Blake v. Blake

• Decision Date: 01 September 1995
• Docket Number: No. 14,14
• Citation: 670 A.2d 472,341 Md. 326
• Parties: Luvenilde Margott BLAKE v. Clifton Avon BLAKE. ,
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 326

341 Md. 326

670 A.2d 472

Luvenilde Margott BLAKE v. Clifton Avon BLAKE.

No. 14, Sept. Term, 1995.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Jan. 25, 1996.

Jeffrey J. Utermohle, Baltimore (Dennis E. Cuomo, on brief), Towson, for Appellant.

Robert L. Bloom, Baltimore, for Appellee.

Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, CHASANOW, KARWACKI, BELL and RAKER, JJ.

RODOWSKY, Judge.

We granted certiorari on our own motion and prior to consideration of this case by the Court of Special Appeals in order to decide whether personal injury settlement proceeds, acquired during marriage, constitute marital property. The appellee has moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground that the notice of appeal was not timely filed. For the reasons explained below we grant the appellee's motion, and, consequently, we do not reach the merits.

Clifton Avon Blake and Luvenilde Margott Blake were married on November 8, 1976. They separated in January 1987. In late 1990 Mr. Blake filed a complaint for limited divorce, for sole custody of the two minor children of the marriage, and for an order charging both Mr. and Mrs. Blake with the support of the children.

Mrs. Blake answered and filed a counterclaim seeking an absolute divorce, sole custody of the children, both pendente lite and permanent child support and alimony, and counsel fees.

Based on the report of a master, the circuit court in September 1991 ordered Mr. Blake to pay, pendente lite, $200 per month in alimony and $350 per month in child support, as well as the monthly payments on the mortgage secured by the residential property occupied by Mrs. Blake and the children.

About one and one-quarter years later, while the two complaints for divorce remained pending, Mrs. Blake petitioned the court to find Mr. Blake in contempt for failure to pay alimony and child support. She averred that as of January 8, 1993 the arrearages were $4,950.

By an amended counterclaim filed February 5, 1993, Mrs. Blake renewed the claims asserted in her original counterclaim and added additional claims, including a claim for an equitable award of marital property.

The remaining relevant procedural steps in the litigation are hereinafter set forth in three columns. The column headed "Date" sets forth the effective date of a procedural step. The column headed "Divorce" refers to procedural steps leading to adjudication of the issues raised by the complaint and amended counterclaim in the divorce action. The column headed "Contempt" relates to the procedural steps involved in resolving the petition for contempt to enforce the order awarding alimony and child support pendente lite.

                  Date                  Divorce                            Contempt
                 2/10/93                                       Mr. Blake answers the petition
                                                                 for contempt and, inter alia
                                                                 seeks a credit against the
                                                                 claimed arrearage for $3,000
                                                                 allegedly given to Mrs. Blake
                                                                 for a trip to her native
                                                                 Chile
                 5/17 &    Trial before circuit court
                 5/18/93
                 6/28/93                                       Master's report recommends that
                                                                 the contempt petition be
                                                                 dismissed if Mr. Blake resumes
                                                                 the previously ordered monthly
                                                                 payments and if, within 45
                                                                 days of the court order
                                                                 adopting the master's
                                                                 recommendations, Mr. Blake
                                                                 pays $4,776.50 of arrearages
                 7/9/93                                        Mr. Blake files exceptions to
                                                                 the report challenging the
                                                                 failure to give him credit for
                                                                 $3,000
                 7/30/93   Circuit court judge files opinion
                             announcing decision on all
                             claims asserted in both
                             complaints, except Mrs. Blake's
                             claim for counsel fees, on which
                             the opinion is silent.  Court
                             directs counsel for Mr. Blake to
                             prepare order.
                 8/9/93    Order, drafted in accordance with
                             opinion and signed by judge on
                             August 4, 1993 is docketed.
                             Entry reads: "Judgment granting
                             the parties an absolute divorce,
                             etc, fd."
                 8/25/93                                       Order of court dated 8/20/93 is
                                                                 docketed, dismissing Mr.
                                                                 Blake's exceptions to the
                                                                 master's report for lack of
                                                                 timeliness.
                 8/27/93   Mrs. Blake's motion to revise the
                             judgment is filed.  The motion
                             argues, inter alia, that Mrs.
                             Blake's claim for a share of the
                             funds remaining from the
                             settlement of Mr. Blake's
                             personal injury claim should not
                             have been denied and that Mrs.
                             Blake should be awarded
                             attorney's fees.
                 10/7/93                                       "Pendente lite order nunc pro
                                                                 tunc," dated October 1, 1993
                                                                 is docketed.  It directs the
                                                                 payment of pendente lite
                                                                 alimony and child support, in
                                                                 the previously ordered
                                                                 amounts, dating from June 28,
                                                                 1993.  The order also provides
                                                                 that the arrearages of
                                                                 $4,776.50 be paid within 45
                                                                 days "of this Order."
                 2/14/94   Clerk enters a "court minute" on
                             file jacket and makes docket
                             entry recording that Mrs.
                             Blake's motion to revise
                             Judgment has been denied.
                 4/12/94   Notice is sent by clerk advising
                             parties that the motion to
                             revise judgment had been denied.
                 5/11/94   Mrs. Blake's notice of appeal is
                             filed.
                

In his motion to dismiss Mr. Blake points out that Mrs. Blake's motion to revise the judgment was filed more than ten days after the judgment was entered on August 9. See Maryland Rule 2-601(b). Accordingly, the motion must be treated as a thirty day motion to revise filed pursuant to Maryland Rule 2-535. A motion filed under that rule more than ten days after the entry of judgment does not stop the running of the thirty day appeal period. See Md.Rule 8-202(c); Falcinelli v. Cardascia, 339 Md. 414, 421-22, 430-31, 663 A.2d 1256, 1259-60, 1263-64 (1995); Alitalia Linee Aeree Italiane v. Tornillo, 320 Md. 192, 200, 577 A.2d 34, 38 (1990).

At oral argument Mrs. Blake suggested that the judgment in the divorce action did not become final until Mr. Blake's exceptions to the master's report were dismissed on August 25, 1993, so that the motion to revise, when filed on August 27, was a ten day motion, the disposition of which would trigger the running of a new thirty day appeal period. We disagree. The claim by Mrs. Blake for pendente lite alimony and support had been determined by the September 1991 order. The exceptions dismissed on August 25, 1993 related to the attempted enforcement by contempt of that pendente lite order. The fact that exceptions to the master's report in the contempt proceeding were pending and undecided on August 9, 1993 when the judgment in the divorce action was docketed did not prevent that judgment from being final on that date.

"A contempt proceeding, even though it may grow out of or be associated with another proceeding, is ordinarily regarded as a collateral or separate action from the underlying case and as separately appealable, with appellate review normally limited to the contempt order itself. Because the underlying proceeding and the contempt proceeding are usually regarded as separate actions, and not simply as separate issues or claims in the same action, it follows that a judgment terminating the underlying action is final and appealable despite the fact that the associated contempt proceeding is still pending in the trial court."

Unnamed Attorney v. Attorney Grievance Comm'n, 303 Md. 473, 483-84, 494 A.2d 940, 945 (1985) (citations omitted).

The judgment of August 9, 1993, however, was silent with respect to the claim for counsel fees asserted by Mrs. Blake in her original and in her amended counterclaims. The circuit court had the discretionary power to award counsel fees pursuant to Maryland Code (1984, 1991 Repl.Vol., 1995 Cum.Supp.), §§ 11-110 and 12-103 of the Family Law Article (FL). ¹ The question that then arises is whether the absence of any determination of the claim for counsel fees deprives the August 9 judgment of finality. Although this is an issue on which we have not previously directly passed, we have considered the relationship between counsel fees and judgment finality in other contexts.

Pappas v. Pappas, 287 Md. 455, 413 A.2d 549 (1980), made plain that family law actions are embraced by the requirement for finality in multiple claims cases, now Md.Rule 2-602, whereby all of the claims as to all of the parties must be...