Lutgert v. Lutgert

Facts

H and W, and their then spouses, were acquainted socially for a considerable period of time before their marriage in Chicago, where they previously resided. Their relationship ripened into a love affair after their respective former spouses became illicitly involved with each other and two divorces ensued. They kept company for approximately a year and became engaged some four weeks prior to their marriage herein at 12:30 in the early morning hours of Friday, April 30, 1965. On Monday evening April 26, H called and suggested that they be married shortly after midnight on Thursday, April 29, provided they could book passage for an extended honeymoon cruise on the SS Constitution, scheduled to sail from New York later on that same day. W ecstatically agreed. On Tuesday morning, April 27, H advised W by telephone that he had succeeded in getting passage on the Constitution and that the wedding plans could go ahead. H and W spent the rest of that day purchasing a sable stole for her and a wedding outfit for him; getting their passports straightened out; getting blood tests; arranging for a state Court of Appeals judge to marry them; acquiring the use of V.I.P facilities, called the 'Topflight Room' of Northwest Airlines, at the O'Hare Airport in Chicago; and inviting family and friends to the wedding. On Wednesday, April 28, W purchased her trousseau, after which the parties met at their jewelers to select and fit wedding rings. Thereafter, a marriage license was procured. On Thursday, April 29, the parties met again at the jeweler to finalize the sizing of the wedding rings. While they were being readied H took the antenuptial agreement out of his pocket and for the first time presented it to W and asked her to sign it. She objected. H said the agreement was of no consequence anyway since they wouldn't be getting a divorce. He joked about being married for some 80 years, getting married at their age. W still objected. H called his Chicago lawyers, Cummings and Wyman, while still at the jewelers and a conversation ensued between the lawyers and W after H put her on the telephone. Nothing in the document was changed. The subject of an antenuptial agreement had been brought up on more than one occasion for perhaps up to a year before the marriage herein. No specific agreement nor draft thereof was made, however, until the instant agreement was prepared on April 26. After W talked with H's attorneys, W finally agreed to sign the agreement after H insisted that the wedding would otherwise be called off. Two witnesses corroborated H's version that the agreement was indeed signed at the airport shortly before the wedding. Each testified that he did not hear the wife voice any objections to the agreement as she executed it. H was worth approximately $3,100,000 at the beginning of the marriage to $25,000,000 at the end of the marriage. H and W lived the good life. Their home has eight bedrooms, twelve baths, a five-car garage, a guest house, and servants' quarters and is surrounded by some four and a half acres of formal gardens with a gatehouse at its entrance. The parties owned at least three luxury motor yachts, one of them a 50-footer custom built in North Carolina, and one a 63-footer custom built in Japan. They at one time owned a private turbojet airplane. They only drove the nicer vehicles, which included Rolls Royce’s and Lincoln Continentals. They took at least one round-the-world cruise and several extended cruises to Europe and other parts of the world. They had staffs of servants and gardeners. He gave expensive gifts of valuable jewelry. The husband has a hobby of collecting classic automobiles, his present collection having a value in excess of $900,000; and on one occasion he bid for and purchased an original Duesenberg automobile for some $207,000. At the marriage, W had only a relatively small amount of cash in her own right at that time, together with some interest in the marital home of her prior marriage, and approximately $600 a month in alimony (for only 10 years) as a result of a prior divorce. The agreement limits her to $1,000 a month in alimony in the event of separation or divorce, and no attorney’s fees. The court affirmed the agreement. W appealed. 

Issues

Rule of Law

Holding and Decision

Legal Analysis

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