In Louisiana, a couple’s 2016 divorce agreement required an ex-husband to pay his former wife’s fuel and health insurance expenses; a court upheld the obligations after her remarriage and rejected her claim to half of a property sold for $500,000A Louisiana appeals court has upheld a 2016 agreement that a former couple made, ruling that an ex-husband’s contractual obligations to pay his former wife’s fuel and health insurance expenses did not automatically end when she remarried. The Third Circuit Court of Appeal issued its written opinion on October 30, 2026. It affirmed the trial court’s 2025 judgment in full. The same court rejected the woman’s claim to half the money from a house her ex-husband’s company later sold.
The divorce and agreements
The Louisiana couple married in 1994. The marriage lasted for 22 years, and they divorced in 2016. Following the divorce, the former couple signed a court-approved agreement that divided some of their property.Under that agreement, the woman could use of a 2014 Jeep and a 2015 Cadillac. She agreed to pay for their upkeep and insurance. Her ex-husband agreed to pay for her gas and to keep her on his health insurance. The gas promise went beyond those two cars. It covered “any other vehicles” she might use. A year after the divorce, the former couple signed a broader agreement. It said they would split equally any money from selling a house in Lake Charles. It said nothing about gas or health insurance.In Dec. 2017, a a quitclaim deed moved the house from a company owned by the woman to a company owned by her former husband. The woman’s attorney drafted the deed. It said the transfer was meant to carry out what the couple had agreed to. It did not say the sale money would be shared.In October 2022, the husband’s company sold the house to a third party for $500,000, according to the court’s opinion.After the sale, the woman went back to court, and asked the judge to cancel the deed and give her half the sale money. She also said that her former husband had stopped paying for her health insurance in March 2021. He stopped paying the gas payments in September 2022, three days after Amanda remarried. He then asked the court to stop his payments, saying her remarriage ended his obligation. A hearing officer agreed, recommending he pay $6,716.09 in past-due costs. In 2025, the trial judge ruled that the deed was valid. The judge also found that the payment terms were contract promises, not spousal support.Both sides appealed. The woman argued that the deed was a sham, but the and the appeals court disagreed. It said the deed’s words were clear, and judges may not read in between the lines. What’s written in the agreement matters, than what the parties meant. The court also said a sale is not a sham when something of value changes hands, even if no cash does. Here, the deal included avoiding a lawsuit and the benefits set out in the 2017 agreement. The woman’s claim that she still used the house also failed. The court said the record was thin. She used the property only with her ex husband’s permission, and she did not pay taxes or improvements.Now the question is about the gas charges and health insurance. Were those payments part of spousal support? This question matters, because state law usually ends support when the person receiving it remarries. However, in this case, the court observed, they were not. State support rules apply to support a judge’s orders. These payments came from an agreement the couple made themselves. Their agreement does not mention an end date. The court said that did not change the result. Courts generally enforce deals that parties freely make, even if one side later regrets them.The appeals court found no clear error in the trial judge’s decision and refused to end the ex husband’s payments. As the payments were contractual obligations, not spousal support, the court did not consider his separate argument about remarriage. Both sides will share the appeal costs equally. Either party may also ask the court to rehear the case within the time allowed by Louisiana law.