Interpretation of a divorce agreement – the court’s position
At the end of the marital relationship and married life, Divorce Agreement The divorce becomes legally binding and the couple each sets out on their new path. Their future conduct will be governed, among other things, by the provisions of the divorce agreement they signed.
An agreement, like any other agreement, is not the end of the story in terms of its content and interpretation. Every agreement must be respected in its entirety. Sometimes, and due to changing circumstances, one party violates the agreement, and the other party can challenge clauses in the agreement and the interpretation given to them at the time of signing.
If the spouses do not mutually agree on the requested change, opening a divorce agreement requires the intervention of Home Family Law Before him will be presented the demand to change clauses therein and he will be the one to discuss and decide whether the agreement has been violated.
The Haifa Family Court was required to rule on the claim of a woman, who filed two claims for enforcement of the divorce agreement between the parties and for damages for breach of the divorce agreement. The main dispute between the parties concerns the implementation and interpretation of two sections of the divorce agreement with respect to three issues.
This is a procedure TAMSH (Live) 41459-02—A.B. N. A.C.B..
The dispute between the parties regarding the divorce agreement
The parties were married on March 22, 1987, and over the years of marriage, they had 3 daughters.
The parties divorced in December 2006 in accordance with the divorce agreement that was granted the force of a court judgment. At home Rabbinical law.
The agreement was prepared by Dreyfus Accountant and included the business assets of the parties at their request and with their consent..
According to the plaintiff, the defendant has a systematic pattern of behavior regarding changing the agreement and deliberately avoiding transferring funds that are due to them in accordance with the agreement.
On the other hand, the defendant claims that the plaintiff is distorting the institution of the divorce agreement. Her goal is not to enforce the agreement, but rather to attempt to cancel the agreements after he paid her millions of shekels.
The agreement in dispute was reached with a couples therapist chosen by the plaintiff, who consulted with lawyer And chose Rev. Dreyfus as mediator.
The court is required to break down each disputed clause separately, examine it, and decide on it.
These are the disputed sections:
- Section 13 of the agreement – Did all of the assets of xxx Ltd. include only the store, as of the date the agreement was signed, as claimed by the defendant? Or, as claimed by the plaintiff, were there additional funds in the company due to it by virtue of the agreement, in addition to half of the value of the store?
- Article 13 of the Agreement – Is the plaintiff entitled to receive accounts and details of the company’s profits regarding assets and rights in B-B?
- Section 14 of the agreement – Does the plaintiff have any rights remaining in half of the savings plan, in light of the offset claim made by the defendant, for payments he made on behalf of the plaintiff.
Interpretation and decision of the court
The court found it appropriate to adopt the approach outlined by Judge Danziger in the case Ltd. 5141/09 So-and-so v. So-and-so Regarding the rules for interpreting a divorce agreement.
In this case, the rule was established that the agreement must be given the plain and clear meaning that emerges from its language, as it reflects the opinion of the parties. It was also established in another ruling (A”A 2568/98 Peter N. Hammi) which the court also relied on in the lawsuit in question, because the language of the contract determines the limits of the purpose of the contract, with the interpretation having to be based on the text itself.
Judge A. Rubinstein ruled in the case CA 8918/08 Kimchi v. Israel Lands Administration As follows: “…the language of the contract is clear, and there is no possibility of adding to it, even within the limits of a purposive interpretation… because the interpretation proposed by the appellants lacks a basis in the text, and “the limit of interpretation in a sentence is the limit of the text”…”
The court receives further reinforcement for its approach and ruling from the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case A”A 8239/06 Ebron v. Steel.
There, Judge Hayut states that “we must be as careful as possible not to read new provisions into the contract during the interpretative process, lest we find ourselves writing a new contract for the parties that they never entered into and that they never intended. Therefore, the courts must avoid creating a feeling or atmosphere according to which no contract is clear, everything is open, and every result can be achieved through interpretation”… It is not the court’s role to create for the parties a more reasonable contract than the one they created for themselves. The objective examination will be made only when it is not possible to locate the subjective common intention of the parties.”
With guiding principles of this type, the Family Court is confidently moving toward the determination that in the case before it, “it appears that both an examination of the language of the contract and the circumstances of the contract, and their combination together, leads to the conclusion that the defendant is right.”
In light of this determination, the court ruled as follows:
- The plaintiff’s claim to receive the balance of savings plan funds is rejected.
- The plaintiff’s claim regarding xxx Ltd. is dismissed.
- With regard to the assets in B.B., the claim is accepted in part, in that the defendant will provide the plaintiff, once a year, with an audited report of the company and information regarding its profits. The remaining claims regarding the failure to transfer past profits are rejected.
Explanations in the margins of the verdict
After the court had said its word, it took the opportunity in the margins of the ruling to explain that despite the plaintiff’s claims and the sense of discomfort she demonstrated, the court is under the impression that after deleting the requested remedies, claims remained that the plaintiff was unable to prove.
All of this and more, in the court’s opinion, adds to the long delay in filing the claims.
The plaintiff already knew in 2006 that she had not received a total of NIS 10,000 out of NIS 200,000 and remembered to file a claim only in 2009, which constituted tacit consent to the offsetting of amounts by the defendant.
As for the xxx company, the bulk of the company’s funds were also accumulated, according to the plaintiff, in 2005, before the agreement was drawn up, and although she contacted CPA Dreyfus to draw up the agreement and divide the assets, this was not reflected in the agreement, forcing her to give a narrow interpretation to Article 13 of the agreement, while the defendant’s interpretation coincides with both the language of the agreement and the circumstances.
Although the plaintiff was entitled to receive information regarding the company S. and the assets B., it is possible that she could have received this information prior to filing the lawsuit. In these circumstances, the court determines that the discovery of the information itself shows that the company had no profits and that the agreement was not breached.
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