North Carolina law views the marital relationship as one of the most confidential of relationships. Therefore, spouses have a heightened duty to be truthful and ethical with each other.
The primary issue in claims for breach of fiduciary duty and fraud between spouses, is whether the confidential relationship still existed at the time of the transaction, or whether the parties were adversaries and thus no longer in a fiduciary relationship.
In the divorce setting, these claims most often arise in the context of one spouse attempting to set aside a separation agreement or for damages related to a party’s failure to disclose assets in the negotiations leading up to the execution of the separation agreement.
