12 - Commentary on Borelli v. Brusseau

Summary

When it was decided in 1993, the decision in Borelli v. Brusseau¹ sent shockwaves through the legal community. Borelli involved the enforceability of an oral contract between a husband and wife in which the wife promised to care for her ill husband in return for his promise to “leave her” assets worth approximately $500,000 that would have otherwise been largely his pursuant to their premarital agreement.² The wife, Hildegard Borelli, quit her job, brought the husband, Michael Borelli, home and cared for him until his death a few months later. But the husband neither transferred the property to her nor changed his will, which left the property to his daughter from a prior union, Grace Brusseau. The California Supreme Court ruled that the oral agreement was unenforceable because it lacked consideration, given spouses’ duty to support each other, and violated the public policy against such agreements.