Husband Can’t Back Out After Signing Internet Divorce Forms

Tennessee law case summary on divorce process from the Court of Appeals.

Bonnie Ellen Pierre v. Edward Joseph Pierre  – Tennessee divorce process Internet divorce forms

In 2010, Edward Pierre told his wife that he wanted a divorce.  The wife, Bonnie Pierre, went to the internet and downloaded a set of forms.  They discussed how they would divide their assets, and the wife filled out the forms by checking the appropriate boxes and filling in the blanks with handwritten information.  Neither party bothered talking to a lawyer.  Instead, they simply signed the forms, which included a complaint, a marital dissolution agreement, and a final judgment for divorce.

The agreement called for the wife to receive the parties’ marital residence.  The husband later testified that when he signed the papers before a notary, he hadn’t bothered to read them, because he was under the mistaken impression that the agreement actually “split everything down the middle.”

The wife then filed the papers with the court, and the trial court entered a final judgment, which incorporated the agreement.

Several months later, the husband hired a lawyer and went to court to have the order set aside.  He alleged that the agreement was the product of fraud, duress, and misrepresentation by the wife, and that it didn’t provide for an equitable division of the assets.

The trial court denied the husband’s motion to re-open the case.  It held that the husband hadn’t met his burden of proof to show fraud or duress, and that in the absence of any of those factors, the court had no duty to divide the estate equitably, when the parties had agreed to the split.

Disappointed by this turn of events, the husband then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.  He argued that the dissolution agreement was not valid and enforceable, since it didn’t equitably divide the property.  He also argued that the court had a duty to equitably divide the property, even though he signed an agreement as to how the property would be divided.

The appeals court first noted that setting aside a judgment is an exceptional remedy, and that a rule allowing judgments to be re-opened is an escape valve that should not be easily opened.

The court then went on to note that someone signing a contract cannot later plead ignorance of its contents if there was an opportunity to read it before signing.    And in this case, since the agreement stated that they had equitably divided the property, the appeals court ruled that the lower court was under no further obligation to delve into whether it was equitable.

For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s ruling.

No. E2013-01864-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Oct. 30, 2014).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see The Tennessee Divorce Process: How Divorces Work Start to Finish.