Anderton v. Anderton
| Decision Date | 05 June 1998 |
| Citation | 988 S.W.2d 675 |
| Parties | William Michael ANDERTON, Plaintiff/Appellant, v. Evelyn Adele Morgan ANDERTON, Defendant/Appellee. |
| Court | Tennessee Court of Appeals |
Jack Norman, Jr., Nashville, Tennessee, Thomas F. Bloom, Nashville, Tennessee, for appellant.
Evelyn A. Anderton, pro se.
This is the second appeal concerning a husband's support obligations following the dissolution of a 23-year marriage. The Chancery Court for Williamson County originally directed the husband to pay $1,731 per month in child support and $5,500 per month in spousal support for five years and then $5,000 per month thereafter. On the first appeal, this court remanded the case to the trial court to revisit the child support and spousal support awards. Even though the trial court concluded that the husband's income had decreased significantly, it increased the husband's child support to $2,000 per month and left its original spousal support order unchanged. It also awarded the wife judgments for a sizeable spousal support arrearage and a nominal child support arrearage. On this appeal, the husband again takes issue with the amount of his spousal support and child support obligations and also insists that he is entitled to retroactive relief on his spousal support arrearage and to the lifting of the injunction with regard to his 401k plan. We vacate the child support and spousal support awards and remand them to the trial court for further consideration consistent with this opinion.
William Michael Anderton and Evelyn Adele Morgan Anderton were married in October 1973. Their three children were born between 1977 and 1981. Mr. Anderton worked at various jobs during the early years of the marriage and in 1986 became employed by National Health Laboratories, Inc., a company providing laboratory services for physicians. Mr. and Ms. Anderton also started an Amway distributorship in 1975 that eventually became a substantial source of household income. Ms. Anderton did not have outside employment but rather remained at home to care for the children and the household and to manage their Amway distributorship.
National Health Laboratories transferred Mr. Anderton to Nashville in 1991 and gave him a three-year employment contract with a $150,000 fixed annual salary and the possibility of an annual bonus. Mr. Anderton's earnings, including his bonuses, were $160,000 in 1991, $162,000 in 1992, and $170,000 in 1993. When the parties separated in October 1993, Mr. Anderton agreed to pay Ms. Anderton $6,000 per month to support her and their children. In August 1994, the parties agreed to reduce this obligation to $5,500 per month. In December 1994, National Health Laboratories merged with another company and became Laboratory Corporation of America. Mr. Anderton's compensation plan was altered, and beginning in January 1995, his base salary was reduced from $150,000 to $135,000, while his maximum bonus potential was reduced to $67,500.
Following a bench trial, the trial court filed a memorandum opinion on June 22, 1995. Based on its conclusion that Mr. Anderton's earning potential was in excess of $200,000 per year, the trial court directed him to pay Ms. Anderton $5,500 per month for five years and then $5,000 per month thereafter. Then, based on its conclusion that Mr. Anderton's gross earnings for the prior year had been $170,000, the trial court set his child support at $1,731 per month.
Mr. Anderton appealed to this court, and while the appeal was pending, we permitted Mr. Anderton to introduce post-judgment facts showing that his base salary for 1996 had been reduced to $95,000 and that his annual bonus could not exceed $47,500. We determined that the evidence preponderated against the finding that Mr. Anderton would earn in excess of $200,000 in 1996 and that the calculation of Mr. Anderton's child support obligation was inconsistent with the child support guidelines. Accordingly, we remanded the case to the trial court for reconsideration of the child support and alimony awards. We directed the trial court to determine Mr. Anderton's child support obligation first and then to determine his spousal support obligation in light of his child support obligation and the General Assembly's expressed preference for awarding rehabilitative alimony whenever possible. See Anderton v. Anderton, No. 01A01-9510-CH-00489, 1996 WL 274399 (No Tenn.R.App.P. 11 application filed).
The trial court conducted another hearing in August 1996 to address the remanded issues as well as Ms. Anderton's petition to hold Mr. Anderton in contempt for failing to make alimony and support payments and Mr. Anderton's petition for a reduction in his support obligations. In a supplemental decree filed on October 18, 1996, the trial court concluded that Mr. Anderton's "earning capacity for 1996 and the foreseeable future" was $142,500 per year. The trial court also increased Mr. Anderton's child support obligation to "the guidelines' presumptive amount of $2,000.00 per month." Then, turning to Mr. Anderton's spousal support obligation, the trial court found that Ms. Anderton "will probably become capable of financial self support, but there is a substantial possibility that she will not." Based on this rather ambivalent finding, and after reciting that it had considered all the factors in Tenn.Code Ann. § 36-5-101(d) (Supp.1997), the trial court declined to alter Mr. Anderton's spousal support obligation. Thus, even though the trial court concluded that Mr. Anderton's annual earnings were almost 30% less than its original finding, the net effect of its decision was to increase Mr. Anderton's combined annual child support and spousal support obligations by over 15%. The trial court also ordered Mr. Anderton to pay Ms. Anderton an additional $23,032.03 for child support and spousal support arrearages. 1
The dissolution of a marriage requires the courts to engage in the orderly disentanglement of the parties' personal and financial affairs. Many of the issues that must be addressed during this process are interrelated, and the disposition of earlier issues directly influence the decision on later issues. Accordingly, the parties and the courts should pay careful attention to the order in which the various issues in a divorce case are addressed and decided.
As a general rule, the first issue considered in a divorce case concerns whether either or both parties have demonstrated that they are entitled to a divorce. Thus, at the outset, trial courts should first determine to whom the divorce should be awarded or whether the parties should be declared divorced in accordance with Tenn.Code Ann. § 36-4-129 (1996). Following this decision, trial courts should turn their attention to the custody and visitation arrangements for the children if the parties have minor children entitled to support. Only after these status issues have been decided should trial courts turn their attention to the financial aspects of the divorce decree.
The trial court's first task following the resolution of the status issues is to identify and distribute the parties' separate property and then to divide their marital property in an equitable manner. See Batson v. Batson, 769 S.W.2d 849, 856 (Tenn.Ct.App.1988). As part of this process, the trial court should also identify and allocate the parties' separate and marital debts. See Herrera v. Herrera, 944 S.W.2d 379, 389 (Tenn.Ct.App.1996); Hanover v. Hanover, 775 S.W.2d 612, 614 (Tenn.Ct.App.1989). Sorting out the parties' property interests must precede support decisions because the manner in which the separate and marital property is divided can affect later support decisions. See Tenn .Code Ann. § 36-5-101(d)(1)(G), -101(d)(1)(H) (Supp.1997); Tenn.Comp.R. & Regs. r. 1240-2-4-.03(2) (1994); 2 Ridley v. Ridley, No. 01A01-9012-CV-00462, at
(Koch, J., concurring) (No Tenn.R.App.P. 11 application filed).
After the parties' property interests have been addressed, trial courts should then turn their attention to child support. This is precisely what this court directed the trial court to do in its first opinion in this case. See Anderton v. Anderton, 1996 WL 274399, at
Child support decisions should precede decisions about spousal support because a spouse's ability to pay spousal support may be directly and significantly influenced by the amount of child support he or she has been ordered to pay.
Consideration of spousal support questions should follow the disposition of all the preceding questions. Once a court has determined whether spousal support should be awarded, and if so its nature, amount, and duration, it should, as a final matter, address any request for attorney's fees if such request has been made. Considering requests for attorney's fees in the context of the spousal support award is appropriate because additional awards for attorney's fees are considered a form of support. See Ford v. Ford, 952 S.W.2d 824, 830 (Tenn.Ct.App.1996); Smith v. Smith, 912 S.W.2d 155, 161 (Tenn.Ct.App.1995). However, as pointed out by the Tennessee Supreme Court, requests for attorney's fees should be considered only after the court has resolved the issues concerning the parties' property and support. See Inman v. Inman, 811 S.W.2d 870, 874 (Tenn.1991).
We turn first to the manner in which the trial court determined the amount of Mr Anderton's child support obligation. While Mr. Anderton does not directly challenge the trial court's decision to require him to pay $2,000 per month in child support, he does so indirectly by complaining that the trial court erred by requiring him to pay 90% of his expected gross earnings in child support and spousal support. ...
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