ILLINOIS OFFICIAL REPORTS
Appellate Court
In re Estate of Chaney, 2013 IL App (3d) 120565
Appellate Court In re ESTATE OF LAVERNE G. CHANEY, Deceased (Charles Chaney,
Caption Executor of the Estate of Laverne G. Chaney, Deceased, Petitioner-
Appellant, v. Sherry S. Chaney, Respondent-Appellee).
District & No. Third District
Docket No. 3-12-0565
Filed November 26, 2013
Held In an action seeking a declaration that the antenuptial agreement decedent
(Note: This syllabus entered into with his wife prevented her from renouncing his will and
constitutes no part of asserting her statutory inheritance rights, the trial court properly applied
the opinion of the court the legal standard in In re Marriage of Murphy, which required
but has been prepared antenuptial agreements entered into prior to the enactment of the Illinois
by the Reporter of Uniform Premarital Agreement Act of 1990 be fair and reasonable in
Decisions for the order to be valid and enforceable, and under the circumstances, the
convenience of the agreement between decedent and his wife was not fair and reasonable and
reader.)
was unenforceable.
Decision Under Appeal from the Circuit Court of Whiteside County, No. 10-P-21; the
Review Hon. Stanley B. Steines, Judge, presiding.
Judgment Affirmed.
Counsel on Bruce L. Carmen, of Carmen Law Office, PC, of Cambridge, and Clayton
Appeal L. Lindsey, of Williams McCarthy, LLP, of Oregon, for appellant.
Thomas D. Murray, of Dixon, for appellee.
Panel JUSTICE CARTER delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.
Justice O'Brien concurred in the judgment and opinion.
Justice Holdridge dissented, with opinion.
OPINION
¶1 In the context of a probate proceeding, petitioner, Charles Chaney, as the executor of the
estate of his late father, Laverne G. Chaney, filed a petition for miscellaneous relief, seeking,
among other things, a declaration from the trial court that the antenuptial agreement entered
into between Laverne and respondent, Sherry S. Chaney, was valid and binding and that it
precluded Sherry from renouncing Laverne’s will and taking her statutory forced share of the
estate as Laverne’s surviving spouse (755 ILCS 5/2-8(a) (West 2010)). After an evidentiary
hearing, the trial court found that the antenuptial agreement was not fair and reasonable and
that it was invalid and unenforceable and denied Charles’s request for declaratory relief.
Charles appeals. We affirm the trial court’s ruling.
¶2 FACTS
¶3 The issue raised in this appeal is a narrow question of law, and we will only set forth
those facts that are necessary for our determination of that issue. Laverne and Sherry were
married on July 4, 1986, when Laverne was in his late fifties and Sherry was in her late
forties. At the time of the marriage, Laverne had substantially more assets than Sherry. Both
Laverne and Sherry had been married previously, and each had children from their prior
marriages. The day before their marriage to each other, Laverne and Sherry went to the office
of Laverne’s attorney and signed an antenuptial agreement that the attorney had prepared.
Among other things, the agreement prohibited either person from renouncing the will of the
other person and asserting his or her statutory inheritance rights upon the other person’s
death. At the time that the agreement was executed, Laverne’s attorney also had Laverne sign
an acknowledgment that he had advised Laverne that the agreement was of “questionable
validity” due to the limited provisions it contained for the support of Sherry.
¶4 In February 2010, after more than 23 years of marriage to Sherry, Laverne passed away.
At the time of his death, Laverne still had substantially more assets than Sherry. Laverne had
executed a will in 1979 during one of his previous marriages. The will named Charles as
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executor of Laverne’s estate. Charles filed a petition to admit the will to probate. Sherry
sought to renounce the will and to take her statutory forced share of the estate as Laverne’s
surviving spouse. Charles filed a petition asking the trial court to, among other things,
declare that the antenuptial agreement was valid and binding and that it prevented Sherry
from renouncing the will and asserting her statutory inheritance rights.
¶5 An evidentiary hearing was held on the petition. As part of the hearing, the parties filed
written closing arguments and made oral arguments to the trial court on two different dates.
At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court applied the legal standard set forth in In re
Marriage of Murphy, 359 Ill. App. 3d 289, 299-300 (2005), for antenuptial agreements
executed prior to the 1990 enactment of the Illinois Uniform Premarital Agreement Act (750
ILCS 10/1 et seq. (West 2010)), that to be valid and enforceable, the agreement had to be,
among other things, fair and reasonable. The trial court found that the agreement did not
provide an equitable settlement for Sherry in lieu of her inheritance rights, that it was not fair
and reasonable, and that it was invalid and unenforceable. The trial court, therefore, denied
Charles’s request for declaratory relief. This appeal followed.
¶6 ANALYSIS
¶7 On appeal, Charles argues that the trial court erred in finding that the antenuptial
agreement was invalid and unenforceable. Charles does not challenge the factual findings
that underlie the trial court’s decision, a challenge which would have invoked a manifest
weight standard of review on appeal. See Vancura v. Katris, 238 Ill. 2d 352, 373-74 (2010)
(the trial court’s factual findings will be affirmed unless they are against the manifest weight
of the evidence). Instead, Charles raises a narrow question of law, that a standard of fairness
less stringent than that stated in Murphy should have been applied by the trial court in
determining the validity of the antenuptial agreement in this case because the agreement was
triggered by the death of one of the spouses and not by the dissolution of the marriage as it
was in Murphy. Because Charles raises a question of law, the standard of review on appeal
is de novo. See id.
¶8 As Sherry correctly points out, however, Charles has forfeited that argument by not
raising it in the trial court. It is well-settled law in Illinois that issues, theories, or arguments
not raised in the trial court are forfeited and may not be raised for the first time on appeal.
See, e.g., Daniels v. Anderson, 162 Ill. 2d 47, 58 (1994) (issues and theories); Kiefer v. Rust-
Oleum Corp., 394 Ill. App. 3d 485, 493 (2009) (arguments); Norway Tree Farm, Inc. v.
Baugher, 8 Ill. App. 3d 1061, 1062 (1972) (“issues, questions, points or contentions not
presented in the trial court and properly preserved for review will not be considered on
appeal”). Despite making written and oral arguments to the trial court as to the validity of the
agreement, Charles did not at any time assert that a different standard of fairness applied
under the facts of this case. Charles’s argument, therefore, has been forfeited on appeal. See
id.
¶9 Charles’s reliance on Yee v. City of Escondido, California, 503 U.S. 519, 534-35 (1992)
(new arguments may be made on appeal as long as the underlying issue was raised
previously), for his conclusion to the contrary is misplaced. Yee cites the forfeiture rule that
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applies in the United States Supreme Court and not the forfeiture rule that applies here.
While we recognize, as Charles suggests, that the forfeiture rule is a limitation on the parties
and not on the court (see Dillon v. Evanston Hospital, 199 Ill. 2d 483, 504-05 (2002)),
Charles has not provided us with any compelling reason to relax the forfeiture rule in this
case.
¶ 10 Even if we were to consider the merits of Charles’s argument on appeal, we would still
have to uphold the trial court’s ruling because there is simply no support in the law for
Charles’s position that a different standard of fairness should be applied. The case relied on
by Charles in support of that position, In re Estate of Cullen, 66 Ill. App. 2d 217, 220-26
(1965), addressed an issue of contract and statutory interpretation as to whether certain
language in an antenuptial agreement was sufficient to bar the claimant from receiving the
statutory surviving spouse’s award. As such, the Cullen decision in no way supports
Charles’s argument in this appeal. Indeed, the case law in this area demonstrates that Illinois
courts have applied the same standard of fairness regardless of whether the antenuptial
agreement was triggered by a dissolution of marriage or by the death of one of the spouses.
See, e.g., Murphy, 359 Ill. App. 3d at 299-300 (dissolution); Petru v. Petru, 4 Ill. App. 2d 1,
8-13 (1954) (death of one of the spouses to the agreement).
¶ 11 CONCLUSION
¶ 12 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court of Whiteside
County.
¶ 13 Affirmed.
¶ 14 JUSTICE HOLDRIDGE, dissenting.
¶ 15 I dissent. Charles argues that the trial court erred by applying an improper and antiquated
standard of “fairness” in determining whether the antenuptial agreement signed by the parties
is valid and enforceable. As an initial matter, even though Charles did not raise this argument
before the trial court, I would not find the argument forfeited. As the majority acknowledges,
the doctrine of forfeiture is an admonition to the parties, not a limitation on the reviewing
court’s jurisdiction. Dillon v. Evanston Hospital, 199 Ill. 2d 483, 504-05 (2002); see also
Committee for Educational Rights v. Edgar, 174 Ill. 2d 1, 11 (1996). Accordingly,
notwithstanding the general rule of forfeiture, a reviewing court may consider an argument
not raised below, particularly where, as here, the issue is one of law and is fully briefed by
the parties on appeal. Edgar, 174 Ill. 2d at 11; People ex rel. Daley v. Datacom Systems
Corp., 146 Ill. 2d 1, 27 (1991). Moreover, our appellate court often “relax[es] the harsh
mandates of the waiver doctrine if [it] feel[s] that the particular issue would aid in
maintaining a uniform body of precedent or if the interests of justice require the issue’s
consideration.” Skidmore v. Throgmorton, 323 Ill. App. 3d 417, 420 (2001). Addressing the
purely legal (and fully briefed) issue that Charles raises in this appeal would help to ensure
a just result and to clarify the legal standards governing the enforcement of antenuptial
agreements upon the death of a spouse. Accordingly, I would address the issue raised by
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Charles rather than deem it forfeited.
¶ 16 Turning to the merits, I believe that the trial court applied an improper standard in
declaring the parties’ antenuptial agreement invalid and unenforceable. The court expressly
found that Sherry’s decision to sign the antenuptial agreement before her marriage to Laverne
was “voluntary and *** without duress or coercion.” The court also found that Sherry entered
into the agreement with “full knowledge” and “without fraud.” In support of that finding, the
court noted that: (1) the agreement was clear and unambiguous; (2) Sherry was in her forties
at the time and had some degree of sophistication; (3) Sherry testified that she understood
the purpose of the agreement and the parties acted in accord with the agreement after their
marriage; (4) attorney Schott admonished Sherry about the purpose and terms of the
agreement before Sherry signed it, and Sherry had an opportunity to ask Schott questions
about anything she did not understand; and (5) Sherry knew the extent of Laverne’s assets
before she signed the agreement, including Laverne’s antiques and both of his businesses.
¶ 17 Nevertheless, the trial court refused to enforce the parties’ antenuptial agreement because
it found that the agreement was not “fair and reasonable.” The court reached this conclusion
because it determined that the agreement did not guarantee Sherry an “equitable financial
settlement in lieu of her waiver of her rights to property upon [Laverne’s] death.”
Specifically, the court found the agreement unenforceable because it would result in a “great
disparity” in the parties’ assets (which the court found to be unfair given the length of the
marriage and Sherry’s commitment to Laverne’s antiquing business), and because it provided
nothing for Sherry other than the “nominal” statutory spouse’s award. In short, the trial court
found the agreement unfair because it felt that Sherry had received a relatively paltry
financial settlement in lieu of her waiver of property rights, despite the fact that Sherry had
agreed to that settlement with full knowledge and in the absence of any fraud, coercion, or
duress. In other words, the court determined the “fairness” of the antenuptial agreement by
comparing the amount of money that Sherry received with the value of Laverne’s estate, not
by determining whether the agreement had been entered into knowingly and voluntarily.
¶ 18 The trial court believed that this particular standard of “fairness” was prescribed by the
applicable case law.1 I disagree. Although we have applied the “equitable financial
settlement” standard in two cases involving the dissolution of marriage (In re Marriage of
Murphy, 359 Ill. App. 3d 289, 300 (2005), and Warren v. Warren, 169 Ill. App. 3d 226, 231
(1988)), we have not always applied that particular standard when evaluating the validity of
antenuptial agreements providing for the disposition of a spouse’s property upon the death
of that spouse. In evaluating the “fairness” of an antenuptial agreement in the latter context,
Illinois courts often focus on whether the party challenging the agreement signed the
agreement under fraud or duress and whether she knew the extent of the other party’s assets
before signing the agreement. See, e.g., Debolt v. Blackburn, 328 Ill. 420, 424-25 (1927);
Petru v. Petru, 4 Ill. App. 2d 1, 12-13 (1954). These cases suggest that, if the complaining
1
The court stated that “[c]ase law says that in order for an antenuptial agreement to be fair
and reasonable Illinois requires that the agreement guarantee both parties an equitable financial
settlement in lieu of a waiver of their right to property or maintenance.”
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spouse signed the antenuptial agreement with full knowledge and there is no evidence of
fraud or duress, courts will enforce the agreement upon the death of the other spouse even
if the agreement makes no provision for the surviving spouse, at least when there are no
children from the parties’ marriage. The amount of the surviving spouse’s financial
settlement under the antenuptial agreement could be relevant as evidence that the surviving
spouse was defrauded or was otherwise unaware of the other spouse’s assets when she signed
the agreement. See Debolt, 328 Ill. at 425; Petru, 4 Ill. App. 2d at 12-13. However, a
disparity in the assets awarded to the parties under the agreement, standing alone, cannot
establish unfairness or invalidate an otherwise valid antenuptial agreement. Antenuptial
agreements should be enforced as written unless there is evidence of duress or fraud (such
as concealment of assets).
¶ 19 In my view, this rule makes perfect sense, particularly when applied to the circumstances
presented in this case. When they decided to marry, Laverne was in his fifties and Sherry was
in her forties. Each had children from a prior marriage. It is eminently reasonable that, before
marrying Sherry, Laverne wanted to ensure that his assets passed to his existing children
upon his death rather than to Sherry and her heirs. Thus, as a condition of marriage, Laverne
presented Sherry with a prenuptial agreement that would accomplish that result. As the trial
court found, Sherry was a sophisticated woman who understood the agreement’s provisions
and was fully aware of the extent of Laverne’s assets before she signed the agreement. In my
view, the parties’ agreement should be enforced as written. We should not invalidate an
agreement freely and knowingly made by two competent adults simply because we feel that
the agreement resulted in a financial arrangement that we happen to consider “unfair.” If the
parties freely and knowingly chose a particular financial arrangement, we should honor their
wishes even if it offends our subjective sense of fairness. To rule otherwise would be to
interfere with the parties’ right to contract.2 I don’t believe that we should trample that
fundamental right simply because we feel that one of the parties could have driven a harder
bargain and gotten a better deal.
¶ 20 The trial court appeared to share my reluctance to interfere with the parties’ agreement
when it noted that it was “typically not in the business of protecting parties from what [it]
would call a bad bargain.” However, the trial court ultimately felt compelled to invalidate
2
The Illinois legislature recognized this principle when it enacted the Illinois Uniform
Premarital Agreement Act (the Act) (750 ILCS 10/1 et seq. (West 2012)), which applies to any
antenuptial agreement executed on or after January 1, 1990. The Act provides that an antenuptial
agreement is unenforceable only if the party against whom enforcement is sought proves that: (1)
he or she did not execute the agreement voluntarily; or (2) the agreement was unconscionable when
it was executed and, before execution of the agreement, the party was not provided a fair and
reasonable disclosure of the other’s property, did not waive the right to such disclosure in writing,
and did not have (and could not reasonably have had) an adequate knowledge of the other’s property.
750 ILCS 10/7(a) (West 2012). The Act omits the previous common law requirements that an
enforceable agreement must also be “fair and reasonable” and must not result in an “unforeseen
condition of penury” for the party challenging the agreement. Thus, the Act expresses a public policy
of enforcing contracts as written absent evidence of fraud, duress, or lack of knowledge.
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the agreement because it concluded that antenuptial agreements were enforceable under
Illinois common law only if they provided each party an “equitable” (i.e., proportional)
financial settlement. As noted above, I disagree with that interpretation of the law. Although
Illinois common law required antenuptial agreements to be “fair and reasonable,” I do not
believe that this empowers (much less requires) courts to engage in a free-wheeling
consideration of the “fairness” of the ultimate financial result agreed to by the parties,
particularly in cases involving the disposition of assets upon the death of a spouse. Rather,
I believe that courts should determine only whether the agreement was fairly made, i.e.,
whether it was entered into voluntarily and with full knowledge.
¶ 21 In any event, even if the common law empowered us to engage in a more searching
inquiry into the substantive “fairness” or “reasonableness” of the agreement, I fail to
understand how the result sanctioned by the majority in this case can be considered either fair
or reasonable. The majority’s ruling invalidates a contract knowingly and voluntarily made
by the parties and deprives Laverne’s children of a portion of their inheritance, in clear
violation of Laverne’s wishes. It does this despite the fact that, as the trial court found, Sherry
knowingly and voluntarily agreed to take nothing from Laverne’s estate upon his death. The
parties lived according to their antenuptial agreement without modifying the agreement (and,
apparently, without any objection by Sherry) throughout their entire 24-year marriage, which
ended with Laverne’s death. Now, after Laverne has died, the agreement has been declared
invalid by judicial fiat. That is like a referee changing the rules of a game after the game has
been played, which strikes me as the height of unfairness.
¶ 22 One final point bears mentioning. In my view, the conception of “fairness” espoused by
the trial court and the majority in this case appears to be informed by paternalistic notions
of marriage and an outdated conception of women’s economic power. Specifically, the trial
court and the majority conclude that an antenuptial agreement cannot be “fair and
reasonable” unless it affords a woman a proportional share of the assets of the husband who
predeceased her, even if the woman voluntarily relinquished any claim to her husband’s
estate despite having full knowledge of his assets. This view appears to rest on the
assumption that women have unequal economic power and that courts need to protect
women from their own contracts. While this view may have been justified in an earlier era,
it makes little sense in today’s world. Women currently outperform men in college, comprise
more than 50% of the matriculating law students, and compete with men in every aspect of
economic life. More than 23 years ago, the Illinois legislature enacted a public policy
reflective of modern economic realities by passing the Act, which requires courts to enforce
antenuptial agreements so long as they are knowingly and voluntarily made. (As noted above,
the Act does not allow courts to invalidate an antenuptial agreement merely because it results
in a disproportionate allocation of assets to one of the parties.) Unlike the Act, the prior
common law rule (which applies in this case) requires courts to inquire into the “fairness”
and “reasonableness” of antenuptial agreements. However, in the context of agreements
governing the disposition of assets upon the death of a spouse, even some pre-Act cases
suggest that we should determine the “fairness” of the agreement by reference to the parties’
knowledge and voluntariness when executing the agreement, not the amounts they receive
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under the agreement. See, e.g., Debolt, 328 Ill. at 424-25; Petru, 4 Ill. App. 2d at 12-13.3 I
believe that we should apply those cases rather than older cases (or any dissolution cases)
which follow more outdated and paternalistic rules.
3
Although the common law (unlike the Act) requires courts to ensure that an antenuptial
agreement does not result in an “unforseen condition of penury” for the party opposing the
agreement, the trial court expressly found that the agreement in this case did not put Sherry in a state
of penury.
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