Aratoon v. Roberts
| Decision Date | 27 January 2015 |
| Docket Number | Record No. 0529-14-4 |
| Court | Virginia Court of Appeals |
| Parties | BRODRICK C. ARATOON v. CHERYL ROBERTS |
UNPUBLISHED
Present: Judges Kelsey, Alston and Senior Judge Bumgardner
Argued at Alexandria, Virginia
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF FAIRFAX COUNTY
Ted Kavrukov (Law Office of Ted Kavrukov, LLC, on briefs), for appellant.
Ronald L. Hiss for appellee.
At the request of Cheryl Roberts, the trial court reduced and ultimately terminated her court-ordered obligation to pay spousal support to her former husband, Brodrick C. Aratoon. The court also held Aratoon's counsel in contempt of court and ordered that he pay the fee retainer for a guardian ad litem appointed sua sponte by the court. We affirm the court's decision to terminate spousal support but reverse the court's finding of contempt and its order appointing a guardian ad litem.
On appeal, "we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing party," granting him or her "the benefit of any reasonable inferences." Hamad v. Hamad, 61 Va. App. 593, 596, 739 S.E.2d 232, 234 (2013) (quoting White v. White, 56 Va. App. 214, 216, 692 S.E.2d 289, 290 (2010)). "That principle requires us to discard the evidence of the appellantwhich conflicts, either directly or inferentially, with the evidence presented by the appellee at trial." Id. (quoting Owens v. Owens, 41 Va. App. 844, 848-49, 589 S.E.2d 488, 491 (2003)).
In 2007, the trial court entered a final decree divorcing Aratoon and Roberts. The decree directed Roberts to pay $7,000 a month in spousal support to Aratoon. Two years later, the court reduced the award to $5,000 a month. In 2012, Roberts filed a petition to reduce or to terminate her spousal support obligation. She alleged that she had lost her job and had tried unsuccessfully to obtain new employment. She also stated that she alone had taken on the responsibility of paying for their adult son's college education, as she had for their older daughter.
Roberts further alleged that Aratoon had "squandered large sums of cash derived from the proceeds of the divorce in 2007," including $400,000 from the sale of the marital residence and $84,000 awarded to him from the dissolved marital accounts. App. at 2. In addition, Roberts asserted, Aratoon had "never attempted any meaningful employment since the divorce." Id. In reply, Aratoon denied all of his former wife's allegations and requested that the existing $5,000 spousal support award remain intact.
The trial court held four evidentiary hearings in an effort to resolve the dispute. At one of those hearings, the court concluded that Aratoon's counsel had failed to comply with the court's request to investigate Aratoon's eligibility for Social Security disability benefits or other public assistance and held Aratoon's counsel in contempt. The court sua sponte appointed a guardian ad litem to conduct the investigation and to report her findings to the court. Id. at 106.1 As punishment for the finding of contempt, the court ordered Aratoon's counsel to pay the guardianad litem's $3,000 fee retainer. Id. at 104, 106. The order waived endorsement of counsel on the apparent assumption that the order addressed an "uncontested matter." Id. at 107. Upon receiving the order, however, Aratoon's counsel promptly filed written objections.
After hearing testimony from the parties and their witnesses, the court found that changed circumstances warranted initially reducing the monthly support to $2,000 and terminating it altogether approximately six months later, on August 31, 2014. The court's order contained written findings of fact, including the following:
¦ Aratoon received a $614,000 monetary award, as well as large monthly spousal support payments from the final divorce decree, "such that in the seven years since their divorce he has received about $1.1 million dollars." Id. at 8.
¦ Aratoon "did not make good use of the funds given to him and now expects [Roberts] to support his poor choices." Id.
¦ "[C]redible evidence" showed that Aratoon had told Roberts that "he intend[ed] to bankrupt" her. Id.
¦ Aratoon displayed a "measure of contrivance with respect to false attempts to pursue" any public benefits potentially available to him. Id. In particular, Aratoon "failed to properly respond to requests regarding benefits or in some other manner chose not to pursue or obtain the available benefits from the Federal and State Governments." Id.
¦ Roberts had taken on the sole responsibility to pay for the college educations of their two children, despite their earlier "mutual acknowledged obligation" to share the expenses. Id.
¦ Roberts was in "dire financial circumstances," despite the prudent handling of her finances, but Aratoon had "squandered" his assets. Id. at 9.
¦ The support obligation had drained Roberts's finances to the point that she was incapable of providing for her retirement. Id.
¦ Roberts obtained employment but had incurred a "significant reduction in her income." Id. Her "earning capacity" was "tapped out." Id.
Aratoon asserted numerous objections to the trial court's order and filed an unsuccessful motion for reconsideration.
On appeal, Aratoon asserts several compound assignments of error. For clarity, we will reorganize these assertions, combining some while separating others.
Aratoon's first two assignments of error claim that the trial court failed to rely on an important decisional factor (his prior standard of living during the marriage) and improperly relied on other, legally irrelevant or factually insupportable factors (his failure to seek disability benefits, as well as other public entitlements, and his squandering of funds after the entry of the divorce decree). For several reasons, we find no such errors embedded in the trial court's decision to terminate Aratoon's spousal support.
Code § 20-109(A) authorizes a trial court to "increase, decrease, or terminate the amount or duration of any spousal support and maintenance that may thereafter accrue, whether previously or hereafter awarded, as the circumstances may make proper." Unlike so many topics in domestic relations law,2 the Code does not list decisional factors governing the modification or termination of spousal support. The Code withdraws discretion only in certain cases of habitual cohabitation, remarriage, and death. See Code § 20-109(A), (D). In those cases, the trial court must terminate support. In all other cases, however, the court may reduce or terminate support when, exercising prudent discretion, "the circumstances may make [doing so] proper." Code § 20-109(A).
In making this highly discretionary decision, a trial court may begin its analysis by consulting the statutory factors in Code § 20-107.1(E) that guided the initial decision to grant or to deny spousal support in an effort to determine if a "change in circumstances" exists. Barton v. Barton, 31 Va. App. 175, 177, 522 S.E.2d 373, 374 (1999). The court should then determine if these changes, when viewed in their totality, warrant a modification or termination of support. See Street v. Street, 25 Va. App. 380, 386, 488 S.E.2d 665, 668 (1997) (en banc); Reece v. Reece, 22 Va. App. 368, 373, 470 S.E.2d 148, 151 (1996).
We can only find an abuse of discretion when it can be truly said that "reasonable jurists" could not disagree as to the proper decision. Brandau v. Brandau, 52 Va. App. 632, 641, 666 S.E.2d 532, 537 (2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). This deferential standard of review "necessarily implies that, for some decisions, conscientious jurists could reach different conclusions based on exactly the same facts — yet still remain entirely reasonable." Hamad, 61Va. App. at 607, 739 S.E.2d at 239. The trial court "has a range of choice, and its decision will not be disturbed as long as it stays within that range and is not influenced by any mistake of law." Lawlor v. Commonwealth, 285 Va. 187, 212-13, 738 S.E.2d 847, 861 (2013) (alteration and internal quotation marks omitted). We apply this "bell-shaped curve of reasonability" based on our "venerable belief that the judge closest to the contest is the judge best able to discern where the equities lie." Hamad, 61 Va. App. at 607, 739 S.E.2d at 239.
In this case, the trial court reviewed the factors involved in the initial support decision and considered the circumstances affecting those factors from the time of the support award until the petition for modification. The court's evaluation of the evidence was thorough and meticulous. We find in the evidentiary record ample grounds for the trial court to conclude that Aratoon, among other things, had squandered his considerable assets, viewed his own efforts to obtain spousal support as a means to bankrupt Roberts, and failed to mitigate his economic need by using due diligence either to obtain employment that could accommodate his alleged disability or, alternatively, to seek Social Security...
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