In Re Marriage Of Davis

193 Or. App. 279 (2004)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

H and W were married for approximately 17 years. The parties have two minor children, who were 8 and 10 years old at the time that the stipulated judgment was entered. The marriage involved numerous instances of domestic violence. H was arrested on one occasion for domestic abuse while the parties were living in Arizona. W obtained two restraining orders in Oregon, and H was arrested for violating a restraining order on one occasion. H moved out of the parties' residence in April 2000 and filed for dissolution the following September. W's social worker testified that W 'loved H enormously and she feared him enormously.' W was diagnosed as suffering from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and battered woman's syndrome. The testimony was that when W saw H, she became incapable of making decisions. Everyone who came into contact with W questioned her ability to decide and make decisions when H was involved. W was unstable, and much of her conduct was bipolar; happy and competent one minute and crying and incapable of functioning the next. H and W attended various conferences to work out property divisions, the last item which was Intel stock. During one of the adjournments, H and W were left alone. W expressed a desire to reconcile. When the settlement conference reconvened, the parties arrived at a tentative agreement to split the Intel stock options. W left the conference buoyed by the fact that reconciliation and getting the marriage back on track was possible. The next day W told her children that she was 'going to go and get my marriage back.' W was happy and full of joy until H clearly stated that the dissolution was going to happen. From that point on W lost it. W's attorney advised her not to take less than half of the stock and half of their interest in the company. W, in a zombie-like state, gave up everything. W told her attorney that 'I want this over, let's go.' W would not listen to reason and refused advice from anyone. Her only goal at that time was to 'go -- go far --go away. * * * I say my only want * * * was to go away from this place, run and go, and go to sleep.' A week after the settlement conference, W was admitted to a hospital psychiatric unit for several days. A psychologist concluded that W was not capable of engaging in rational decision making on the day that she entered into the stipulated judgment. W moved to set aside the stipulated judgment a month after she entered into it. W claimed, in part, that she was not competent. The trial court determined that it was obligated under the law to apply the cognitive test and that, under that test, W had been mentally competent to enter into the stipulated judgment. Although the trial court found that the stipulated judgment was 'grossly inequitable in its substance,' the court refused to set it aside. W appealed.