## Facts

- Marcella Edwardson and Arthur Edwardson signed a premarital agreement before marrying.
- The agreement provided that if the parties divorced or became legally separated, Marcella would receive $75 per week as maintenance for life or until remarriage, and Arthur would maintain substantially similar medical/hospitalization insurance for her for life or until remarriage.
- The agreement otherwise waived alimony/support and each party’s claims to the other’s property, including increases and accretions, based on the parties’ separate estates at marriage.
- The marriage lasted about two and a half years before the parties separated.
- In the dissolution action, Marcella sought enforcement of the agreement’s maintenance and insurance provisions.
- The trial court refused to enforce the agreement on the ground that premarital contracts contemplating future separation were void as against public policy.
- The court of appeals affirmed on the same public-policy rationale.

## Issues

1. Whether a premarital agreement that expressly provides for maintenance and property rights upon divorce or legal separation is void as against public policy.
2. If not void per se, what standards govern enforceability of such agreements.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Kentucky reversed and remanded.
- The court abandoned the categorical rule invalidating premarital agreements merely because they contemplate divorce or separation.
- The court held that premarital agreements allocating financial rights upon divorce may be enforced if entered voluntarily with adequate financial disclosure and if not unconscionable when enforcement is sought.
- The lower courts erred by applying a blanket public-policy bar rather than a fairness-based analysis.

## Legal Principles

- A premarital agreement addressing maintenance and property rights upon divorce or legal separation is not automatically void as against public policy.
- Enforceability turns on whether the agreement was made voluntarily and without fraud, duress, or overreaching.
- The party seeking enforcement must show full and fair disclosure of financial circumstances (or sufficient knowledge) at the time of contracting.
- Even if valid when made, an agreement may be denied enforcement if it is unconscionable at the time enforcement is sought, including in light of circumstances at dissolution.
- Courts should evaluate premarital agreements under a fairness-based standard rather than a categorical prohibition tied to the agreement’s contemplation of divorce.

## Conclusion

Kentucky law permits enforcement of premarital agreements that plan for divorce or separation, subject to disclosure, voluntariness, and unconscionability at enforcement, and the case was remanded for application of that standard rather than per se invalidation.


Edwardson v. Edwardson, 798 S.W.2d 941 (Ky. 1990)