92 A.D.2d 737 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1983
— Order unanimously modified and, as modified, affirmed, with costs to petitioner, in accordance with the following memorandum: After failing to assert his rights for over 14 years, petitioner brought a motion to enforce that part of a 1967 divorce decree which required that respondent execute and deliver to him a deed to their former marital residence. Special Term erred in denying the motion on the grounds that petitioner waived his rights by his inaction and failure to seek enforcement in a prior proceeding, and that he has “unclean hands” because he failed to comply with that part of the decree which required him to provide health insurance. Rights under a decree may be waived (see Axelrad vAxelrad, 285 App Div 903, 904, affd 309 NY 687; Rehill v Rehill, 281 App Div 855, 856, revd on other grounds 306 NY 126), but waiver is not created by “[njegligence, oversight, or thoughtlessness” (21 NY Jur, Estoppel, Ratification, and Waiver, § 95, p 134) and “cannot be inferred from mere silence” (21 NY Jur, Estoppel, Ratification, and Waiver, § 94, p 133; see, also, Morris v Morris, 74 AD2d 490, 493). Although petitioner’s failure to seek prior enforcement may well have been due to negligence and oversight his mere silence and inaction do not signify a surrender of his rights (see O’Connor v