Zastrow

This appeal requires selection of the statute of limitations appropriate to an ex-wife’s lawsuit against her ex-husband, alleging her mental incompetence at the time of the property settlement agreement and the marital dissolution decree incorporating it and seeking to set aside the decree and rescind the agreement.

In effect, the complaint alleges that after 18 years of marriage the wife signed a property settlement agreement giving her husband the lion’s share of the marital assets; that she then signed an appearance, stipulation and waiver for filing in her husband’s marital dissolution action; that at the time she was mentally incompetent and “unable to comprehend the nature and significance of her act;” that her husband knew she was incompetent; that her husband on June 16, 1969, secured an interlocutory decree and on January 27, 1970, a final judgment of marital dissolution which, as permitted by the property settlement agreement, incorporated the agreement by reference; that not until January 1, 1972, did she regain her competence. The complaint prayed that the judgment be set aside and the property settlement agreement canceled.

The parties agree that…