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terminate automatically at her death),13 subject to respondent’s
relevance objection.
c. Respondent’s Relevance Objection
Evidence is relevant (and therefore generally admissible) if
it has any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of
consequence to the determination of the action more probable or
less probable than it would be without the evidence. Fed. R.
Evid. 401 and 402. If, however, the relevance of the evidence in
question depends on the existence of some other fact, then the
admissibility of such “conditionally relevant” evidence itself
depends on the introduction of evidence sufficient to support a
finding of the existence of that other fact. See Fed. R. Evid.
104(b) and advisory committee’s note.
The ultimate factual issue in this case is whether
petitioner and Carmen intended the family support payments to
terminate automatically at Carmen’s death. Petitioner’s exhibits
5 and 12 certainly tend to increase the factual likelihood that
he and Carmen intended the payments to qualify as alimony for
13 We note that we would reach a different conclusion if the
California Family Code required that any such understanding be in
writing. See In re Marriage of Trearse, 241 Cal. Rptr. 257, 259
(Ct. App. 1987) (“A limitation on the admissibility of extrinsic
evidence to prove the intent of the parties to a marital
settlement agreement has been recognized where a statute requires
the parties to the agreement to state certain matters
specifically in writing.”); cf. Cal. Fam. Code sec. 4337 (West
2004), discussed infra (any agreement that a spousal support
obligation will not terminate upon the death of the payee spouse
must be in writing).
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