Streng & McLeod Win Case Upholding a Prenuptial Agreement
McCarthy Fingar’s Matrimonial lawyers prepare prenuptial agreements and our Surrogate’s Court lawyers litigate the validity of such agreements. Clients make prenuptial agreements when a client is getting married for the second time and desires for his or her prospective spouse to waive rights to elect against the client’s Will. In Matter of Fischer, two of our Trusts and Estates litigators, Frank W. Streng and Ryan J. McLeod, representing the executor of the estate, in which the decedent’s surviving spouse challenged the validity of the prenuptial agreement that she signed in the 1970s. Following pre-hearing discovery, including depositions, Frank and Ryan moved for summary judgment in Surrogate’s Court, Rockland County, in successfully dismissing the surviving spouse’s elective share notice filed under EPTL 5-1.1. In rejecting the surviving spouse’s elective share claim, the Court mentioned that the surviving spouse, relying upon the prenuptial agreement, availed herself of the prenuptial agreement by making a trust agreement in which, like the decedent, she gave her assets to children of her first marriage. The Court upheld the basic legal principal that, In the absence of proof of fraud, a prenuptial agreement will be upheld; and the Court noted that the surviving spouse did not prove either fraud or overreaching.