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Skin Care Guru's Ex-Wife Signed Away Right to Discuss Divorce, Conn. Supreme Court Rules
Justices say confidentiality agreement an acceptable prior restraint on free speech
The Connecticut Law Tribune
June 24, 2009
Establishing a new point of Connecticut case law, the state Supreme Court concluded that private waivers of First Amendment free speech rights are "presumptively enforceable."
Decisions on the validity of such waivers should be made on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the background and abilities of the person waiving the rights, the Supreme Court ruled.
The decision, written by Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers, came in a case involving a multimillionaire skin doctor and his ex-wife, who wanted to talk about their divorce on a television news magazine show.
But Rogers wrote that a confidentiality agreement in which Madeleine Perricone agreed not to talk about her divorce was an acceptable prior restraint on free speech. Even if such waivers don't specifically mention First Amendment rights, they are valid "as long as the waiver was intelligent and voluntary," Rogers wrote.
In November 2005, the New York Post carried a sensational story about the divorce battles of Meriden "cosmeceuticals" magnate Nicholas V. Perricone and his wife.
The skin doctor, author and merchant of $250-an-ounce wrinkle cures, was even more distressed when his ex-wife told him she planned to appear on the TV show, "20/20."
Perricone secured an emergency order Dec. 1, 2005, from Superior Court Judge Julia Dewey prohibiting the interview, and Superior Court Judge Stephen Frazzini held a hearing on the matter two days later.
Madeleine Perricone might have had a lot to say. Beginning in November 2003, the couple had launched one of the most expensive and litigious divorces in Connecticut history. At the start, Madeleine Perricone signed a confidentiality agreement to prevent pretrial discovery documents from being publicized. In it, she agreed that Perricone's lucrative skin care business "may be severely harmed" if she made disparaging or defamatory statements about him.
When the divorce was finalized in 2004, a separation agreement contained an "integration clause" stating that it was the complete final settlement of their respective rights, superseding all prior written agreements between them.
But Frazzini ruled that her 2003 confidentiality agreement bound Madeleine Perricone to keep mum about her divorce forever. It's that ruling that was appealed. In a unanimous decision, Rogers upheld Frazzini, holding that the agreement was not an unconstitutional prior restraint on Madeleine Perricone's free speech rights.
"We're glad the court reached the decision it did," said Dan Krisch, Nicholas Perricone's appellate lawyer from the of the Hartford firm of Horton, Shields & Knox. "It will serve to protect Dr. Perricone's [young] daughter from any further harmful exposure and publicity."
But Madeleine Perricone's lead lawyer, Anne C. Dranginis, of Hartford's Rome McGuigan, said the separation agreement had nothing to do with the well-being of the child. "It was a confidentiality agreement that protected his business," Dranginis said. "[Madeleine Perricone] has no interest in trashing her husband's business."
Instead, said Dranginis, her client wants to talk about her divorce ordeal, and should have the right to do so. "Clearly our client is disappointed because she never thought that she was signing something that would bind her forever about the divorce, and the process that she went through," the attorney said. "She's a citizen who's being denied the opportunity to talk about that process.
