## Facts

- Horace A. Brown, a 70-year-old retired widower from West Texas, had several hundred thousand dollars in the bank and owned farmland.
- Dawn Marie Richards Brown, a 46-year-old divorcée from Denver, met Horace through correspondence in a pen-pal club.
- After a brief, rapid courtship, Horace and Dawn Marie married; the marriage lasted only slightly longer than the courtship.
- During the marriage, the spouses executed post-marital agreements (two agreements were at issue in the trial court) that conferred significant financial benefits on Dawn Marie.
- Horace testified that he did not understand some aspects of the agreement(s) when he signed them.
- Horace testified that Dawn Marie berated and verbally abused him and spent his money rapidly, and that her conduct made him ill.
- Horace’s physician testified that Horace developed a stomach disorder caused by “situational stress,” and attributed that stress to Dawn Marie’s treatment of Horace.
- A neighbor testified that Horace became nervous, depressed, and upset soon after the marriage began.
- Horace sued for divorce, alleging cruelty (and also pleaded incompatibility).
- After a bench trial, the district court granted Horace a divorce on the ground of cruelty and held the post-marital agreements void, finding Dawn Marie did not prove by clear and convincing evidence that Horace gave informed consent and that the agreements were not procured by fraud, duress, or overreaching.
- Dawn Marie appealed, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence supporting (1) the cruelty finding and (2) the invalidation of the post-marital agreements.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was factually sufficient to support the trial court’s finding that Dawn Marie committed cruel treatment of such a nature that further living together was insupportable under Texas family law.
2. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support the trial court’s finding that Dawn Marie failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that Horace gave informed consent to the post-marital agreements and that the agreements were not procured by fraud, duress, or overreaching, such that the agreements were properly declared void.

## Decision

- The court of appeals affirmed the divorce decree granting Horace a divorce on the ground of cruelty.
- The court of appeals affirmed the judgment declaring the post-marital agreements void.
- Applying factual-sufficiency review, the court held there was probative evidence supporting the trial court’s findings and the findings were not clearly wrong or unjust when the entire record was considered.

## Legal Principles

- A Texas divorce may be granted for “cruel treatment” when a spouse’s conduct causes unnecessary mental or physical suffering and renders further cohabitation insupportable.
- On a factual-sufficiency challenge, the reviewing court considers all the evidence (supporting and contrary) under the standards stated in *In re King’s Estate* and *Garza v. Alviar*, and will reverse only if the finding is clearly wrong and unjust.
- The trial court, as factfinder in a bench trial, determines witness credibility and the weight to give testimony; an appellate court does not substitute its view on those matters.
- Medical evidence tying stress-related illness to a spouse’s treatment may support a cruelty finding, especially when combined with lay testimony describing changes in the complaining spouse’s condition.
- When a post-marital agreement results in substantial benefits to one spouse and is challenged on grounds such as unfair procurement, the benefiting spouse may be required to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the other spouse gave informed consent and that the agreement was not procured by fraud, duress, or overreaching.
- Evidence that a spouse did not understand the agreement at signing can support a finding of no informed consent and can justify voiding the agreement when the benefiting spouse fails to meet the clear-and-convincing burden.

## Conclusion

In *Brown v. Brown*, the Amarillo Court of Appeals affirmed a bench-tried divorce granted to a 70-year-old husband on cruelty grounds, relying on testimony that his wife’s verbal abuse and rapid spending caused him significant emotional distress and a stress-related stomach disorder, and it also affirmed the trial court’s decision to void the parties’ post-marital agreements because the wife did not prove by clear and convincing evidence that the husband gave informed consent or that the agreements were free from fraud, duress, or overreaching.


Brown v. Brown, 704 S.W.2d 528 (1986)