Patricia Mae Voter v. Dexter R. Voter

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT Reporter of Decisions
Decision: 2015 ME 11
Docket: Pis-14-72
Submitted
On Briefs: October 27, 2014
Decided: January 29, 2015
Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, JABAR, and HJELM, JJ.*
PATRICIA MAE VOTER
v.
DEXTER R. VOTER
HJELM, J.
[¶1] When Patricia Mae Voter and Dexter R. Voter divorced in 2006 after
twenty-seven years of marriage, the divorce judgment required Dexter to pay
Patricia general spousal support of $1,300 per month until he retired, when the
amount of support would become “1/2 of his retirement earnings.” After Dexter
retired in 2013, he filed a post-judgment motion to modify the amount of his
spousal support obligation. The District Court (Dover-Foxcroft, Stitham, J.) issued
an order clarifying the meaning of “retirement earnings,” and then, after a
testimonial hearing, denied the motion to modify. Dexter appeals those orders, and
we affirm.
*
Silver, J., participated in the initial conference but retired before this opinion was adopted.
2
I. BACKGROUND
[¶2] Patricia and Dexter’s divorce in October 2006 was uncontested. The
divorce judgment made reference to the parties’ written settlement agreement,
which provided for spousal support and the disposition of real and personal
property. The judgment required Dexter to pay spousal support as follows:
The Defendant [Dexter] shall pay the Plaintiff [Patricia] as
general spousal support $1,300.00 a month starting 10/15/06 and the
15th of each month thereafter until the first of the following to occur:
1. the Plaintiff re-marries, or;
2. the Defendant retires.
In the event that on the date that the Defendant retires the
Plaintiff has not re-married, then the Defendant shall on a monthly
basis, pay the Plaintiff as general spousal support 1/2 of his retirement
earnings until the Plaintiff re-marries.
Patricia has not remarried and therefore remains entitled to receive support
pursuant to the judgment.
[¶3] Dexter was employed by the United States Postal Service (USPS) until
he became disabled and stopped working in April 2013. He then began to receive
Social Security Disability (SSD) benefits and retirement benefits from the USPS.
Additionally, he receives retirement benefits from the United States Air Force
(USAF) and rental income from a house he owns, which is occupied by the son of
his present wife. He also expects to receive Social Security benefits when he
reaches the age of sixty-five.
3
[¶4] In May 2013, Dexter filed a motion to modify the amount of his
spousal support obligation pursuant to 19-A M.R.S. § 951(4) (2014), alleging a
change of circumstances because he is no longer employed. At a case management
conference on the motion, both parties agreed that the court would issue an order
clarifying the term “retirement earnings” as it appears in the judgment. In
October 2013, a non-testimonial hearing was held, where Dexter contended that
only money earned during retirement, such as the rental income, should be
considered “retirement earnings,” while Patricia argued that spousal support should
be based on all categories of income that Dexter received during retirement,
including his SSD benefits and his USPS and USAF retirement benefits. The court
issued a written order clarifying the judgment by defining “retired” and “retirement
earnings,” as used in the judgment, as follows:
The Defendant shall be considered to be retired when he ceases to be
regularly employed for whatever reason.
Retirement earnings consist of all monies paid to or received by the
Defendant. This would include but not be limited to: his Social
Security, Social Security disability, postal retirement, military
retirement, rental income, and monies received for any of his labor.
[¶5] In January 2014, a testimonial hearing was held on Dexter’s motion to
modify. There, Dexter argued that his support obligation should either be
4
terminated altogether or reduced to a monthly payment of $700.1 Following the
hearing, the court issued a written decision denying Dexter’s motion. The court
found that Patricia’s annual income, including the spousal support that Dexter was
required to pay, was approximately $29,000 and that without spousal support, her
only source of income was Social Security, which amounted to less than $9,000
annually. At the time of the hearing, she was seventy-five years old and lived in
subsidized housing for the elderly. Dexter, who was sixty-two years old at the
time of the hearing, received more than $51,000 annually from retirement and
disability benefits and rental income. He had remarried, and his new wife received
annual retirement benefits of $20,000. The court concluded that the amount of
spousal support required by the judgment was both necessary to maintain a
“reasonable standard of living” for Patricia and within Dexter’s financial
capability.
1
The record does not reveal why Dexter argued that support should be reduced to this particular
amount as an alternative to termination of support.
5
[¶6] Dexter filed a timely appeal from the court’s order.2 He contends that
the court erred by construing “retirement earnings” too broadly and by denying his
motion to modify his support obligation.3
II. DISCUSSION
A. Clarification of the Judgment
[¶7] Dexter first argues that the court erred by clarifying the spousal support
provisions of the judgment and, as part of that clarification, by construing
“retirement earnings” to include income in addition to his USPS and USAF
retirement benefits.4
2
Patricia argues that Dexter’s appeal was untimely because it was not filed within 21 days of the date
the court issued its clarification order. See M.R. App. P. 2(b)(3). The parties, however, treated the
clarification issue as a component of the motion to modify. Consequently, an appeal from the
clarification order would have been interlocutory because the motion to modify had not been fully
adjudicated. See M.R. Civ. P. 54(b)(1).
3
After the court denied Dexter’s motion to modify, Patricia filed a motion to enforce the support
obligation. Following a hearing held in May 2014, the court granted the motion, finding that Dexter was
in arrears “simply [because of] his failing to budget realistically” and “choices that needlessly impair his
ability to keep current” in the support payments owed to Patricia. The court entered judgment against
Dexter for the amount of the arrearage and attorney fees, and ordered that income be withheld from his
SSD benefits and his USAF and USPS retirement payments. Dexter has not appealed that order.
4
This appears to be a different argument than the one Dexter made to the trial court. There, Dexter
argued that only money actually earned during retirement (i.e. his rental income) should be considered
“retirement earnings,” but then said “at the very height” the definition might also include his USPS
retirement benefits. On appeal, he argues that the trial court erroneously expanded the definition of
“retirement earnings” to include Social Security benefits, rental income, and labor, rather than just income
that he had “coming to him from his various retirement plans and pensions.” Therefore, because he has
changed his position regarding whether his rental income, income from other labor, and USPS and USAF
benefits should be included in the definition of retirement earnings, his only consistent argument is that
Social Security benefits should be excluded from that term. Because we affirm the court’s clarification
order on its merits, however, we need not reach the question of whether Dexter preserved his argument
that income and benefits other than Social Security should be excluded from the definition of “retirement
earnings.”
6
[¶8] In order to determine whether the court’s clarification of the divorce
judgment was erroneous, we use a two-part test. First, we determine “whether the
prior judgment was ambiguous as a matter of law.” Thompson v. Rothman,
2002 ME 39, ¶ 6, 791 A.2d 921 (quotation marks omitted). This is a de novo
determination that centers on whether the language at issue is “reasonably
susceptible to different interpretations.” Burnell v. Burnell, 2012 ME 24, ¶ 6,
40 A.3d 390 (quotation marks omitted). If the judgment is ambiguous, then “the
court has the inherent and continuing authority” to clarify the judgment,
MacDonald v. MacDonald, 582 A.2d 976, 977 (Me. 1990), and we consider, using
an abuse of discretion standard, whether the clarification “is consistent with its
language read as a whole and is objectively supported by the record.” Thompson,
2002 ME 39, ¶¶ 6-7, 791 A.2d 921. Where, as here, the judge who clarified the
judgment is also the judge who initially issued the judgment, we give particular
deference to the clarification because “it is the intention of the court that issued the
judgment originally that is controlling.” Id. ¶ 8.
[¶9] Here, for two reasons, the court did not err in issuing the order
clarifying the judgment. First, because Dexter agreed that the court should issue an
order clarifying the meaning of “retirement earnings,” he has waived his contrary
argument that it was improper for the court to issue an order of clarification. See
Foster v. Oral Surgery Assocs., P.A., 2008 ME 21, ¶ 22, 940 A.2d 1102.
7
[¶10] Second, a de novo examination of the phrase “retirement earnings”
reveals that it is ambiguous. That language can reasonably be construed to mean
all income that Dexter receives during retirement, regardless of its source or the
reason why he is entitled to receive it. Alternatively, it could mean a smaller
universe of benefits, such as benefits that Dexter receives because of his past
employment. Even that more narrow view of “retirement earnings” is ambiguous
because, in addition to retirement benefits paid through Dexter’s former
employers, it may or may not include governmental benefits such as Social
Security, which are also based on Dexter’s employment history. We therefore
conclude that the language in the judgment is ambiguous as a matter of law and
that the court did not err by clarifying that language.
[¶11] The court’s construction of the term “retirement earnings” to mean
“all money paid to or received by” Dexter following his retirement, including SSD
and rental income, was also not erroneous.
[¶12] The court’s order did not set out its analysis or findings of fact, but
because neither party moved for the issuance of findings or conclusions, we
assume that the court made the findings and conclusions necessary to support its
decision. See Ezell v. Lawless, 2008 ME 139, ¶ 23, 955 A.2d 202. The spousal
support ordered in the judgment was clearly intended to be general support,
because its evident purpose was “to provide financial assistance to a spouse with
8
substantially less income potential than the other spouse so that both spouses can
maintain a reasonable standard of living after the divorce.” 19-A M.R.S.
§ 951-A(2)(A) (2014); see also Miele v. Miele, 2003 ME 113, ¶ 10, 832 A.2d 760
(holding that the purpose of general spousal support is “to provide maintenance
and support for the future needs of the payee spouse” (quotation marks omitted)).
Indeed, in its order denying the motion to modify, the court confirmed that the
purpose of spousal support in this case was to allow Patricia “to maintain a
reasonable standard of living which would be comparable to the reasonable
standard of living [Dexter] should be able to arrange to maintain.” Particularly
given the long duration of their marriage, the court’s broad construction of the term
“retirement earnings” is consistent with its original objective, reflected in the
judgment, of providing Patricia with a meaningful amount of ongoing support for
the rest of her life unless and until she were to remarry.
[¶13] If the definition of “retirement earnings” were as limited as Dexter
contends, it would exclude significant sources of income that he would become
eligible to receive, and the amount of support that Patricia would receive as a
percentage of Dexter’s total income would be materially reduced following his
retirement. Any such exclusion would artificially deprive Patricia of the material
support necessary to maintain a reasonable standard of living, and it would
disproportionately and unfairly work to Dexter’s financial benefit by protecting
9
certain sources of income from the support calculation. See Sorey v. Sorey,
1998 ME 217, ¶ 13, 718 A.2d 568 (holding that it is proper for the court to
consider “justice or fairness” in determining the amount of spousal support). For
that reason, the court was entitled to conclude that the judgment should not be
construed to exclude from the support calculation several potentially important
sources of income and benefits that Dexter might receive after he retired. The
court’s conclusion is therefore consistent with and supported by the provisions of
the divorce judgment.
[¶14] Additionally, although the question presented here involves spousal
support, some guidance may be drawn from an analogous statute governing child
support, which defines “earnings” in part as
compensation paid or payable for personal services, whether
denominated as wages, salary, commission, bonus or otherwise, and
specifically includes periodic payments pursuant to pension or
retirement programs, or insurance policies of any type, . . . and
unemployment compensation benefits and workers’ compensation
benefits.
19-A M.R.S. § 2101(6) (2014). This statutory definition includes all of the types
of income that the court included in the definition of “retirement earnings.”
[¶15] Contrary to Dexter’s argument, the court did not err by failing to
separately consider the parties’ own intentions about the meaning of “retirement
earnings.” During the conference where the parties addressed the issue of
10
clarification, Dexter did not request an opportunity to present evidence on that
issue. Further, any such request would have been futile because in construing a
judgment, even one that is predicated on the parties’ written settlement agreement,
the dispositive inquiry is the court’s intention and not that of the parties. See
Wardwell v. Wardwell, 458 A.2d 750, 752 (Me. 1983). Here, particularly because
the same judge issued and then clarified the original judgment, the court properly
examined the judgment on its own terms without considering the parties’ intent.
See Thompson, 2002 ME 39, ¶ 8, 791 A.2d 921.
[¶16] Dexter also argues that the court’s construction of the phrase
“retirement earnings” constitutes a material alteration of the original support order
and is therefore erroneous. The court’s clarification, however, was not a change to
the spousal support provision of the judgment; it merely clarified the meaning of
that provision to make it more precise. Consequently, it did not exceed the scope
of the court’s authority. Cf. Corcoran v. Marie, 2011 ME 14, ¶ 17, 12 A.3d 71.
[¶17] Therefore, the court did not err when it clarified the spousal support
provisions of its own judgment, because the clarification was consistent with the
judgment as a whole and supported by the record.
B. Denial of Motion to Modify
[¶18] Dexter next argues that the court erred in denying his motion to
modify. We review the denial of a motion to modify spousal support for an abuse
11
of discretion and consider “(1) whether factual findings, if any, are supported by
the record pursuant to the clear error standard; (2) whether the court understood the
law applicable to its exercise of discretion; and (3) given the facts and applying the
law, whether the court weighed the applicable facts and made choices within the
bounds of reasonableness.” McAllister v. McAllister, 2011 ME 69, ¶ 11,
21 A.3d 1010 (quotation marks omitted); see also Day v. Day, 1998 ME 194, ¶ 5,
717 A.2d 914 (“Absent a violation of some positive rule of law, we will overturn
the trial court’s decision of whether to modify spousal support only if it results in a
plain and unmistakable injustice . . . .”). A party who seeks a modification of
spousal support must prove that the modification is justified based on a showing of
“a substantial change in either the payor or payee spouse’s financial condition.”
Charette v. Charette, 2013 ME 4, ¶ 7, 60 A.3d 1264 (quotation marks omitted).
The “baseline” against which those changes are measured “includes whatever
future circumstances were both foreseen and probably provided for in the amount
of alimony already set.” Klopp v. Klopp, 598 A.2d 462, 464 (Me. 1991). The
court’s decision to deny Dexter’s motion was fully consistent with these principles
for several reasons.
[¶19] First, the court found that any economic changes caused by Dexter’s
retirement were anticipated at the time of the divorce because, pursuant to the
parties’ agreement, the amount of Dexter’s post-retirement support payments to
12
Patricia was expressly tied to the amount of money he would receive after he
retired. Further, the amount of the post-retirement support payments was not an
absolute dollar figure but rather a percentage of his retirement earnings, which
would automatically accommodate changes in his financial circumstances.
Therefore, the terms of the judgment already anticipated the change on which
Dexter based his motion. Cf. McAllister, 2011 ME 69, ¶¶ 14-15, 21 A.3d 1010
(finding a substantial change in circumstances where there was an unanticipated
drop in the value of marital property).
[¶20] Second, the court did not commit clear error in finding that Dexter
can afford to pay the current amount of spousal support. The court was presented
with evidence that, except for the amount of his spousal support obligation,
Dexter’s expenditures did not change after he retired. Further, he purchased a new
vehicle several months prior to the hearing; he budgets $200 per month for
recreation and vacation expenses; and in 2013 he paid for vacations to Las Vegas
and South Carolina. The court also noted that Dexter’s current wife receives
annual retirement benefits of $20,000.5 Therefore, although Dexter’s annual
income and benefits dropped from $64,000 at the time of the divorce to
approximately $51,000 at the time of the motion hearing, the court did not commit
5
Dexter argued that his current wife’s income was not relevant (although he nonetheless was willing
to argue that his support obligation should be reduced because of expenses attributable to her). However,
the court properly considered his current wife’s financial circumstances as they bear on his own ability to
pay support to Patricia. See Sorey v. Sorey, 1998 ME 217, ¶ 12, 718 A.2d 568.
13
clear error in finding that Dexter could maintain a reasonable standard of living
while still paying the amount of spousal support required by the judgment.
[¶21] Finally, the court did not err when it concluded that Patricia’s need for
spousal support had not diminished. Patricia’s financial statement, see
M.R. Civ. P. 108(c), revealed that, without spousal support, her annual income
would be less than $9,000. Even while receiving spousal support from Dexter, she
qualified for subsidized housing.
[¶22] The court considered Dexter’s allegation that although Patricia had
not remarried after the divorce, she became involved in a relationship that was the
functional equivalent of marriage,6 warranting a termination of spousal support
pursuant to 19-A M.R.S. § 951-A(12) (2014).7 The court found that although
Patricia shared a residence and housing expenses with a friend for a period of time
after the divorce, she entered into that arrangement so that she could “get by”
financially, and the relationship was not the functional equivalent of marriage.
6
Dexter’s written motion to modify was based only on an allegation that his financial circumstances
had changed after the divorce. After 19-A M.R.S. § 951-A(12) (2014) went into effect, see P.L. 2013,
ch. 327, § 2 (effective October 9, 2013), he argued that his spousal support obligation also should be
terminated or reduced because, after their marriage, Patricia had lived with another person.
7
Title 19-A M.R.S. § 951-A(12) provides:
When it appears that justice requires, an order awarding spousal support is subject to
modification to terminate spousal support when it can be shown that the payee and
another person have entered into a mutually supportive relationship that is the functional
equivalent of marriage that has existed for at least 12 months of a period of
18 consecutive months.
14
These findings are not clearly erroneous, and the court did not err when it
concluded that section 951-A(12) did not provide a basis for a modification of
spousal support.
[¶23] The court’s decision to deny Dexter’s motion to modify, based on its
findings regarding the overall financial circumstances of Dexter and Patricia, was
not an abuse of discretion or a “plain and unmistakable injustice.” See Day,
1998 ME 194, ¶ 5, 717 A.2d 914. We therefore affirm.
The entry shall be:
Judgment affirmed.
On the briefs:
Kirk D. Bloomer, Esq., Bangor, for appellant Dexter R. Voter
Benjamin K. Cabot, Esq., C.W. & H.M. Hayes, Dover-Foxcroft, for appellee
Patricia Mae Voter
Dover-Foxcroft District Court docket number FM-2006-86
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY