, sub judice, the hearing officer found that husband presented wife with a prenuptial to sign two days before the wedding. She asked to read it but he said she would have to do so while he held it in his hands. He noted that otherwise the wedding would be cancelled and wife’s family would incur thousands of dollars in penalties associated with the wedding/reception/honeymoon.
But again, we have the question of if there was duress in 2008, where was the bride for the ensuing decade or more before she brought her motion to set aside? As we noted in Fox Rothschild’s Family Law Blog on July 16, 2020,
“In Sixsmith v. Martsolf, the Supreme Court held that a claim for rescission based on fraud was lost when the victim of fraud did not act to set aside the agreement promptly. 196 A.2d 662 (Pa. 1964). A contract secured by fraud is voidable only at the option of the injured party who must act promptly on the discovery of the fraud, or the right to rescind is waived: Hilliard v. Wood Carving Co., 34 A. 231 (Pa. 1896); Kinter v. Commonwealth Tr. Co., 118 A. 392 (Pa. 1922); McEvoy v. M. Samuels and Sons, Inc., 121 A. 189 ( Pa.1923); and, Peoples Pittsburgh Tr. Co. v. Com., 60 A.2d 53 (Pa. 1948).”
On remand in Layton, the trial court is going to have to parse when the prenup was first presented and what is an “opporunity to confer” with counsel. In one sense, everyone has a chance to confer with counsel. Weddings can always be postponed although the expense can be enormous. But, have we abandoned the law requiring victims to exercise self-help? Both Lewis and Layton suggest we have.