WATSON VS. WATSON (DIVORCE PROPERTY & ALIMONY)

Statutes cited

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The court affirmed a judgment enforcing a surviving property settlement agreement that obligated the husband to pay $600 per month "until her death or remarriage." The husband's contention that the former wife's long-term cohabitation constituted a "de facto marriage" ending his obligation was rejected: Nevada does not recognize common law marriage (NRS 122.010(1)), and the term "remarriage" is unambiguous. Courts are bound by clear and unambiguous contract language and may not, under the guise of interpretation, distort its plain meaning, citing Reno Club v. Young Investment Co., 64 Nev. 312, 182 P.2d 1011 (1947). Authorities addressing modifiable alimony decrees were inapposite to an independent, surviving contract.

In plain language

When the Watsons divorced in 1970, they signed a property settlement agreement that the court ordered would survive as its own independent contract rather than merge into the divorce judgment. The agreement said the husband would pay the wife $600 per month "until her death or remarriage." He paid until June 1976, then stopped. When she sued for the unpaid amounts, he argued he no longer had to pay because she had "remarried" - by which he meant she was living with another man without being married. The district court found the cohabitation had gone on for years but ruled it was not a defense, and the Nevada Supreme Court agreed and affirmed. The court held that living with someone outside of marriage is not a "remarriage," especially in Nevada, which does not recognize common-law marriage. The word "remarriage" is clear and unambiguous, and a court cannot twist the plain meaning of an agreement under the guise of interpreting it. The husband therefore still owed the payments.