Background
Robert Hutchinson and Rosanna Cordoba Gomez executed a premarital agreement on March 2, 2015, eight days before their marriage, each represented by independent counsel. The agreement designated Hutchinson’s existing and future business interests as his separate, nonmarital property and included Gomez’s broad waiver of equitable distribution rights. As the sole consideration for those waivers, section fourteen of the agreement obligated Hutchinson to purchase a specific condominium at 403 Chandler’s Wharf in Portland — then owned by his mother — for use as the marital home, with net value to be split equally upon divorce. Section five of the agreement explicitly preserved Gomez’s claim “as set forth in paragraph 14” while otherwise extinguishing her rights in Hutchinson’s assets.
Hutchinson never bought the condominium. The parties lived there during part of the marriage, but the property remained in his mother’s name until her death in 2021 and passed into her probate estate. The couple separated in 2020 and Hutchinson filed for divorce in August 2021. The Portland District Court held a series of hearings and ultimately concluded: (1) Gomez waived all claims to Hutchinson’s business interests and their appreciation; (2) Hutchinson was not contractually required to purchase the condo because section fourteen used the word “intends”; and (3) the divorce court lacked jurisdiction over Gomez’s breach-of-contract claim regarding the condo because neither party owned it. The court awarded Gomez $125,000 in marital-property distribution and $25,000 of her requested $100,486 in attorney fees.
Gomez appealed all four rulings to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. The court affirmed the interpretation of the business-interest waivers and the attorney-fee reduction, but reversed on the condominium issues and vacated the judgment.
The Court’s Holding
The Law Court held that the District Court erred in two respects concerning the condominium. First, the divorce court does have subject matter jurisdiction to award damages or other contract remedies for breach of a premarital agreement term, even when the specific property at issue is not part of the marital estate. Relying on 19-A M.R.S. § 953 and the principle that choses in action and contractual rights are intangible personal property subject to equitable distribution, the court concluded that the absence of a jointly owned condominium does not strip the divorce court of authority to fashion an appropriate remedy for Hutchinson’s failure to perform.
Second, the court held that the District Court’s plain-language focus on the word “intends” in the first sentence of section fourteen was an incomplete and erroneous reading of the agreement. Reading section fourteen as a whole, the court found it unambiguous: after stating that Hutchinson “intends” to purchase the condo, the provision immediately uses the mandatory terms “will” and “shall,” specifies the anticipated purchase year (2016), identifies the source of funds, establishes joint-tenancy title, and details the 50/50 split of net value on divorce. When read alongside section five — which carves out paragraph 14 as the only consideration Gomez retained — the agreement plainly required the purchase, not merely expressed a hope. Hutchinson’s failure to buy the condo constituted a breach, and the trial court must determine on remand what equitable relief is appropriate.
The court affirmed the District Court’s interpretation of the business-interest waiver provisions. Sections seven and nine of the agreement, read together with the broad “acquisitions” definition in section eighteen, unambiguously waived Gomez’s right to any equitable distribution of Hutchinson’s present or future business interests and their appreciation, including interests created during the marriage.
Key Takeaways
- A Maine divorce court has subject matter jurisdiction to award contract remedies — including damages — for breach of a premarital agreement provision, even if the specific asset contemplated by that provision is not in the marital estate.
- Courts must read premarital agreement provisions in their entirety and in context with the whole instrument; focusing on a single word (“intends”) while ignoring surrounding mandatory language (“will,” “shall”) and the agreement’s overall structure is reversible error.
- Where a premarital agreement expressly identifies one benefit — here, a guaranteed 50% share of a marital home — as the sole consideration for a spouse’s broad waiver of marital-property rights, a court must give full effect to that quid pro quo when the obligated spouse fails to perform.
- Broad waiver language covering “any businesses or business interests” and property acquired “as a result of the marriage,” reinforced by an “acquisitions” clause sweeping in after-acquired property, is sufficient to waive rights to business interests created and appreciated during the marriage without separately listing each one.
- Attorney-fee awards in Maine divorce proceedings turn on relative ability to pay and the totality of circumstances, including both parties’ conduct in litigation; a court may reduce fees where both sides engaged in contentious motion practice.
Why It Matters
This decision clarifies an important jurisdictional question in Maine family law: divorce courts need not send parties to separate civil litigation to vindicate contractual rights under a premarital agreement when those rights are integral to the property division. Requiring a separate action when the premarital agreement itself is the foundation of the divorce proceeding would fragment litigation and undercut the statute’s goal of comprehensive resolution. Practitioners drafting or litigating premarital agreements in Maine should take note that a divorce court can fashion equitable remedies — potentially including monetary awards approximating the value of unperformed contractual promises — as part of the overall property division.
The opinion also reinforces that premarital agreements must be read holistically, not parsed word by word in isolation. An obligor spouse cannot escape a clear contractual commitment by pointing to a single aspirational word when the remainder of the provision — and the agreement’s overall scheme of consideration — demonstrates a binding obligation. For attorneys drafting such agreements, the case underscores the importance of ensuring that mandatory obligations are stated consistently throughout the document and that the consideration each spouse receives is clearly articulated, lest a court look to the “whole instrument” and find an obligation the drafter intended to leave open.