Kelley Kronenberg Partner and Business Unit Leader Natalie Kay and Attorney Matthew Lipari secured a significant trial victory for the husband in a complex dissolution of marriage action in Palm Beach County Circuit Court following a six-day bench trial, spanning four years of litigation. 

The case centered on the interpretation and application of a foreign prenuptial agreement to a multi-million-dollar marital estate that included substantial real property holdings and business entities accumulated during the marriage. The legal issues were made significantly more complex by the requirement to apply foreign law in a Florida dissolution proceeding, a legally unique circumstance that necessitated testimony from multiple forensic financial experts and foreign legal experts over the course of the trial. 

The wife took the position that current title alone controlled the disposition of all assets, foreign and domestic, under the prenuptial agreement; a position that would have left the husband with comparably minimal assets and little to no ability to generate income. Natalie successfully argued on the husband’s behalf that current title was only one factor for the Court to consider under the applicable foreign law provisions, and that the Court was also required to examine who purchased each asset, who funded its creation, who maintained it, and what the parties intended regarding ownership. 

The trial Judge agreed with the husband’s interpretation, returning the requested real property and business entities to the husband’s ownership despite the wife’s claims that assets titled in her name or in the name of entities she claimed to exclusively own were hers under the agreement. 

The case is currently on appeal.