High Court Appears to Favor Upholding Prenuptial Pact

California Supreme Court justices Monday expressed reservations about a lower court ruling that would probably toss out Giants outfielder Barry Bonds’ prenuptial agreement with his former wife and potentially jeopardize thousands of other such pacts.

The state high court is reviewing a 1999 Court of Appeal decision that would imperil prenuptial agreements unless both parties had lawyers.

With baseball star Bonds looking on from a front-row seat, several justices criticized the circumstances around the signing of his prenuptial contract. But the court also appeared reluctant to adopt a standard that would compel couples to obtain independent legal counsel.

Bonds’ former wife, Sun, is challenging an agreement she signed on the eve of her Las Vegas wedding to Bonds. Bonds was represented by two lawyers during the signing. Sun Bonds, who did not have a lawyer, was told there would be “no wedding” unless she waived her right to community property.

Chief Justice Ronald M. George noted that Sun Bonds had been told several days before the signing that she might want to obtain a lawyer.

“She could have contacted an attorney,” the chief justice said.

Justice Kathryn Werdegar questioned whether Sun Bonds’ remarks before her wedding suggested a “real fundamental misunderstanding” of the prenuptial agreement.

Werdegar noted that Sun Bonds had said: “ ‘I don’t need an attorney. I don’t have anything.’

“Does that reflect an understanding about the rights she was giving up?” Werdegar asked a lawyer for Barry Bonds.

Richard Sherman, Barry Bonds’ lawyer, described Sun Bonds’ remark as “rhetorical.”

Sun Bonds, a Swedish immigrant, was working as a bartender and studying to be a beautician when she met Bonds in August 1987. He was a $106,000-a-year player with the Pittsburgh Pirates. The couple married the following February.

By the time the couple split up in 1994, Barry Bonds was earning about $8 million a year with the San Francisco Giants. A trial court awarded his former wife $10,000 a month in spousal support for a temporary period and $20,000 a month in child support for their two children.

The trial judge also upheld the prenuptial agreement. Without the agreement, Sun Bonds would have been entitled to half the property the couple had accumulated during their marriage--an undetermined amount at this point.

The appeals court in San Francisco later objected to the contract, ruling that it should be strictly scrutinized because of the couple’s uneven bargaining power.

The ballplayer then appealed to the California Supreme Court. If the appeals court’s standard were adopted, the couple’s prenuptial contract would probably be found invalid.

In reviewing the case, the high court is grappling with how to determine whether a person entered a prenuptial agreement voluntarily. Reflecting unease with the Bondses’ contract, Justice Ming W. Chin noted that Sun Bonds first saw it on her way to the airport for her Las Vegas wedding.

“Doesn’t that cut against the voluntariness?” he asked.

Sherman said Sun Bonds willingly signed the premarital agreement. “She knew Barry wouldn’t marry her without it,” Sherman said.

George questioned how courts could force couples to hire separate lawyers when entering into prenuptial agreements. “Do we force [Sun Bonds] to have counsel?” George asked.

He suggested that the legal situation might have been different if the couple had planned a big wedding in which hundreds of guests were imminently expected. In that case, the prospective bride might well have felt she could not postpone the ceremony to get an attorney.

But the Bondses’ wedding was a more informal affair. About eight to 10 people, including baseball legend Willie Mays, Bonds’ godfather, attended the wedding. No invitations had been sent.

The ballplayer’s lawyer agreed with George that Sun Bonds could have called a lawyer had she wanted one. If she had asked for more time to review the agreement, Barry Bonds would have picked up his cell phone and told their friends, “Folks, there has been a slight hitch and we need to take a seventh inning stretch,” Sherman said.

Barry Bonds saw the prenuptial contract for the first time when Sun saw it, attorneys for both parties agreed. Paige Leslie Wickland, Sun Bonds’ attorney, told the court that even Barry Bonds did not know what he was signing.

“So he didn’t have an advantage over her?” George asked, provoking laughter in the courtroom.

Both Barry and Sun Bonds attended Monday’s arguments in Los Angeles. The baseball star swept out of the courtroom after the hearing, refusing to speak to reporters.

“I don’t make comments to newspapers,” Bonds said. When one of the reporters complimented him on hitting a home run Sunday, Bonds turned back and smiled.

In another case, several high court justices indicated that a San Francisco man who stabbed his sister to death 25 years ago probably will not be allowed to practice law this year.

A state bar court has found that Eben Gossage, 45, who committed several crimes, including manslaughter, while addicted to heroin and alcohol, is rehabilitated and should be admitted to the state bar. Gossage, who currently works as a developer, passed the bar examination on his first try.

But several justices Monday suggested that Gossage needs to demonstrate more years of an unblemished record before he can obtain a law license.

The court will decide the Gossage and Bonds cases within 90 days.