Prenuptial Agreements and Alimony Waivers

Alimony was drastically limited by a prenuptial agreement in a case between Susan and Joseph DeMatteo decided by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 2002. Joseph, who had more than 108 million dollars at the time of the marriage, ended up paying about $35,000 a year, exactly as outlined in the prenuptial agreement.

In December 2004 the Massachusetts Appeals Court came up with a dramatically different result in Donna M. Austin vs. Craig B. Austin. Under the terms of the Austins' prenuptial agreement, Donna waived alimony. Craig had slightly under one million dollars at the time of the marriage and after being married for over 12 years, he ended up paying Donna $56,000 a year in alimony, in spite of the waiver of alimony in the prenuptial agreement. When Donna filed for divorce in 2001, she asked the trial court to set aside the alimony waiver. The trial judge ruled in her favor. Craig appealed and lost.

The Austin court quoted the DeMatteo case: "In the context of assessing the validity of an antenuptial agreement, the provisions for alimony need not approximate an award made pursuant to factors set forth in [the Massachusetts alimony statute], applicable upon divorce... Rather, the test is whether an agreement 'essentially strips the contesting spouse of substantially all of her marital interests (emphasis added).'"

The following chart compares factors recited in the DeMatteo and Austin cases:

Bottom Line: Craig Austin, who owned substantially fewer assets than Joseph DeMatteo, paid significantly more alimony, possibly because his prenuptial agreement gave no alimony to Donna in the event of a divorce and presumably a small amount of property. In contrast, Joseph DeMatteo gave his wife Susan a small amount of support, a house without a mortgage, health insurance and the car she had at the time of the divorce, and thus immunized his prenuptial agreement from judicial destruction. As one observer noted, Susan DeMatteo got a bone, so Joseph DeMatteo could keep the meat. Donna Austin got nothing, so Craig Austin had to share everything.