A Georgia court finds the intent behind a divorce settlement agreement inside the four corners of the document, not in what either spouse now says was meant.
The Rule
Ward v. Ward, 236 Ga. 860 (1976), states it: the court “must find the intent of the parties by looking to the ‘four corners’ of the agreement and in the light of circumstances as they existed at the time the agreement was made.” Ward added the corollary: if the intention was clear when the agreement was signed, “it should be enforced, even though the parties disagree as to its meaning as of the time of the litigation.”
So the document is read as a whole. A word “cannot be considered in the abstract or in a vacuum, but instead must be gauged by the words that surround it.” Dean v. Dean, 361 Ga. App. 698 (2021).
Examples
In Ward, the husband agreed to convey the marital home to the wife free of all liens except the first mortgage. Months later the United States filed tax liens against the house for the couple’s joint returns. Reading the agreement as a whole, a complete and final property settlement, the Court held the wife was meant to take the house free of those liens too, and it affirmed the contempt finding.
In Bunnell v. Rogers, 263 Ga. 811 (1994), a decree raised child support each year “in direct proportion” to the increase in the husband’s income, and the trial court found the clause too vague because it named no base income. The Georgia Supreme Court reversed: “Here, the intent is patent,” and applying the clause needed nothing outside the decree but the income figures, which could be proved.
So a court will neither add a term you wish you had included nor strike one that can be worked out from the document itself.
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This post is a quick overview of the law and is not intended as legal advice. Please feel free to contact our office for a consultation if you have questions about this or any other legal aspects regarding your case!