Pisano v. Pisano (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-054-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us 13-P-1758 Appeals Court JUDITH BELUSHI PISANO vs. VICTOR RENO PISANO. No. 13-P-1758. Dukes. October 6, 2014. – May 29, 2015. Present: Cypher, Grainger, & Maldonado, JJ. Divorce and Separation, Alimony, Appeal, Judgment. Husband and Wife, Antenuptial agreement. Contract, Antenuptial agreement. Practice, Civil, Bifurcated trial, Interlocutory appeal. Complaint for divorce filed in the Dukes County Division of the Probate and Family Court Department on October 20, 2010. The case was heard by Spencer M. Kagan, J. Robert J. Rutecki for the husband. Sharon D. Meyers for the wife. CYPHER, J. In October, 2010, Judith Belushi Pisano (hereinafter, wife), after some twenty years of marriage to Victor Reno Pisano (hereinafter, husband), filed a complaint for divorce from the husband. The wife also moved, successfully, to bifurcate the issue of the scope and validity of a premarital agreement executed by the parties on October 6, 1990, the day prior to the parties’ wedding. Following a trial on the wife’s “bifurcated complaint for divorce,” a judge of the Probate and Family Court issued a “Bifurcated Judgment” dated April 2, 2012, supplemented by findings, in which he determined that the premarital agreement was valid and binding on the parties, and that it limited any claim of the husband for alimony in a manner we shall discuss more fully below. With the assent of the parties, additional issues were referred to a master, who was instructed to conduct an evidentiary hearing, make findings of fact and conclusions of law, and prepare a judgment of divorce nisi addressing all outstanding issues. Among the issues considered by the master was whether the wife was entitled to the repayment of temporary alimony ordered earlier by the court and whether a certain debt should be treated as a liability of the wife or a joint marital liability to be shared by the parties. Following a hearing, the master issued his report (including recommendations that the wife recover the temporary alimony she paid to the husband and that the loan be treated as the wife’s sole liability), and a subsequent amended report. The master’s recommendations were incorporated into the supplemental judgment of divorce nisi dated February 5, 2013.[1] The husband has appealed, challenging portions of the “bifurcated judgment” as they pertain to alimony as well as the order contained in the […]