No. A Georgia court cannot incorporate an incomplete settlement agreement into a divorce decree, and it cannot fill the gaps itself.
The Decree Must Mirror the Deal
The rule comes from Robinson v. Robinson, 261 Ga. 330 (1991): “a decree should also accurately reflect a settlement reached by the parties.” So “a trial court is not authorized to adopt and incorporate into the final decree and judgment of divorce a purported memorialization of the settlement that contains more substantive terms than the settlement.” Reichard v. Reichard, 262 Ga. 561 (1992).
If a term is missing, the judge cannot supply it. Moss v. Moss, 265 Ga. 802 (1995). And if the written version prepared afterward contains more than what was agreed, the judge cannot adopt that version either.
An Example
In DeGarmo v. DeGarmo, 269 Ga. 480 (1998), the spouses signed a handwritten mediation agreement, and the wife renounced it shortly afterward. The trial court enforced the last of several revised drafts, and the Supreme Court reversed. The version adopted carved exceptions out of the wife’s award of the household furnishings, expanded a medical records provision to both parties, and added a waiver of inheritance rights “which was entirely absent from the original agreement.” The original was inadequate because it left matters for later resolution, and the revision was unenforceable because it contained terms the parties never agreed to.
What Is Not Incomplete
Not every difference is fatal. In Steele v. Steele, 298 Ga. 548 (2016), the fact that the decree “sets forth certain terms more artfully and with greater specificity than the Memorandum does not render it inaccurate or improper.” And in Buckner v. Buckner, 294 Ga. 705 (2014), the parties kept exchanging drafts after announcing their settlement, refining details such as when property would change hands. That was “not evidence” that no enforceable agreement had been reached.
Which terms are essential has its own post.
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