Melissa

Raymond Melissa (Raymond) challenges the trial court’s invalidation of Roberta Melissa’s (Roberta) spousal support waiver contained in a 1985 prenuptial agreement. 1 Raymond argues the court erred because the waiver “does not offend contemporary public policy” and the new rules requiring a spouse to be represented by independent counsel before waiving support cannot be retroactively applied. (See Earn. Code, § 1612.) 2 We conclude the trial court properly applied the law in effect when the parties signed the agreement, i.e., spousal support waivers were deemed invalid as being against public policy. We affirm the judgment.

I

In the summer of 1984, Raymond (then 41 years old) met Roberta (then 32 years old). Both had been married before. Raymond told Roberta he was retired but he had started another company. He owned a home in Newport Beach, a new Jaguar automobile, and had a net worth of over $2 million. She worked as a nurse and rented an apartment in Huntington Beach. After dating for a few months, they moved in together with the plan of deciding after six months whether to get married. When Raymond told Roberta he was not interested in marriage, she moved out.

Soon…