Alamin v. Alamin
| Decision Date | 25 October 2022 |
| Docket Number | WD84813 |
| Parties | MUSTAFA Q. ALAMIN, Respondent, v. LIKITA N. ALAMIN, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF JACKSON COUNTY, MISSOURI THE HONORABLE JANETTE K. RODECAP, JUDGE
W Douglas Thomson, Presiding Judge, Alok Ahuja, Judge and Edward R. Ardini, Jr., Judge
Likita Alamin ("Mother") appeals the judgment of the Circuit Court of Jackson County denying her Motion for Revival of Judgment. Mother and Respondent Mustafa Alamin ("Father") were divorced in 2001. The 2001 dissolution judgment divided their marital property, awarded Mother custody of their three children, and ordered Father to pay monthly child support and maintenance to Mother. In 2021 Mother filed her Motion for Revival of Judgment. The trial court denied her motion as untimely. For the reasons stated below, we affirm.
Mother and Father were married and had three children, born in 1983 1988, and 1994. On July 16, 2001, the trial court entered a Decree of Dissolution dissolving Mother and Father's marriage.[1] On August 6, 2001, the trial court entered an Order Nunc Pro Tunc for Decree of Dissolution of Marriage (hereinafter the "Dissolution Judgment"). As relevant to this appeal, the Dissolution Judgment ordered that Mother shall have sole custody of the three children Father shall pay Mother modifiable maintenance in the amount of $800 per month, and Father shall pay Mother child support in the amount of $1,062 per month until "emancipation, majority or further order of the Court." The Dissolution Judgment also ordered that Mother and Father share equally "all of the medical and dental costs associated with the children not paid by health insurance" and "all costs associated with the children's college education[.]"
Additionally, the Dissolution Judgment divided Mother and Father's marital property, including several pieces of real property, and ordered Father pay Mother arrearages in child support and maintenance from 1999 to 2001 at the rate of $200 per month, "the sum of $500.00 for damaged and destroyed paint and building materials, purchased by [Mother]," and Mother's attorney's fees. As to the latter, the Dissolution Judgment provided that Mother's attorney was "given a judgment in the amount of $5,550.00."
In August 2007, Father filed a Motion to Modify Child Support and Maintenance.[2] In April 2008, the trial court entered a Judgment of Modification of Child Support, finding the oldest child was 24 years old and "no longer entitled to receive child support." As a result, the trial court reduced Father's monthly child support obligation. The trial court also denied Father's request to terminate maintenance, finding Mother's circumstances had not changed. The judgment of modification provided that "[i]n all other respects the Court's prior orders remain in full force and effect."
In August 2010, Father filed another Motion to Modify Child Support and Terminate Maintenance. On June 7, 2011, the trial court entered its Judgment, and on June 27, 2011, the trial court entered an Amended Judgment. The trial court found that Mother and Father's second child was "emancipated by operation of law effective" May 26, 2009, and, as a result, the trial court reduced Father's monthly child support obligation. The trial court denied Father's request to terminate maintenance, finding he had failed to prove that Mother had remarried or established a relationship that constitutes a substitute for marriage. The Amended Judgment provided that "[i]n all other respects, the prior orders remain in effect."
In November 2020, Father filed two motions: a Motion to Termi[nate] Maintenance or in the Alternative to Modify Maintenance, and a Motion to Terminate Income Withholding Order. Mother filed responses in May 2021, and the trial court subsequently conducted a trial on the motions. In October 2021, Father's motions were granted. The trial court terminated Father's monthly maintenance obligation effective February 1, 2021. The trial court also entered judgment in favor of Father in the amount of $65,458.54 ($63,058.54 in overpaid maintenance paid pursuant to a 2016 Income Withholding Order unilaterally initiated by Mother, plus $2,400 in overpaid maintenance from February 2021 through April 2021). Mother separately appealed that judgment to this Court.
Meanwhile, on June 7, 2021, Mother filed a Motion for Revival of Judgment pursuant to Rule 74.09, seeking to revive the 2001 Dissolution Judgment and contending "several of the Court's orders in the [2001] judgment remain unsatisfied." As discussed more fully in our analysis, generally there is a statutory presumption that judgments have been paid and satisfied after ten years unless the judgment has been revived. See § 516.350.1, RSMo.[3] Rule 74.09 provides that "[a] judgment may be revived by order of the court that entered it pursuant to a motion for revival filed by a judgment creditor within ten years after entry of the judgment, the last payment of record, or the last prior revival of the judgment." Rule 74.09(a). In her motion to revive, Mother asserted that the "original 2001 order was revived in 2011 by the Court's Amended Judgment entered on June 27, 2011, on [Father's] Motion to Modify." Mother requested the trial court issue an order directing Father to show cause why the Dissolution Judgment should not be revived.
Father filed a response to the motion, denying that the 2011 Amended Judgment revived the 2001 Dissolution Judgment, and asserting Mother's motion was untimely as it was filed almost twenty years after the entry of the 2001 Dissolution Judgment. The trial court issued an order directing Father to appear on July 8, 2021, and show cause why the Dissolution Judgment should not be revived. See Rule 74.09(b) ("Upon the filing of a motion of revival of a judgment, an order shall issue to the judgment debtor to show cause on a day certain why such judgment should not be revived.").
On July 6, 2021, Mother filed a Motion for Contempt, and on July 8th she filed an amended motion. In her amended motion, she asserted Father had failed to comply with various aspects of the 2001 Dissolution Judgment. She requested the trial court find Father in contempt, order he fully comply with all court orders, "reduc[e] all sums due to Judgment," enter judgment in favor of Mother for said sums, and award Mother statutory interest, attorney's fees, and costs.
Also on July 8th, the parties appeared for the show cause hearing on Mother's Motion for Revival of Judgment. At the outset of the hearing, the following exchange occurred:
The parties proceeded to present legal argument on the timeliness of Mother's motion to revive.
The following day, during a telephone conference, the trial court announced its decision to deny Mother's motion for revival, and on July 15, 2021, the trial court entered its judgment, from which Mother appeals. In the judgment, the trial court made the following findings:
Mother raises two points on appeal. In Point I, she asserts that the trial court erred in denying her Motion for Revival of Judgment as untimely. In Point II, she asserts that Father failed to carry his burden of proof, in that he did not "present any evidence during the show cause hearing as to why the judgment should not be revived."
Before addressing Mother's arguments, we set forth the basic law governing revival of judgments. Section 516.350 creates a presumption that judgments are paid and satisfied after ten years, with certain exceptions. In re Boland, 155 S.W.3d 65, 67 (Mo. banc 2005); see also Hanff v Hanff, 987 S.W.2d 352, 356 (Mo. App. E.D. 1998) ("Absent timely revival, section 516.350 plainly forbids the enforcement of judgments over ten years old by conclusively presuming the judgments have been paid"). "A judgment is not enforceable after it is presumed to be paid under section 516.350 because the statute 'wipes out or cancels the debt itself' and 'extinguishes the right of action.'" In re Estate of Miller, 264 S.W.3d 664, 667 (Mo. App. E.D. 2008) (quoting Hanff, 987 S.W.2d at 356).
Subsection 1 of 516.350 sets forth the ten-year presumption, carves out an exception for certain types of judgments relating to marriage dissolution (in italics), and provides that...
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