In re the Marriage of Patterson

In this dissolution case, the principal issue is whether a separation agreement that the parties negotiated governs their dissolution, which occurred eight years later. Husband argued that the agreement was expressly and unambiguously intended to apply only dining a period of temporary separation and that the trial court should have divided the parties’ property in accordance with its own judgment as to what is just and proper. Wife argued that the agreement was expressly and unambiguously intended to apply not just to the separation but also to the dissolution that eventually followed and…