HARTFORD, Conn. (Legal Newsline) - A man whose marriage collapsed after he continued partying while his wife got down to business and cared for their three kids lost his bid to have a prenuptial agreement struck down after the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled he isn’t entitled to his ex-wife’s millions.
In a minor success, the court agreed a clause in the prenup requiring Justin Hokin to pay more than $1.5 million of his ex-wife Laura Grabe’s legal expenses was unenforceable. But the court rejected Hokin’s argument that the failure of his father’s oil business and the destruction of the family’s Bitter End Yacht Club in Hurricane Irma left him incapable of caring for his three children in the manner to which they had become accustomed.
The children weren’t “even a remote priority in his life” before the divorce, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in a Nov. 17 decision that will be published Feb. 8. Hokin “appears to claim that, for the sake of the children, he is entitled to enjoy his predissolution standard of living,” the court said.
“Although we recognize that his assets may not be sufficient to meet his needs for his entire lifetime, nothing in the record would support a conclusion that he is incapable of earning an income,” the court said.
Hokin and Grabe were both wealthy when they met and married in 2010, with Hokin reporting assets of more than $5 million including his interest in the Bitter End Yacht Club, a resort in the Virgin Islands, and $60,000 a year in director fees from his father’s company, Intermountain Industries. Grabe had a net worth of more than $12 million and $1.3 million in income.
The two signed a prenuptial agreement under which they wouldn’t seek the other’s premarital assets. A “loser pays” clause required a spouse who challenged the agreement to pay the other side’s legal expenses if he or she lost, while a severability clause meant any part of the agreement could be struck down without invalidating the entire prenup.
Before the marriage, the court observed, Hokin and Grabe “would frequently stay out all night socializing and drinking with friends.” Grabe “changed her behavior when she became pregnant shortly after the marriage, but the defendant did not,” the court said.
Grabe complained of her ex-husband’s behavior, including leaving her alone with a baby while Hurricane Sandy struck their neighborhood in Cinnecticut. After the birth of their second daughter in 2013, the court said, family members unsuccessfully sought an intervention “as his drinking was out of control and he was being completely unproductive.”
“The intervention never occurred, and the defendant continued to stay out all night, sleep most of the day and ignore the needs of his wife and children,” the court said.
Grabe contacted a divorce lawyer in August 2014 and two weeks later their Norwalk house was destroyed in a fire. Grabe began construction of a house in the shorefront community of Rowayton, where she moved with her three daughters after separating from Hokin. She then filed for divorce, and Hokin moved to declare the prenup unenforceable.
Meanwhile, Hokin’s family suffered the loss of the Bitter End Yacht Club, which was underinsured. Then Intermountain failed, eliminating the two main sources of his income. Grabe prospered, reporting a net weekly income of more than $34,000 and assets of $27.4 million.
Hokin challenged the prenuptial agreement as unconscionable, citing Connecticut Supreme Court decisions that struck down prenups when “circumstances of the parties at the time of the dissolution are so far beyond the contemplation of the parties …as to make enforcement of the agreement work an injustice.” Examples include where the person trying to enforce the agreement was the cause of the breakup, the court said, the birth of a child, loss of employment, or a dramatic change in the economic status of the two.
The trial court determined Hokin was to blame for the breakdown of the marriage, however. Instead of taking care of the children, he “continued to live a life full of drinking and partying,” the court said, and “remained stagnant and engulfed in a selfish mentality until he lost his footing in his business and his marriage.”
The court rejected the loser-pays provision, saying neither of them probably contemplated paying “millions of dollars in attorney’s fees” to the other side and enforcing the clause would leave Hokin financially crippled. The court otherwise enforced the prenuptial agreement and ordered Hokin to pay child support of $57 a week.
The Supreme Court upheld the trial court’s decision. It can be assumed neither of them contemplated the birth of three children, the destruction of their home and the yacht club, or the failure of Intermountain Industries, the court said. But “if every event that the parties did not anticipate could provide a basis for invalidating a prenuptial agreement, no such agreement would be enforceable.”
The court rejected Hokin’s argument the prenup would prevent him from providing for the children in the manner to which they were accustomed, observing that Grabe had primary custody and more than enough money to pay the bills.
“Although we recognize that his assets may not be sufficient to meet his needs for his entire lifetime, nothing in the record would support a conclusion that he is incapable of earning an income,” the court said, noting Hokin was 44, had a degree in geography from the University of Montana, $2.1 million in assets and some business experience.
“Because enforcement of the remainder of the agreement would, as we explained, leave the defendant with significant assets sufficient to provide for his needs until he can obtain a source of income, the trial court properly allowed the parties the benefit of the bargain to which they had agreed before their marriage,” the court concluded.