Batka v. Batka

• Decision Date: 30 August 2005
• Docket Number: No. ED 85387.,ED 85387.
• Citation: 171 S.W.3d 757
• Parties: John E. BATKA, Appellant, v. Sharon K. BATKA, Respondent.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 757

171 S.W.3d 757

John E. BATKA, Appellant, v. Sharon K. BATKA, Respondent.

No. ED 85387.

Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, Division Three.

August 30, 2005.

Daniel R. Schramm, Chesterfield, MO, Joanna W. Owen, St. Louis, MO, for appellant.

W. Scott Pollard, Florissant, MO, for respondent.

OPINION

GLENN A. NORTON, Judge.

John Batka ("Husband") appeals the judgment modifying the parties' separation decree, in which the court removed the termination date on maintenance awarded to Sharon Batka ("Wife") and ordered Husband to provide health insurance for Wife. We reverse.

I. BACKGROUND

At the time the parties separated in 1994, Wife had been declared disabled, was receiving disability benefits and was not working. The parties' separation agreement provided that Husband would pay Wife $700 a month in maintenance for ten years, until April of 2004. The parties had originally agreed that maintenance would be non-modifiable, but the court told the parties it would not approve the ten-year term unless it was modifiable because that would be unconscionable in that there was no evidence that Wife would be able to support herself at the expiration of that term. Thus, the parties made the maintenance provision modifiable. Husband also agreed to maintain health insurance coverage for Wife until November 1995. The court found that the parties' separation agreement was not unconscionable and incorporated it into a separation decree.

In March of 2004, Wife moved to modify the separation decree to increase the amount of maintenance and to remove the termination date from the maintenance provision. She cited the deterioration of her health, her inability to work and the increased cost of living as the changed circumstances necessitating modification. Her motion did not mention her health insurance, which Husband had continued to provide for Wife voluntarily even after the expiration of the agreement. The parties stipulated that Husband was able to pay maintenance and that Wife was disabled. At the hearing on Wife's motion, she testified about her worsened physical condition and the additional medical problems she had developed since the separation decree. She also testified that she had worked up until the last year of the marriage, when her treatments at a pain management clinic made it too difficult to continue working. Since the separation decree, Wife had attempted babysitting her sister's children, but testified that she was not able to do it everyday because of her medical condition. Wife also testified to her expenses and her income, both of which had increased to some degree since the parties separated. The parties' income and expense statements filed at the time of separation and those filed at the time of the motion to modify were also before the court. Wife testified that she had worked out a budget and could live comfortably on the maintenance she was receiving.

Wife testified that she had accepted the ten-year term of maintenance despite advice that, with her health problems, she should not agree to that limitation. Each party testified that the length of the term was the other party's idea based on the number of years the parties had been married. Wife also indicated that, at the time of the separation agreement, she had hoped that her financial and physical situation would improve.

The court concluded that Wife's medical condition had not improved and that she had met her burden of showing that she still was not capable of supporting herself without maintenance. The court went on to say that if there needed to be a change in circumstances since the separation decree to support modification, it found "that Wife has not become self-supporting within ten years and her medical condition has not improved as the parties anticipated." The court did not increase the amount of maintenance, but did order Husband to continue paying it until further modification by the court and also ordered Husband to continue providing Wife's health insurance coverage "in the nature of support." Husband appeals.¹

II. DISCUSSION

We will affirm a judgment modifying a dissolution decree unless it is unsupported by substantial evidence, it is against the weight of the evidence, or it erroneously declares or applies the law. Clark v. Clark, 101 S.W.3d 323, 329 (Mo.App. E.D.2003). The evidence, including all reasonable inferences drawn therefrom, is viewed in the light most favorable to the judgment, and all contrary evidence and inferences are disregarded. Id. We defer to the trial court even if the evidence could also support a different conclusion. Id. In this case, even construed favorably to the judgment, the trial court's conclusion is not supported by substantial evidence.

A. Maintenance

In general, the court may modify maintenance only if the moving party proves by detailed evidence a change in circumstances so substantial and continuing as to make the terms of the original maintenance order unreasonable. Id. at 330; section 452.370.1 RSMo 2000.² When, as in this case, the maintenance order includes a termination date, the court may only extend the duration of maintenance beyond that date "based upon a substantial and continuing change of circumstances which occurred prior to the termination date of the original order." Section 452.335.3. "We strictly enforce these statutory requirements so as to discourage recurrent and insubstantial motions for modification." Draper v. Draper, 982 S.W.2d 289, 291 (Mo.App. W.D.1998).

Here, the trial court initially misstated that Wife had the burden only to show that she still needed maintenance at the expiration of the original term:

By doing what the parties eventually agreed [that is, a ten-year modifiable term of maintenance] they shifted the burden to Wife to show after the ten years that her medical condition still required that she needed the maintenance. Without the ten year limitation it would have been Husband's burden to show that Wife does not need maintenance. The Court sees the issue before it as whether Wife's medical condition and employability has changed such that she no longer needs maintenance but that it is her burden to show that she still needs the maintenance.

This approach required Wife to show that there had been no change in the circumstances since the separation decree. The statutes require a movant on a motion to modify to show a change, not the absence of change. See sections 452.370.1 and 452.335.3. The trial court correctly noted that, had there been no limit on the duration of maintenance,³ it would have been up to Husband to move to modify the decree to terminate maintenance and then it would have been his burden to show a change in circumstances, which Wife could have rebutted with evidence that she still needed maintenance. But that is not the procedural posture of this case, and because Wife moved to modify she had the burden to show the changed circumstances.

Despite the trial court's misstatement of the parties' relative burdens and the standards for modification, it nevertheless made a finding that Wife's failure to become self-supporting and lack of improvement in her health, "as the parties anticipated," constituted a change in circumstances. Husband contends that the trial court's failure to address whether the change in circumstances rendered the original term of maintenance unreasonable was a misapplication of the law. The failure to make this finding using the express language of the statute, however, does not render the modification erroneous, as long as there is evidence to support a finding of a substantial and continuing change in the circumstances. See Nelson v. Nelson, 14 S.W.3d 645, 651 (Mo.App. E.D.2000). The evidence did not support the trial court's finding in this case.

1. Changes in Wife's Health and Earning Capacity

Although there was evidence that Wife's medical condition had deteriorated and that she had developed new medical problems since the time of separation, her health is only relevant to maintenance—and can only constitute a change in circumstances supporting modification—to the extent that it affected her earning capacity. See Meiners v. Meiners, 858 S.W.2d 788, 792 (Mo.App. E.D.1993) (citing Fulp v. Fulp, 808 S.W.2d 421, 423 (Mo.App. W.D.1991)). There is no dispute on appeal that Wife has been unable to work due to her medical condition. But that was true at the time of separation as well: she was not working due to her disability at the time of the original separation decree and she was not working due to her disability at the time she sought modification. Therefore, although her health had worsened, her inability to support herself remained the same. The trial court's findings that Wife's medical condition had not improved and that she was not able to support herself were not changes in the circumstances and provided no basis for extending maintenance past the termination date in the original decree.

2. Changes in the Parties' Expectations

The court's findings seem to have hinged not so much on the circumstances themselves being different than they were at the time of separation, but on the circumstances being different than the parties had anticipated they would be at the expiration of maintenance. Even if the difference between the circumstances at the end of a limited-duration maintenance provision and the parties' expectations about those circumstances could constitute a change supporting modification of the termination date, such a finding would have to be based on sufficient evidence of the parties' expectations at the time of the original decree. "It is rudimentary that in order to determine whether circumstances have changed, one must first have knowledge of the circumstances to be compared." Smillie v. Smillie, 989 S.W.2d 619, 622 (Mo.App. S.D.1999). Here, the only evidence that supported the court's finding that the parties had anticipated Wife would be better and able to support...