This trial consumed thirteen days over three months and included twenty-six witnesses. The evidence included the reports and testimony of several private investigators, one of whom watched Mrs. Konzelman's home seven days a week for 127 days. It would not have taken thirteen days or a spy in her yard to determine that Mrs. Konzelman's companion contributed $170 a week to the household. As a result of the Court's ruling, each Konzelman hearing hereinafter will result in an exhaustive (and exhausting) inquiry into whether the situation involved something more than “a mere, romantic, casual or social relationship․” Ante at 202, 729 A.2d at 16. (Does this mean that there is a platonic defense to anti-cohabitation clauses?) Such tasteless inquiries into the private lives of divorced women, when unnecessary, are beneath the dignity of the judiciary.
Kathleen and Lawrence Konzelman were married for twenty-seven years at the time of their divorce. Their final divorce decree, entered on October 28, 1991, incorporated a Property Settlement Agreement both parties had entered into with the benefit of counsel. Section 1 (D) of that Agreement dealt with alimony. It provided that Mr. Konzelman's support and maintenance obligation of $700.00 per week would terminate should Mrs. Konzelman undertake cohabitation with an unrelated adult male for a period of four continuous months.
The issue raised in this appeal is the enforceability of a divorce judgment incorporating a property settlement agreement that authorized the termination of the husband's support and maintenance payments in the event of the wife's cohabitation with an unrelated male.
When we first upheld the specific enforceability of spousal agreements in Schlemm, we relied on the flexible power of equity to enforce such agreements only to the extent that they were fair and equitable.
there are no considerations of public policy which should prevent competent parties to a divorce from freely agreeing that if the dependent spouse enters into a new relationship which, but for the license, is tantamount to a marriage, the economic consequences of the new relationship will be the same as those of remarriage.
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