In re the Marriage of: Brenda Kaye Feneis, n/k/a Brenda Kay Blazek, petitioner, Respondent,

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by
Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A21-1279

In re the Marriage of: Brenda Kaye Feneis,
n/k/a Brenda Kay Blazek, petitioner,
Respondent,

vs.

James Denis Feneis,
Appellant.

Filed June 6, 2022
Affirmed
Connolly, Judge

Stearns County District Court
File No. 73-FA-20-7896

Jennifer Nixon, Perusse Nixon, PLLC, Maple Grove, Minnesota (for respondent)

Katherine S. Barrett Wiik, Best & Flanagan LLP, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Larkin, Presiding Judge; Connolly, Judge; and Smith,
Tracy M., Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
CONNOLLY, Judge
In this marital dissolution dispute, appellant-husband challenges the district court’s
decision that, under the parties’ antenuptial agreement, respondent-wife is entitled to half
the amount in each of their five joint accounts. Because we see no ambiguity in the
agreement and it provides for this division of joint accounts, we affirm.
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FACTS
When appellant Jim F eneis, then 61, and respondent Brenda Blazak, then 51,
married in 2016, their financial situations differed greatly; appellant’s net worth was over
$11 million, while respondent’s was about $45,000, or the value of her engagement ring.
Prior to the marriag e, they had negotiated an antenuptial agreement. According to
appellant, it was based on the principle that “what’s mine is mine, what’s yours is yours .”
Its “primary purpose [was] to alter applicable Minnesota law” ; and it did not classify any
property as marital property. It provided in relevant part:
4.3 Joint Property means Property that is titled in the names
of both parties, whether as joint tenants, tenants in common, or
otherwise. Joint property includes property which costs in
excess of $1,000 t hat is purchased by both parties together,
during the marriage, using Non -Marital Property from each
party to purchase the property.

. . . .

6.1.2 Joint Property of the parties shall be
deemed to be one half -Non-Marital Property of each property,
and shall be divided equally between the parties, regardless of
their respective financial contributions to its acquisition and
capital improvement.

. . . .

6.1.3.1 Any assets acquired during the marriage
from both parties’ Non -Marital property will be divided
equally between the p arties. Such assets that cannot be so
divided will be sold, and the net proceeds . . . will be distributed
equally to each party.

In 2020, respondent wanted a divorce. She contacted an attorney who told her that,
for an account to be joint property under the antenuptial agreement, she had to contribute
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some of her nonmarital property to that account . Before she left appellant, she mad e
deposits in the five joint accounts, all of which were titled in both parties’ names, without
informing appellant that she was doing so.
Specifically, in account 1, which had a value of $2,223,499 on May 31, 2021,
respondent deposited $1,000; in acco unt 2, which had a value of $361,993 on November
30, 2020, respondent deposited $300; in account 3, which had a value of $450 on November
30, 2020, respondent deposited $500; in account 4, which had a value of $542,401 on May
28, 2021, respondent deposited $475; and in account 5, which had a value of $313,285 on
May 28, 2021, respondent deposited $500. Thus, the total worth of the joint accounts was
$3,441,626, and respondent’s total deposit into those accounts was $2,775.
The stipulated judgment provided that respondent would receive $50,000, a monthly
housing stipend of $9,848, and a 1967 Dodge Coronet. Both parties agreed that they were
capable of self-support and waived spousal maintenance; they disputed only the division
of the five joint accounts. Following a trial, the district court concluded that the joint
accounts were joint property within the meaning of the antenuptial agreement and awarded
respondent, $1,720,788, or half the value of the joint accounts.1
Appellant argues that (1) the accounts were not joint property within the meaning
of the antenuptial agreement, (2) the antenuptial agreement required the joint accounts to
be divided according to the amount each party contributed to them , and (3) respondent

1 $1,720,788 is actually half of $3,441,576; the $50 discrepancy between the district court’s
finding of the collective worth of the accounts and the amount awarded to respondent as
half that amount is unexplained and unchallenged.
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violated Minn. Stat. § 518.58, subd. 1a (2018) by making deposits in the accounts without
letting appellant know.
DECISION
Appellant’s first two arguments involve the construction of the parties’ antenuptial
agreement. An antenuptial agreement “is a type of contract recognized an d favored at
common law.” Pollack-Halvarson v. McGuire, 576 N.W.2d 451, 455 (Minn. App. 1998).
Contract terms are interpreted “consistent with their plain, ordinary, and popular meaning
to give effect to the intention of the parties as it appears from th e context of the entire
contract.” Kremer v. Kremer, 912 N.W.2d 617, 626 (Minn. 2018).
1. Meaning of “joint property”
Appellant argues on appeal, as he argued to the district court, that “Joint Property”
in the antenuptial agreement includes only r eal or tangible property and does not include
bank accounts or investments. He bases this argument on the second sentence in section
4.3: “Joint property includes property which costs in excess of $1,000 that is purchased by
both parties together . . . .” But appellant reads the word “only” into the sentence between
the words “includes” and “property.”
The district court rejected this reading, relying on St. Paul Mercury Ins. Co. v.
Lexington Ins. Co., 78 F.3d 202, 206 -07 (5th Cir. 1996) (“We are not co nvinced that the
rule of expressio unius est exclusio alterius [the expression of one thing is the exclusion of
another] applies in the instant case, as the challenged list of provisions in St. Paul’s contract
is prefaced by the word ‘including,’ which is generally given to an expansive reading, even
without the additional if not redundant language of ‘without limitation.’”); see also LaMont
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v. Indep. Sch. Dist. No. 728 , 814 N.W.2d 14, 19 (Minn. 2012) (noting that “includes” is
not “exhaustive or exclusive”); Peterson v. City of Minneapolis , 878 N.W.2d 521, 525
(Minn. App. 2016) (“includes” is a “a term of enlargement, not restriction”). The district
court found that the antenuptial agreement defines joint property as property that is titled
in the names of both parties and provides that assets acquired from both parties’ non -
marital property will, in the event of dissolution, be divided equally between the parties.
We agree that, because the bank accounts are titled in the names of both parties, are assets
acquired from both parties’ non -marital property, and can be divided equally between the
parties, they are joint property within the meaning of the antenuptial agreement.
2. Meaning of “equal division”
Appellant argues that the district court erred in dividing the joint accounts equally
between the parties because respondent is unjustly enriched by receiving $1,720,788
instead of the $2,775 she contributed to the accounts. The district court noted that unjust
enrichment requires that one party have been illegally or unlawfully enriched by the efforts
or obligations of another and concluded that, because respondent “did not act illegally or
unlawfully when she deposi ted funds into accounts titled jointly in her name,” unjust
enrichment had not occurred.
Moreover, the antenuptial agreement states explicitly that, “regardless of [each
party’s] financial contributions to its acquisition . . . ,” joint property “shall b e divided
equally between the parties.” Appellant argues that this provision is unconscionable,
relying on In re Estate of Hoffbeck, 415 N.W.2d 447, 449 (Minn. App. 1987) (defining an
unconscionable contract as one “such as no man in his senses and not under delusion would
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make on the one hand, and as no honest and fair man would accept on the other) , rev.
denied (Minn. Jan. 28, 1988).
But the antenuptial agreement in section 6.5 states that “neither party will present
legal arguments to the court that it should determine what a party should receive under
applicable law in the absence of this [a]greement as compared to what a party is entitled to
receive under the provisions of this [a]greement. The primary purpose of this [a]greement
is to alter applicable Minnesota law regarding property rights . . . .” Appellant’s argument
that the antenuptial agreement is “unconscionable” because it awards respondent far more
than she contributed to the accounts is in effect a legal argument presented to the court that
it should determine what respondent should receive under applicable law, i.e. , the law
against unjust enrichment, in the absence of the antenuptial agreement, and the agreement
itself prohibits such arguments.
In his reply brief, appellant invokes the Minnesota Multiparty Account Act, stating
that “[a] joint account belongs, during the lifetime of all parties, to the parties in proportion
to the net contributions of each to the sums on deposit, unless there is clear and convincing
evidence of a different intent.” Minn. Stat. § 524.6 -.203 (2020).2 But the stated primary
purpose of the antenuptial agreement is “to alter applicable Minnesota law regarding
property rights,” and both parties agreed in section 6.4 that, in the event of dissolution, they
intended to be bound by its terms. Thus , the antenuptial agreement is itself clear and

2 Neither party mentions this statute in its principal brief; the district court does not mention
it in its opinion . Because “[t]he reply brief must be confined to new matter raised in the
brief of the respondent,” Minn. R. Civ. App. 128.02, subd. 3, this argument is not properly
before the panel. It is addressed in the interest of completeness.
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convincing evidence of an intent different from the intent that joint accounts would belong
to each party in proportion to that party’s contribution to the account. Neither party argued
that the antenuptial agreement was ambiguous or that they did not understand it. 3
The district court did not err by equally dividing the joint accounts pursuant to the
antenuptial agreement.
3. Minn. Stat. § 518.58, subd. 1a
Appellant argues that respondent violated her duty to him imposed by Minn. Stat.
§ 518.58, subd. 1a (providing that parties contemplating dissolution have a fiduciary duty
to each other to refrain from transferring, encumbering, concealing, or disposing of marital
assets except in the usual course of business or for the necessities of life) , when she
deposited a to tal of $2, 775 of her nonmarital assets into the five accounts to make them
joint accounts within the meaning of the antenuptial agreement and did not inform
appellant of these deposits.
The district court concluded that the statute does not apply because “the undisputed
facts show that [respondent] deposited funds into joint accounts titled in both parties’
names . . . [She] didn’t hide the deposits; she made them openly.” The district court found
that respondent’s denial that she made the deposits because she was leaving appellant was
“not credible,” but also concluded that “[i]t matters not whether [respondent] was
considering divorce at the time of [her] deposits” because “[t]he [a]antenuptial [a]greement

3 Appellant argues that, if this court decides sua sponte that the agreement is ambiguous, it
should reverse and remand for the presentation of extrinsic evidence as to the parties’
conduct and intent. But we see no basis for this court to conclude that the agreement is
ambiguous.
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does not contain a provision prohibiting the equal division of a joint account if that account
was contributed to in anticipation of divorce [and t]here is no requirement that the other
party be notified of a deposit into a joint account.”
Appellant argues that this conclusion was “clear error” beca use “[t]he undisputed
evidence makes clear that [respondent] violated her statutory duties to [appellant] by acting
detrimentally to him financially when contemplating divorce.” But the statute does not
prohibit any act detrimental to the other party; it prohibits transferring, encumbering,
concealing, or disposing of marital assets, and appellant has not shown that respondent did
any of those. Moreover, appellant testified that he would have been capable of reviewing
the accounts and seeing respondent’s deposits at any time, but did not do so.
Finally, appellant argues that respondent received a windfall, but the antenuptial
agreement provided that each party retained what that party brought into the marriage and
in the event of dissolution would receive half of any joint property, i.e., property to which
both parties had contributed. Thus, the windfall to which appellant refers was provided by
the antenuptial agreement to which he agreed . Moreover, because the agreement also
provided that each party would retain what that party brought into the marriage, appellant
retained far more than respondent following the dissolution. See In re Marriage of
Marnach, No. A09-0379, 2009 WL 4573847, at *6 (Minn. App . Dec. 8, 2009) (holding
that spouse who, after a 13-month marriage, received one of eight homes, one of three cars,
and $417,000 of the $5,203,000 in assets did not receive a windfall ), rev. denied (Minn.
Feb. 16, 2020).
Affirmed.