Jiggetts v. Jiggetts (2019) & Being Cautious about Settlement Agreements

As a general rule, once you sign a settlement agreement, extricating oneself from that settlement agreement becomes a difficult proposition. In fact, in most cases, the terms of a settlement agreement become “iron clad” after both parties sign the agreement, and so there is no way to avoid the terms of the agreement. In rare cases, there may be things going on with the agreement which render the agreement unenforceable – for instance, there may be evidence of fraud, coercion, duress, or unconscionability. But, those cases are not common, and a party should never sign a settlement agreement with any sort of “expectation” that the agreement will fail to be enforceable. Parties should only sign a settlement agreement if they are fully comfortable with the terms of the agreement, because, in nearly all cases, those terms will have the force of the law behind them.

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In the case of Jiggetts v. Jiggetts (2019), a party ended up regretting the terms of a settlement agreement in a major fashion. Because he failed to think properly about the terms of the agreement, he ended up suffering a major financial blow. Let’s look at this case in detail.

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Factual Outline of the Case

In 2011, the husband and wife in this case signed a private settlement agreement which resolved the property division issues of their upcoming divorce. As part of the agreement, the husband agreed to give the wife 1/3^rd of the award of a settlement from a personal injury lawsuit which was still pending at the time of the agreement. Interestingly, this particular personal injury lawsuit had been going on for a very long time; the injuries in the lawsuit arose from the Beirut barracks bombings of 1983. The defendant in the lawsuit was the government of Iraq, and the requested relief was an extremely large amount of money.

The lawsuit ended up settling very soon after the settlement agreement was signed, and just 24 days after the divorce judgment was finalized. The husband’s suit was successful, and he was awarded an impressive sum of $32.5 million. After the husband received confirmation regarding the award, he immediately regretted signing the settlement agreement. The husband tried to argue that, even though the agreement had been voluntarily signed, and there was no evidence of fraud, the wife shouldn’t be entitled to receive 1/3^rd of the lawsuit award. He petitioned the court to reject the terms of the settlement agreement as they pertained to his personal injury lawsuit.

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Ruling & Discussion

The court ultimately rejected the husband’s arguments. One of the husband’s arguments was that the divorce judgment was never properly “finalized,” and that the terms of the settlement agreement were unenforceable on this basis. Another one of his arguments was that, even if the divorce judgment was finalized properly, the judgment contained “irregularities” and could consequently be revised at any time. Again, both of these arguments were rejected by the court. The court found that there was no evidence of anything improper with the settlement agreement, nor were there any problems with the divorce judgment. The agreement had no evidence of fraud, duress, coercion, or unconscionably, and consequently there was no barrier to enforceability. This was a clear case of the husband having post-settlement agreement regret in view of the events which occurred immediately after the signing. But, simply because one party ends up regretting the terms of an agreement in this manner doesn’t mean that the agreement itself is unenforceable.

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Contact the Murphy Law Firm for Additional Resources

If you want more information on settlement agreements, or another related family law topic, contact one of the top family law attorneys at the Murphy Law Firm today by calling 240-219-5243.