RONCHI VS. RONCHI

Statutes cited

Key holdings

• -Where a premarital agreement executed in Pennsylvania contains a Pennsylvania choice-of-law provision, Pennsylvania law governs the agreement's substantive issues while Nevada procedural law controls the proceeding.
• -Under Pennsylvania law, a premarital agreement is presumed valid, and the challenging party must prove invalidity by clear and convincing evidence; the district court's finding that the agreement was not the product of duress was supported by substantial evidence.
• -Under the plain language of the parties' agreement releasing "[a]ny and all rights to any property of the other party titled in the other parties' sole name, whether before or after the marriage," each party's solely titled IRA remained separate property regardless of contributions from marital income, and the district court abused its discretion in awarding the other spouse a community interest in those accounts.
• -The district court's application of Nevada's gift-presumption caselaw to the solely titled marital residence was error given the premarital agreement's plain language, but the substance of the findings implicated the doctrine of constructive fraud, warranting vacatur and remand to determine whether a constructive trust should be imposed over the residence.
• -Under 23 Pa.C.S.A. § 3501(a)(2), marital property does not include property excluded by valid agreement of the parties, so no community interest arose in the Element 115 business interest listed as separate property in the agreement's financial disclosure.
• -An award of attorney fees is appropriately vacated when a portion of the underlying property-division order is reversed.

Practitioner summary

Standard of review and choice of law. The court reviewed the divorce-related determinations for abuse of discretion, quoting Williams v. Williams, 120 Nev. 559, 566, 97 P.3d 1124, 1129 (2004) ("This court reviews district court decisions concerning divorce proceedings for an abuse of discretion."). Because the premarital agreement was executed in Pennsylvania and contained a Pennsylvania choice-of-law provision, Pennsylvania law governed the agreement's substantive validity and interpretation, citing Braddock v. Braddock, 91 Nev. 735, 738, 542 P.2d 1060, 1062 (1975), and Progressive Gulf Ins. Co. v. Faehnrich, 130 Nev. 167, 171, 327 P.3d 1061, 1064 (2014), while Nevada procedural law continued to control the proceeding. The court noted in a footnote that, unlike Nevada's community property system (see NRS 123.220), Pennsylvania is an equitable distribution state under 23 Pa.C.S.A. § 3502. Validity of the premarital agreement. Applying Pennsylvania law, the court explained that "Prenuptial agreements are contracts, and, as such, should be evaluated under the same criteria as are applicable to other types of contracts," Simeone v. Simeone, 581 A.2d 162, 165 (Pa. 1990); that a signed document is presumed to accurately express the signer's state of mind, Cardinal v. Kindred Healthcare, Inc., 155 A.3d 46, 50 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2017); and that the party seeking to avoid an agreement bears the burden of proving invalidity by clear and convincing evidence, In re Ratony's Est., 277 A.2d 791, 795 (Pa. 1971). Absent fraud, misrepresentation, or duress, parties are bound by their agreements, Lewis v. Lewis, 234 A.3d 706, 714 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2020), and consideration of factors such as the parties' knowledge or the reasonableness of the bargain is inappropriate, Simeone, 581 A.2d at 165. The court also cited Lugg v. Lugg and Hamilton v. Hamilton, 591 A.2d 720, 722 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1991), the latter finding no duress where a spouse was told there would be no wedding without a prenuptial agreement notwithstanding that "she was pregnant, unemployed, and probably frightened." The district court's findings - that Joanna generally understood the agreement's purpose, understood English, that both parties handwrote a waiver of attorney representation, and that Robert was likewise motivated to marry - were supported by substantial evidence, citing Ogawa v. Ogawa, 125 Nev. 660, 668, 221 P.3d 699, 704 (2009), and the appellate court declined to reweigh evidence or credibility, citing Grosjean v. Imperial Palace, Inc., 125 Nev. 349, 366 (2009). The court also rejected Joanna's inadequate-disclosure argument, citing Simeone, 581 A.2d at 167, and Busch v. Busch, 732 A.2d 1274, 1278 n.5 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1999). The validity determination was affirmed. IRA accounts. Contract interpretation is a question of law reviewed de novo, Redrock Valley Ranch, LLC v. Washoe County, 127 Nev. 451, 460, 254 P.3d 641, 647-48 (2011). Under Pennsylvania law, "The court must construe a contract as written and may not modify the plain meaning of the contract under the guise of interpretation," Tuthill v. Tuthill, 763 A.2d 417, 420 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2000), and unambiguous contracts are interpreted within the four corners of the document, First Home Savings Bank, FSB v. Nernberg, 648 A.2d 9, 14 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1994). Although the agreement did not specifically designate Robert's marital wages as separate property, sections 2(a) and 2(b) released each party's rights in the other's separate property and in "[a]ny and all rights to any property of the other party titled in the other parties' sole name, whether before or after the marriage." The district court's award to Joanna of half the marital-wage contributions to Robert's solely titled Fidelity IRA Rollover Account 0263 directly contravened those provisions; under the plain language, the account remained Robert's separate property "regardless of whether any of his income during the marriage contributed to the account," citing In re Est. of Schaefer (Pa. Super. Ct. 2023) and Laub v. Laub, 505 A.2d 290, 292 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1986). For the same reasons, the award to Robert of a community interest in Joanna's solely titled Fidelity IRA was also reversed. Marital residence. The district court applied the Kerley v. Kerley, 112 Nev. 36, 37, 910 P.2d 279, 280 (1996), gift presumption and found Joanna rebutted it, relying on her credible testimony about credit issues, payments from a joint account, and Robert's recorded admissions about titling. The Court of Appeals held that applying Nevada's gift-presumption caselaw was error because the agreement's plain language (sections 2(a), 2(b), and 7) provided that solely titled property remained separate, citing Soldo-Allesio v. Ferguson, 141 Nev., Adv. Op. 9, 565 P.3d 842, 850 (Ct. App. 2025), for the reversible-error standard. However, looking to the substance of the claims rather than their labels, Nev. Power Co. v. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 120 Nev. 948, 960, 102 P.3d 578, 586 (2004), the court concluded the findings implicated constructive fraud: "[c]onstructive fraud is the breach of some legal or equitable duty which, irrespective of moral guilt, the law declares fraudulent because of its tendency to deceive others or to violate confidence," Long v. Towne, 98 Nev. 11, 13 (1982), and a fiduciary relationship arises from marriage, Williams v. Waldman, 108 Nev. 466, 472, 836 P.2d 614, 618 (1992). When constructive fraud is established, a constructive trust may be imposed notwithstanding a premarital agreement, citing Simons v. Simons, 978 N.W.2d 121, 145 (Neb. 2022), Davidson v. Streeter, 68 Nev. 427, 437, 234 P.2d 793, 798 (1951), and, by comparison, In re Marriage of Starr, 116 Cal. Rptr. 3d 813 (Ct. App. 2010). The court vacated the decree's marital-residence portion and remanded for proceedings on whether Joanna established constructive fraud giving rise to a constructive trust. Element 115 and attorney fees. Joanna's reliance on 23 Pa.C.S.A. § 3501 (marital property includes increase in value of non-marital property) failed because § 3501(a)(2) excludes property excluded by valid agreement, and Element 115 was listed as Robert's separate property in the financial disclosure; section 2(b) independently released any marital interest in separately titled property. That portion of the decree was affirmed, and her related NRCP 52 and NRCP 59 arguments failed for the same reason. Finally, because the property division was reversed in part, the Sargeant v. Sargeant, 88 Nev. 223, 227, 495 P.2d 618, 621 (1972), attorney fee award was vacated under Roe v. Roe, 139 Nev. 163, 183 (2023) ("An award of attorney fees and costs is appropriately vacated when a portion of the underlying order is reversed.").

In plain language

Robert and Joanna Ronchi began dating in 2004. The day before their 2008 wedding in Pennsylvania, they signed a premarital agreement - a contract made before marriage that decides how property will be divided if the couple later divorces. The agreement said it would be governed by Pennsylvania law, listed each person's separate property (including Robert's interest in his business, Element 115, and his retirement accounts), and included provisions in which each spouse gave up any claim to property held in the other spouse's sole name. Joanna, a Polish citizen, was 19 weeks pregnant when she signed. The couple married the next day and moved to Nevada in 2010. In 2015, Robert bought a house, titled only in his name, that became the family home. Joanna filed for divorce in 2022. After hearings, the district court ruled the premarital agreement was valid. It then divided the couple's property, awarding Joanna half of the portion of Robert's Fidelity IRA that came from his wages during the marriage and half of the equity in the house, while confirming Robert's business interest as his separate property. The court later ordered Robert to pay Joanna $30,304 in attorney fees. Both sides appealed. The Nevada Court of Appeals resolved the appeal in four main parts. First, it upheld the ruling that the premarital agreement was valid. Because the agreement chose Pennsylvania law, the court applied Pennsylvania contract principles, under which signed agreements are presumed valid and a person challenging one must prove it invalid by clear and convincing evidence. The district court had found that Joanna generally understood the agreement's purpose, could read and write English at the time, and that both parties handwrote on the agreement, "I choose to waive representation by an attorney." The district court was not persuaded that her pregnancy and immigration status amounted to duress, and the Court of Appeals concluded those findings were supported by substantial evidence. Second, the Court of Appeals reversed the award to Joanna of half of the marriage-era contributions to Robert's Fidelity IRA. Although the agreement never specifically said Robert's wages would be his separate property, its plain language released each spouse's rights to "[a]ny and all rights to any property of the other party titled in the other parties' sole name, whether before or after the marriage." Because the IRA was solely in Robert's name, the court held it remained his separate property even though marital wages went into it. For the same reason, the court reversed the ruling giving Robert a community interest in Joanna's own solely titled Fidelity IRA. Third, on the house, the Court of Appeals held the district court applied the wrong legal framework. The district court had used Nevada's "gift presumption" caselaw - the idea that when a spouse signs over title, she is presumed to have gifted her interest - and found Joanna rebutted that presumption with evidence that the house was titled in Robert's name only because of her credit problems, was paid for from a joint account, and that Robert admitted in an audio recording he had promised to put her name on the house and still "owed" it to her. The appellate court said that under the premarital agreement's plain language, property titled in one spouse's name stayed separate, so the gift-presumption analysis was error. But it concluded the substance of Joanna's argument and the district court's findings pointed to a different doctrine: "constructive fraud" - a breach of the special duty of trust spouses owe each other, which can allow a court to impose a "constructive trust" recognizing that an asset is actually co-owned despite how it is titled, even where a premarital agreement exists. The court vacated the ruling on the house and sent the issue back for the district court to decide whether Joanna established constructive fraud giving rise to a constructive trust. Fourth, the court rejected Joanna's argument that she was entitled to a share of the increase in value of Robert's business, Element 115. The Pennsylvania statute she relied on excludes from marital property anything the parties excluded by valid agreement, and the business was listed as Robert's separate property in the agreement's financial disclosure. Finally, because part of the property division was reversed, the court vacated the $30,304 attorney fee award. The case now returns to the district court for further proceedings consistent with the order.