Enforceability of a consent judgment of separate maintenance in a later divorce; MCL 552.7(1); MCL 552.101(3); MCR 3.211(B); Andrusz v Andrusz; Overruling Engemann v Engemann; Nonmodifiable spousal support by waiver; Staple v Staple; Contract interpretation of consent judgment provisions for life insurance beneficiary & attorney fee shifting; Hein v Hein; Practical impossibility & agreed modification of real property terms; Holmes v Holmes

The court held that the trial court erred by refusing to enforce the parties’ consent judgment of separate maintenance as a binding contract, except as to the marital-real-property provisions. Thus, it reversed in part and remanded. The parties married in 1982 and, in 2014, resolved a separate-maintenance action by a detailed consent judgment. It split property, required sale of the marital home with equal division of net proceeds and an equalization payment to defendant-ex-wife (Doris) at closing, preserved life-insurance beneficiary designations, awarded Doris 38% of plaintiff-ex-husband’s (Karl) pension as spousal support on a “final, binding and non-modifiable” basis (subject only to a health-insurance carveout), and provided fee-shifting if Doris had to enforce the agreement. Years later Karl filed for divorce. The trial court altered spousal support, reconfigured property and insurance terms, and denied Doris’s request for enforcement sanctions. On appeal, the court first rejected the view that a later divorce frees a court to revisit a prior separate-maintenance settlement, holding that consent judgments are contracts governed by their plain terms and that courts are “bound by property settlements reached through negotiations and agreement” absent limited exceptions. The court overruled Engemann’s determination that “the trial court in a divorce action may modify a previous settlement to which the parties voluntarily agreed to resolve an action for separate maintenance” and found “the trial court erred by determining that it was not bound by the consent judgment.” The court also held that the spousal-support waiver clause must be enforced as the consent judgment expressly made support “final, binding and non-modifiable,” and under Staple such waivers are valid. As such, “the trial court erred by declining to enforce the spousal support provision to which the parties agreed.” As to life insurance and fees, the panel enforced the consent judgment language continuing each party’s beneficiary rights and the fee-shifting term, directing that “the trial court shall determine the amount of attorney fees and court costs that Doris reasonably incurred in said actions.” Finally, the court agreed with the trial court’s treatment of the real property because Doris herself agreed at the divorce hearing to take the marital home in lieu of the equalization check and to deed her interest in another parcel to Karl, and because, after 11 years of non-sale and intervening deterioration, “enforcing the marital-home provisions in the consent judgment would be impracticable, if not impossible.”