Gross v. Gross

In Gross v. Gross, (1984), 11 Ohio St.3d 99, 11 Ohio B. 400, 464 N.E.2d 500, the Ohio Supreme Court set forth a three-part test to determine the enforceability of prenuptial agreements. To be enforceable, a prenuptial agreement: (1) must be entered into freely without fraud, duress, coercion, or overreaching; (2) must be entered into with full disclosure of the nature, value, and extent of the prospective spouse's property; (3) must not by its terms promote or encourage divorce or profiteering by divorce. Id., paragraph two of the syllabus. A prenuptial agreement is a contract, and generally the law of contracts applies to a court's interpretation of the agreement. Fletcher v. Fletcher, 68 Ohio St.3d 464, 467, 1994 Ohio 434, 628 N.E.2d 1343. But a prenuptial agreement is a "special type of contract to which certain special rules apply." When a prenuptial agreement provides disproportionately less than the party challenging it would have received under an equitable distribution, the burden is on the party claiming the validity of the contract to show that the other party entered into it with the benefit of full knowledge or disclosure of the assets of the proponent. The burden then shifts to the party challenging the agreement to prove fraud, duress, coercion, or overreaching.