Ventling v. Johnson
| Decision Date | 08 May 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 14–0095,14–0095 |
| Parties | Wayne Ventling, Petitioner, v. Patricia M. Johnson, Respondent |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Audrey Mullert Vicknair, Law Office of Audrey Mullert Vicknair, William A. Dudley, Law Office of William A. Dudley, P.C., Corpus Christi, for Petitioner.
Bernard Lee Shub, The Law Office of Bernard L. Shub, Jr., Lisa Horvath Shub, Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP, Thomas H. Crofts Jr., Crofts & Callaway, P.C., San Antonio, for Respondent.
A dispute over an agreed divorce decree has spawned eighteen years (and counting) of litigation and an accompanying procedural quagmire. Wayne Ventling initiated divorce proceedings in 1995, seeking to end a common-law marriage to Patricia Johnson. After entering into an agreement that included contractual alimony payments to Johnson, Ventling took the position that he and Johnson had in fact never been married and that his contractual obligations were therefore invalid. The ensuing litigation, commenced in 1997, is now on its third appeal.1 The remaining issues are (1) when postjudgment interest began accruing in light of the multiple appeals, (2) whether the trial court improperly denied Johnson both prejudgment and postjudgment interest for a portion of the proceedings, and (3) whether the trial court erred in denying Johnson's request for conditional appellate attorney's fees.
After carefully reviewing the record, we hold: (1) June 16, 2009 is the date of the final judgment for purposes of calculating prejudgment and postjudgment interest on the award of damages on Johnson's underlying claim; (2) March 21, 2012 is the date of the final judgment for purposes of calculating postjudgment interest on the severable award of past attorney's fees; (3) the trial court erred in creating a gap between the accrual of prejudgment and postjudgment interest; and (4) the trial court erred in denying Johnson's request for conditional appellate attorney's fees because Johnson was a prevailing party and submitted evidence of such fees. Accordingly, we affirm the court of appeals' judgment in part, reverse it in part, and remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings.
In January 1995, Ventling filed for divorce from Johnson, claiming that they had a common-law marriage. In April of that year, the trial court signed a Final Decree of Divorce in which the parties agreed to a property division. The decree ordered a division of the marital estate, which required Ventling to pay Johnson a $25,537 lump sum plus a total of $210,000 in contractual alimony in eighty-four monthly installments. In July 1997, Ventling stopped making the monthly payments, resulting in litigation that continues to this day.
Johnson filed an enforcement motion in September 1997, seeking a judgment for the $25,537 lump-sum payment awarded in the decree, as well as $7,500 in past-due alimony and the accelerated $135,000 remaining balance (for a total of $142,500 in alimony), plus interest, attorney's fees, and costs. Ventling answered with a general denial and raised the affirmative defenses of fraud, accident, mistake, collateral estoppel, and judicial estoppel. He also moved to nonsuit his original petition for divorce from 1995, sought rescission of the parties' agreement, and requested that the trial court vacate the divorce decree. On January 9, 1998, the trial court denied Johnson's enforcement motion but granted Johnson's request for attorney's fees and ordered the parties to mediate their dispute. Johnson did not appeal this order.
Mediation proved unsuccessful, and in August 1999 Johnson moved for summary judgment on her enforcement motion. Ventling's response largely mirrored his previous response to the enforcement motion, and he again moved to nonsuit his divorce petition.2 The trial court denied Johnson's summary-judgment motion and granted Ventling's motion for nonsuit. On July 25, 2001, the trial court signed a final judgment denying all relief requested by Johnson, including her enforcement motion. The court found that Ventling and Johnson were never married,3 concluded that the agreed divorce decree was an interlocutory order subject to the court's plenary power, and vacated the decree. The court also awarded Ventling attorney's fees. Following an unsuccessful attempt to modify the judgment, Johnson appealed.
On April 1, 2004, the court of appeals concluded in Johnson I that the 1995 divorce decree was a final judgment, that the trial court's plenary power expired thirty days after the court signed the decree, and that Ventling's challenge to its enforceability was an impermissible collateral attack. 132 S.W.3d at 178–79. Therefore, the court of appeals held that the trial court had no authority to modify the original disposition of property by vacating the decree. Id. at 179. Because the trial court lacked jurisdiction to vacate the decree, the court of appeals held that the 2001 judgment was void and dismissed the appeal for want of jurisdiction. Id. The court of appeals noted that the trial court “[a]rguably” had jurisdiction to deny Johnson's enforcement motion, but declined to reach the merits of Johnson's challenge to that denial. Id. at 179 n.4.
In April 2005, a year after the court of appeals dismissed the appeal in Johnson I, Johnson filed suit in Iowa, where Ventling resided, to domesticate the Texas decree in an attempt to collect on the judgment in Iowa. Almost two years later, in January 2007,4 the Iowa court ruled that the agreed alimony had not been reduced to a final judgment that could be enforced in Iowa, granting Ventling a stay as to these amounts. However, the Iowa court allowed enforcement of the part of the decree that awarded Johnson the $25,537 lump sum.
In October 2007, Johnson renewed her enforcement motion in Texas in an effort to reduce the unpaid $142,500 in contractual alimony to a final, enforceable judgment. She also requested postjudgment interest dating back to August 1997, as well as damages for adverse tax consequences and attorney's fees. Ventling asserted defenses of fraud, accident, mistake, estoppel, illegality, res judicata, statute of limitations, failure of consideration, and statute of frauds.
On June 16, 2009, the trial court rendered judgment denying all relief requested by Johnson. The court found that the 1995 decree was not void but that its alimony provision was unenforceable. Johnson again appealed, arguing that the contractual alimony provision was enforceable and that she was entitled to judgment on the amount of alimony due ($142,500), as well as interest and attorney's fees.5
On October 21, 2010, the court of appeals reversed, holding that, because the decree was not void and the contractual alimony terms were incorporated into the judgment of divorce, those provisions were binding on the parties. Johnson II, 2010 WL 4156459, at *6–7. The court of appeals remanded the case to the trial court, instructing it to grant Johnson's enforcement motion and award her (1) $142,500 in unpaid contractual alimony, (2) appropriate prejudgment interest, and (3) reasonable attorney's fees and court costs. Id. at *1, *7.
Following the court of appeals' decision in Johnson II, Johnson moved the trial court for an award of: (1) $145,935.62, consisting of the $142,500 in unpaid contractual alimony and $3,435.62 in prejudgment interest accruing on that amount from September 23, 1997 (the date Johnson asserted that she initially moved to enforce the decree)6 until December 19, 1997 (the date the trial court held its initial hearing on the enforcement motion); (2) postjudgment interest accruing on the $142,500 from December 20, 1997 until the judgment was satisfied; (3) past attorney's fees ($250,402.09) and costs ($6,970.61), plus postjudgment interest on those amounts; and (4) conditional attorney's fees in the event of a third appeal. Ventling stipulated to the $3,435.62 in prejudgment interest, but disputed Johnson's entitlement to postjudgment interest, arguing that the court of appeals had instructed the trial court to award only prejudgment interest and that postjudgment interest was available only once an actual judgment was rendered in Johnson's favor. Ventling also disputed the amount of the requested attorney's fees.
The trial court held a hearing on Johnson's claims for attorney's fees and costs, which included testimony regarding the requested conditional appellate fees. On February 21, 2012, the trial court rendered judgment granting Johnson's enforcement motion and awarding Johnson (1) $142,500 in unpaid contractual alimony, (2) $3,435.62 in prejudgment interest, (3) $70,275 in past attorney's fees, (4) $20 in court costs, and (5) postjudgment interest accruing at a rate of six percent on the entire amount from February 21, 2012.7 One month later, on March 21, 2012, the trial court signed an amended judgment, which was identical to the February 21 judgment except that the postjudgment interest rate was adjusted from six percent to five percent. The trial court agreed with Ventling that retroactive postjudgment interest was precluded under the court of appeals' opinion. After Johnson unsuccessfully moved the trial court to further modify its judgment, this appeal—her third—followed.8
In the court of appeals, Johnson argued that the trial court erred in its award of interest, attorney's fees, and costs. Johnson III, 462 S.W.3d at 95. On December 19, 2013, the court of appeals affirmed the trial court's judgment as to past attorney's fees and costs, but reversed as to the judgment's failure to award retroactive postjudgment interest on the alimony award or conditional appellate fees. Id. at 95....
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