What Constitutes Duress or Coercion in a Prenuptial Agreement?

Generally speaking, the courts will uphold a prenuptial agreement in Florida even if one party is disadvantaged in the arrangement. However, there are grounds for nullifying a prenuptial agreement in Florida, and duress or coercion constitute two of them. In this article, we’ll analyze the case of Bates v. Bates in which a prenuptial agreement was nullified in part on the grounds of duress or coercion.

Background of the case

Bates v. Bates involved a marital dissolution action between Paul Evan Bates (Husband) and his wife, Magda Jhovanna Bates, following a 16-year marriage that produced five children. The couple met in May 2001 through an online dating site. At the time, the husband was a 41-year-old divorced airline pilot with a net worth of around $4 million. The wife was an 18-year-old virgin from Colombia who sought to marry an American and move to the U.S. The husband was looking for a young Christian girl to marry and bring to the Florida Keys. It bears noting that there was a language barrier between the husband and his wife. The husband did not speak Spanish and the wife had limited proficiency in English.

In June 2001, the couple became engaged. At this point, the wife was pregnant, and the husband paid for her abortion in August 2001, shortly before the wedding. The wife’s family was unaware of these events.

Prior to marrying, the husband wanted the wife to sign a prenuptial agreement, which was drafted without discussing or negotiating terms with the wife. The wife had a Colombian attorney translate the agreement into Spanish. She signed both the English and the Spanish agreement before a notary on August 30, 2001, the day before her wedding. She did not read the agreement and was distressed over the abortion. She also feared her family would find out about the premarital sex and abortion.

The husband told his wife that the prenuptial agreement was “necessary” for her to immigrate to the U.S. The couple married in August 2001 and moved to the Florida Keys, producing five children. In May 2017, the wife filed for divorce and sought to invalidate the prenuptial agreement, alleging fraud, deceit, duress, coercion, and misrepresentation, citing the timing and inequitable terms of the arrangement.

The trial and appellate courts’ ruling

The trial court sided with the wife on the grounds that she was under duress and coerced into the arrangement, given the short amount of time she had to look over the agreement. In addition, the trial court ruled that she was under duress when she signed the agreement, given the totality of circumstances surrounding her pregnancy and abortion. It also ruled that she was coerced into the agreement since the husband exploited his wife’s vulnerable emotional state. The husband told the wife that signing the agreement was a precondition for both her wedding and immigration to proceed.

On appeal, the appeals court ruled that coercion did occur, but there was no evidence to support a finding that the wife was under duress. Duress would require the wife to prove that the husband’s actions involved a threat of some kind to gain a pecuniary advantage by forcing the wife to sign the prenuptial agreement. The agreement was thus nullified (in part) on the grounds of coercion.

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