Tilsen v. Benson

347 Conn. 758

299 A.3d 1096

Jon-Jay TILSEN

v.Miriam E. BENSON

SC 20664

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued December 15, 2022

Officially Released September 5, 2023

Howard Fetner, New Haven, with whom was Felicia C. Hunt, for the appellant (plaintiff).

Sarah E. Murray, with whom was Eric J. Broder, Westport, for the appellee (defendant).

Robinson, C. J., and McDonald, D'Auria, Mullins, Ecker and Alexander, Js.

ROBINSON, C. J.

The principal issue in this appeal requires us to consider the extent to which a Connecticut court may enforce the terms of a "ketubah," which is a contract governing marriage under Jewish law,¹ without entangling itself in religious matters in violation of the first amendment to the United States constitution. The plaintiff, Jon-Jay Tilsen, appeals² from the judgment of the trial court dissolving his marriage to the defendant, Miriam E. Benson. On appeal, the plaintiff contends that the trial court improperly (1) denied his motion to enforce the terms of the parties’ ketubah as a prenuptial agreement on the ground that doing so would violate the first amendment, and (2) issued certain financial orders that were based on a clearly erroneous finding as to his earning capacity, were not based on his net earning capacity, and did not reflect his current financial circumstances.³ We disagree and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The record reveals the following facts and procedural history. The parties met in Israel in 1988 and were married the next year in Pennsylvania on December 3, 1989. Their wedding ceremony was conducted in accordance with the Jewish tradition. Shortly before the marriage ceremony, in the presence of two witnesses, the parties signed their ketubah, which is a traditional Jewish marriage contract written in Hebrew and Aramaic.⁴

The parties moved from Israel to the United States to further the plaintiff's career opportunities as a Conservative rabbi. He found employment in the United States as the rabbi of a Conservative synagogue in New Haven, where he served for nearly twenty-eight years, until March, 2020, when the synagogue elected not to renew his employment contract during the pendency of this action. The defendant, who is educated and trained as an attorney, worked as a Social Security disability attorney, a paralegal, and a nonprofit executive. At the time of this action, she was unemployed and had not worked as an attorney since 2015, despite efforts to find employment. While married to the plaintiff, the defendant was the primary caregiver to the parties’ four children, all of whom are now adults, with the youngest reaching the age of the majority three days after the trial court rendered judgment. The defendant also assumed numerous volunteer responsibilities in connection with her role as the rabbi's wife, including hosting weekly dinners and other social events, organizing children's groups and other educational programming for the synagogue, and attending and leading certain services at the synagogue.

Based on the irretrievable breakdown of the parties’ relationship with no possibility of reconciliation, the plaintiff brought this marital dissolution action in 2018. In the second amended complaint, the plaintiff sought, among other financial and custody orders, the enforcement of the parties’ ketubah as a premarital agreement dated December 3, 1989. The plaintiff subsequently moved for "an order confirming that the parties’ December 3, 1989 prenuptial agreement is valid and enforceable and [that] the parties’ asset division and support award orders should be entered according to Hebrew law based on the valid choice of law clause found in the parties’ ketubah." In that motion, which included proposed financial orders, the plaintiff argued that enforcement of the ketubah, and the application of Jewish law, would result in an equal division of marital property, excluding individual property acquired through gift or bequest not specifically conveyed to the other spouse, with no alimony or claims against future income.

The defendant filed an objection to the plaintiff's motion to enforce the ketubah.

After a hearing, the trial court, Klau , J. , denied the plaintiff's motion to enforce the ketubah.⁵ In its memorandum of decision, the court assumed, "without deciding, that the ketubah is otherwise a valid prenuptial agreement under Connecticut law," and it applied the "neutral principles of law" doctrine as articulated in, for example, Jones v. Wolf , 443 U.S. 595, 602–604, 99 S. Ct. 3020, 61 L. Ed. 2d 775 (1979), and Thibodeau v. American Baptist Churches of Connecticut , 120 Conn. App. 666, 674, 994 A.2d 212, cert. denied, 298 Conn. 901, 3 A.3d 74 (2010), to conclude that the first amendment precluded enforcement of the ketubah provision on which the plaintiff relied in support of a 50/50 division of marital property and relief from an obligation to pay alimony to the defendant. That provision states in relevant part that the parties "agreed to divorce [or, separate from] one another according to custom all the days of their life [i.e., as a continuing obligation] according to Torah law as is the manner of Jewish people. ..." In its analysis, the trial court conducted a comprehensive review of the body of case law concerning the enforceability of various religious wedding contract provisions, including (1) the New York Court of Appeals’ landmark decision in Avitzur v. Avitzur , 58 N.Y.2d 108, 446 N.E.2d 136, 459 N.Y.S.2d 572, cert. denied, 464 U.S. 817, 104 S. Ct. 76, 78 L. Ed. 2d 88 (1983), and (2) the Superior Court's decision in Light v. Light , Superior Court, judicial district of New Haven, Docket No. NNH-FA-12-4051863-S, 2012 WL 6743605 (December 6, 2012) (55 Conn. L. Rptr. 145). Observing that the parties had submitted conflicting affidavits from rabbis about "Torah law as it pertains to alimony and property division," the trial court reasoned that enforcement of the ketubah's divorce provision would require the court to "choose between competing [rabbinical] interpretations of [the provision's] requirement that the parties’ divorce should accord with ‘Torah law’ " and that "resolving such a dispute is precisely what the neutral principles approach forbids a court to do" under the first amendment.⁶ Accordingly, the trial court denied the plaintiff's motion to enforce the ketubah.

Subsequently, the case was tried to the court, Goodrow, J ., over multiple days.⁷ The trial court found that both parties were unemployed at the time of trial, that the plaintiff's then gross yearly earning capacity was $202,100, which was consistent with his final compensation from the synagogue, and that the defendant's then "gross weekly earning capacity [was] $480," which reflected her ability to secure nonprofessional, full-time employment at a wage of $12 per hour. Given those findings, which are set forth in detail in part II of this opinion, the trial court considered the statutory factors set forth in General Statutes §§ 46b-81 and 46b-82 and rendered a judgment of dissolution with numerous financial orders, including (1) requiring the plaintiff to pay the defendant alimony in the amount of $5000 per month for a period of fifteen years, while precluding the plaintiff from seeking modification based on the defendant's increased earnings unless those "yearly gross earnings total $50,000 or more," (2) awarding the plaintiff sole possession and ownership of the marital home in New Haven, and (3) allowing the plaintiff to retain his ownership interest in Westview Park Apartments, L.P. (Westview), a real estate asset established by the plaintiff's father and uncle, but requiring him to pay the defendant 25 percent of the net, after tax amount of any distributions that he receives from that interest, including its sale. This appeal followed.

On appeal, the plaintiff claims that the trial court (1) improperly denied his motion to enforce the ketubah, and (2) abused its discretion in fashioning the various financial orders.

I

We begin with the plaintiff's claim that the trial court improperly denied his motion to enforce the ketubah. The plaintiff argues that (1) enforcement of the ketubah would not violate the establishment clause of the first amendment, and (2) failing to enforce the ketubah would violate his rights under the free exercise clause of the first amendment.

By way of background, this appeal concerns the religion clauses of the first amendment to the United States constitution, which provides in relevant part: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...." U.S. Const., amend. I ; see, e.g., Everson v. Board of Education , 330 U.S. 1, 8, 67 S. Ct. 504, 91 L. Ed. 711 (1947) (religion clauses of first amendment are made applicable to states via due process clause of fourteenth amendment). Compare Watson v. Jones , 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 679, 727, 20 L. Ed. 666 (1871) (declaring, as matter of federal common law, principle, "founded in a broad and sound view of the relations of church and state under our system of laws," that civil courts are to defer to religious authorities on "questions of [church] discipline, or of faith, or ecclesiastical rule, custom, or law"), with Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church in North America , 344 U.S. 94, 115–16, 73 S. Ct. 143, 97 L. Ed. 120 (1952) (constitutionalizing principle from Watson after recognizing that it had been decided without express reference to first amendment). "A brief overview of the religion clauses of the first amendment as they [apply] to the present case may be helpful. The first amendment to the United States constitution protects religious institutions from governmental interference with their free exercise of religion." (Footnote omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Thibodeau v. American Baptist Churches of Connecticut , supra, 120 Conn. App. at 670–71, 994 A.2d 212. "The first amendment [al...