Marriage of Waddell & Dean CA2/1
The instant appeal is from a judgment in a dissolution action between appellant Billy Edwin Waddell and respondent Virginia Dean (formerly Virginia Waddell). The judgment adopted the terms of a marital settlement agreement signed by both parties and their respective counsel (the MSA). Billy argues the MSA does not reflect the terms to which he and Virginia orally agreed regarding the distribution of Billy’s pension plans. He claims he signed the MSA without reading it because Virginia and her lawyer led Billy and his lawyer to believe that the MSA distributed the pension plans consistent with the parties’ oral agreement as Billy and his counsel understood it.
Billy argues that the MSA is sufficiently ambiguous that the trial court should have admitted extrinsic evidence of the parties’ negotiations to support his interpretation of the MSA.
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