Veeck v. Veeck

Headnote

Husband and wife — action by wife to rescind separation agreement — when agreement fair and equitable.

Veeck v. Veeck, 206 App. Div. 769 , affirmed.

Appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Division of tihe Supreme Court in the second judicial department,

entered July 2, 1923, affirming a judgment in favor of defendants entered upon a dismissal of the complaint by the court on trial at Special Term. The action was brought to obtain a judgment to rescind, cancel and set aside an agreement of separation, and to set aside and cancel a deed of conveyance of real property. The ground for the prayer was that the agreement was entered into and the deed executed by plaintiff at a time when she was “ suffering from great mental pain and 'anguish and in a condition so highly nervous that she was not capable of and did not duly consider and properly understand the terms of same,” and on the additional ground that the settlement, of which the deed of conveyance was a part, was unfair and inequitable and did not make proper provision for the support of plaintiff according to the means of defendant, and that the amount thereof was grossly out of proportion to his ability to pay. The Special Term and the Appellate Division held that the separation agreement in this case entered into between husband and wife concededly while they were hving separate and apart from each other was fair and equitable under all of the circumstances of the case, both because it was in compromise of an action for a separation by the husband against the wife, the merits of which he established by proof upon the trial, and also because the settlement would have been fair under any circumstances as it gave the wife from one-third to one-half of the husband’s wealth.