Section 7.7 “Not Unconscionable”

• Library: Family Law Deskbook and 2014 Supp

D. (§7.7) “Not Unconscionable”

Section 452.325.2, RSMo 2000, does not require separation agreements to be fair. Instead, it requires courts to approve a couple’s agreement unless the court finds it to be unconscionable. Hughes v. Hughes,23 S.W.3d 838, 841 (Mo. App. W.D. 2000). Courts have described agreements as unconscionable when the “inequality [is] so strong, gross, and manifest that it must be impossible to state it to one with common sense without producing an exclamation at the inequality of it.” Peirick v. Peirick,641 S.W.2d 195, 197 (Mo. App. E.D. 1982) (citing Carter v. Boone Cnty. Trust Co., 92 S.W.2d 647, 658 (Mo. banc 1935)). If an agreement is going to push the envelope on issues of property division...