Business Law and the Legal Environment 7th Edition by Jeffrey Beatty,Susan Samuelson

Exercise 5

When Steven Simkin and Laura Blank divorced in 2006, they agreed to split their $13.5 million fortune evenly. Two years later, it became evident that Simkin had a problem: His half was invested in Bernard Madoff's giant Ponzi scheme and he lost millions. Simkin asked Blank to revise their deal and she refused, so he sued to rescind their 2006 settlement based on mutual mistake of fact. He argued that the fatal mistake was that neither party knew that his half was invested in a fraud. Should a court invalidate the settlement for this mistake?