Before Justices Saitta, Pickering, and Hardesty. Opinion by Justice Pickering.
In this appeal, the Court upheld a final divorce decree based upon a written but unsigned property settlement agreement. Respondent and appellant reached a divorce settlement but the final draft contained interlineated handwritten changes and the parties failed to execute a clean copy prior to the prove-up hearing. At the hearing the draft was admitted as an exhibit, the handwritten changes were read into the record, the parties stipulated that the agreement would be binding, and the court approved the stipulation by minute order. Subsequently, appellant refused to sign the final draft of the agreement and challenged the decree approving the agreement. The Court confronted the interesting question of whether in-court proceedings could create an enforceable agreement. The Court held that District Court Rule 16 permits the enforcement of an agreement if it is entered in the court minutes following a stipulation. Applying general principles of contract law, the Court found that appellant had manifested consent to the agreement by his acknowledgement under oath that he had reviewed and agreed to it. The agreement was not invalidated by the district court’s failure to read the entire agreement out loud into the record. Although the Court noted that there may be a case where an in-court proceeding is so truncated by reliance on exhibits that an intent to be bound is absent, the facts before the Court reflected an implied consent that the agreement be entered in the minutes. Finally, the Court noted that a stipulated judgment made in open court satisfies the statute of frauds. Affirmed. (Adam Hosmer-Henner, Associate in the Reno office of McDonald Carano Wilson.)
