Brown v. Brown
Brown v. Brown
Opinion of the Court
Appellant Wife appeals an adverse judgment in an action for contempt. The record shows Wife and appellee Husband were divorced on June 20, 2011. Neither party was represented by counsel during the divorce. The final divorce decree is a perfunctory, one-page form document which incorporates a form separation agreement that was signed by both parties and notarized. Husband testified he obtained the form documents from the Internet. The separation agreement is not fully filled in and/or marked where appropriate;
Upon the finalization of their divorce, Husband made his alimony and child support payments by depositing the money into a joint bank account accessible by both parties. Husband testified he made withdrawals from the account to pay the mortgage on the marital home.
Wife filed the instant contempt action on May 15, 2015,
Wife’s main assertion of error is that Husband should have been held in wilful contempt because he failed to pay the alimony and the child support payments to her directly, but rather deposited the payments into the parties’ joint bank account. This argument was rejected by the trial court, and we discern no error. “Trial courts have ‘broad discretion’ in ruling on a motion for contempt, and the trial court’s ruling will be affirmed on appeal if there is any evidence in the record to support it.” (Citations omitted.) Killingsworth v. Killingsworth, 286 Ga. 234 (3) (686 SE2d 640) (2009). Neither the divorce decree nor the separation agreement prohibited Husband from depositing his alimony and child support payments into a joint bank account. In fact, both documents are silent as to the manner by which the payments are to be made. Furthermore, Wife admitted she had
It appears the parties made informal agreements outside of the divorce decree and separation agreement as to how the money in the joint account would be spent — i.e., using the money to pay the mortgage on the marital home.
The trial court did err, however, when it extinguished Husband’s child support obligation. Atrial court cannot modify a divorce decree in a contempt action, whether or not the trial court holds a spouse in contempt. See Killingsworth, 286 Ga. at 236 (2) (“[A] trial court has no power to modify the terms of a divorce decree in a contempt proceeding.”). See also Pollard v. Pollard, 297 Ga. 21, 22 (771 SE2d 875) (2015) (“It is well settled that a court may not modify a divorce decree in a contempt order. . . .”). Therefore, that portion of the trial court’s judgment is reversed.
Judgment affirmed in part and reversed in part.
Numerous times in the document, there is a selection indicated as “[Husband/Wife],” but a selection is not made.
The parties have conceded that it is Husband who is required to make the alimony and child support payments to Wife.
While documents in the record show Husband made withdrawals from the joint account, there is no documentation showing said withdrawals were used to pay the mortgage, although Husband testified as such.
There is no evidence in the record as to when Husband stopped paying the mortgage on the marital home.
Wife filed an amendment to her motion for contempt on May 29, 2015. The trial court held a hearing on the motion, as amended, on June 4, 2015.
Nothing in the parties’ divorce decree or separation agreement required Husband to pay the mortgage on the marital home. The two-page typed document, which was not part of the final decree, merely stated an aspiration of the parties that they wanted to maintain the marital home until it could be sold in a favorable housing market. Wife lived in the house for almost four years before it was foreclosed.
Thus the trial court did not err when it did not award Wife the expenses or “consequential damages” she incurred upon being evicted from the marital home.
We accordingly affirm the trial court’s denial of an award of attorney fees.
Reference
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- BROWN v. BROWN
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