Konou

In 2006, Dr. Philip Timothy Wilson and Antipas Johnlang Konou executed a “Pre Registration Domestic Partnership Agreement” (the domestic partnership agreement or the agreement) and then registered as domestic partners. The agreement included waivers of any rights, claims or interest in the future property, income, or estate of the other, and required a signed writing to amend or terminate this agreement. A couple of years later, in 2008, Wilson and Konou married during the brief period that same-sex marriages were legal in California. Shortly thereafter, Wilson died.

Konou filed a petition claiming an omitted spouse’s interest in Wilson’s estate. The probate court rejected Konou’s claim and found that Konou was an omitted spouse but that the domestic partnership agreement remained valid after the marriage and Konou waived his rights to any interest in Wilson’s estate in this agreement.

*1287 Konou appeals and argues that the probate court erred because a marriage is not the same as a domestic partnership and there was no prenuptial agreement. He claims that the marriage license constituted a signed writing that terminated the domestic partnership agreement.

We hold…