Whitmer's Estate

Citations

• 224 Pa. 413
• 73 A. 551
• 1909 Pa. LEXIS 812

Syllabus

<p>Husband and wife — Antenuptial agreement — Knowledge of husband’s estate.</p> <p>1. Parties to an antenuptial contract for the disposition of their estate do not deal at arm’s length but stand in a relation of mutual confidence and trust that calls for the highest degree of good faith in disclosing all circumstances bearing on the contemplated agreement. But fraud is not to be presumed and the onus of proof is not changed in the absence of facts or circumstances from which concealment or imposition may reasonably be inferred.</p> <p>2. Where a man eighty years of age enters into an antenuptial agreement with his housekeeper, a woman fifty-three years of age, by which they mutually renounce all rights in each other’s estates, except that the woman is to receive a small sum of money from the executors of the man, and the woman has sufficient knowledge of the man’s estate to enable her to act advisedly, she cannot after her husband’s death renounce the agreement, and demand her share of his estate under the intestate laws.</p>