Brown v. Brown

• Decision Date: 10 March 1980
• Docket Number: No. 64,64
• Parties: Ronald K. BROWN v. Joyce A. BROWN.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 273

287 Md. 273

412 A.2d 396

Ronald K. BROWN v. Joyce A. BROWN.

No. 64.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

March 10, 1980.

Ellen D. Pattin, Chevy Chase (Thomas Fortune Fay and Fay, Donald & Sheehy, Chevy Chase, on the brief), for appellant.

George E. Meng, Upper Marlboro (Pitrof & Starkey, Upper Marlboro, on the brief), for appellee.

Argued before MURPHY, C. J., and SMITH, DIGGES, ELDRIDGE, ORTH, ^* COLE and DAVIDSON, JJ.

DIGGES, Judge.

The appellant here challenges the use of incarceration for contempt to enforce a provision of a separation agreement, incorporated into a divorce and child custody decree, that obligated the husband to pay a specific amount of support for his stepdaughter, as violating the prohibition against imprisonment for debt contained in Article III, section 38 of the Maryland Constitution.

The parties to this dispute, Ronald K. Brown, appellant, and Joyce A. Brown, appellee, were divorced on October 22, 1976, by decree of the Circuit Court for Prince George's County. The decree incorporated a previously executed separation agreement which differs in a material way from most such contracts in only one respect. Its unusual aspect is contained in Paragraph 7, which states:

The husband and wife acknowledge that a child, Lisa Graninger, age 6, was born to wife prior to the marriage of the parties. That despite the fact that the husband is not the natural father of Lisa, in consideration of his love for the child and other good and valuable consideration, the husband agrees to pay support to the wife for Lisa Graninger the sum of $30.00 per week . . . commencing on the 5th day of July, 1976, and to continue until (the) child becomes eighteen years of age, is emancipated or dies, whichever first occurs. ¹

While initially discharging his contractual obligation, the appellant soon fell into arrears in the agreed support payments for Lisa. Following a hearing as to whether he was in contempt of court for failing to make these payments, Judge Robert J. Woods, on October 17, 1978, found Mr. Brown to be in default in the amount of $1729.95, adjudged him to be in contempt of court, and subsequently sentenced the stepfather to serve a term of 179 days in jail. In support of his conclusion Judge Woods reasoned:

(T)he contempt powers of the Circuit Court do pertain to Lisa under the unusual divorce decree of October 22, 1976, incorporating by reference paragraph 7 of the separation agreement.

Contempt powers deal . . . with a far broader scope of cases than those that are just coupled with child support, contempt is the sanction for disobedience of a Court order. . . .

I think that . . . the constitutional provision of Art. 3, Section 38 of the Maryland Constitution does not state that dependent children must be children of the party taking upon himself the duty of support.

An appeal was noted from the imprisonment order to the Court of Special Appeals, but prior to its considering the matter, we granted certiorari to decide the important issue of the availability of imprisonment under the court's contempt power to enforce a contractual obligation incorporated into a divorce decree to support a child not his own.

The gravamen of the stepfather's claim of error the court lacked power to imprison him for the breach of his promise to provide support for his stepdaughter is based on Article III, section 38 of the Maryland Constitution which, since 1962, has provided:

Imprisonment for debt.

No person shall be imprisoned for debt, but a valid decree of a court of competent jurisdiction or agreement approved by decree of said court for the support of a wife or dependent children, or for the support of an illegitimate child or children, or for alimony, shall not constitute a debt within the meaning of this section. (Md.Const., Art. III, § 38. ²)

In attempting to cloak himself in the protection afforded by section 38, the stepfather reasons in this Court that there exists no legal duty, independent of agreement, to support his stepchild, and that his contractual assumption of the obligation to make the weekly payments for Lisa, being voluntary, cannot subject him to incarceration for his failure to pay. The appellant does not dispute, however, that his promise to pay can be enforced by means of an action of assumpsit or through some other appropriate remedy. On the other hand, the appellee argues that the relationship created between her ex-husband and his stepchild by the separation agreement was such that Lisa became a "dependent child" within the meaning of section 38, and therefore, the obligation of support is a duty of the appellant which can be enforced through use of the court's contempt power. Since the present dispute must be resolved by determining the scope of this constitutional provision, we initially review the time-honored guidelines developed by this Court to be utilized in construing constitutional language.

Generally speaking, the same rules that are applicable to the construction of statutory language are employed in interpreting constitutional verbiage, Kadan v. Bd. of Sup. of Elections, 273 Md. 406, 329 A.2d 702 (1974); New Cent. Co. v. George's Creek Co., 37 Md. 537 (1873). Accordingly, it is axiomatic that the words used in the enactment should be given the construction that effectuates the intent of its framers, see, e. g., Perkins v. Eskridge, 278 Md. 619, 639, 366 A.2d 21, 33 (1976); Beall v. State, 131 Md. 669, 676, 103 A. 99, 102 (1917); such intent is first sought from the terminology used in the provision, with each word being given its ordinary and popularly understood meaning, e. g., Harbor Island Marina v. Calvert Co., 286 Md. 303, 311, 407 A.2d 738, 742 (1979); Mauzy v. Hornbeck, 285 Md. 84, 92, 400 A.2d 1091, 1095-96 (1979); and, if the words are not ambiguous, the inquiry is terminated, for the Court is not at liberty to search beyond the Constitution itself where the intention of the framers is clearly demonstrated by the phraseology utilized. Reed v. McKeldin, 207 Md. 553, 560-61, 115 A.2d 281, 285 (1955). If an examination of the language, however, demonstrates ambiguity or uncertainty, we look elsewhere to learn the provision's meaning, keeping in mind the necessity of ascertaining the purpose sought to be accomplished by enactment of the provision. In this regard we recently summarized the scope of the inquiry in Perkins v. Eskridge by quoting from Reed v. McKeldin, supra, 207 Md. at 560-61, 115 A.2d at 285:

(I)t is permissible to inquire into the prior state of the law, the previous and contemporary history of the people, the circumstances attending the adoption of the organic law, as well as broad considerations of expediency. The object is to ascertain the reason which induced the framers to enact the provision in dispute and the purpose sought to be accomplished thereby, in order to construe the whole instrument in such way as to effect that purpose. The Court may avail itself of any light that may be derived from such sources, but it is not bound to adopt it as the sole ground of its decision. (Perkins v. Eskridge, supra, 278 Md. at 640-41, 366 A.2d at 34 (emphasis in original).)

Looking first to the historical background of section 38, we observe that, after its adoption to a degree into the English legal system from the early Roman Law of the Twelve Tables (451-50 B.C.), imprisonment for debt, and the struggles to curtail it, has had a long and somewhat erratic history both in England and in this country. See V. Countryman, Cases and Materials on Debtor and Creditor 74-81 (1st ed. 1964); Ford, Imprisonment for Debt, 25 Mich.L.Rev. 24, 24-34 (1926); Freedman, Imprisonment for Debt, 2 Temp.L.Q. 330, 330-50 (1927). Despite the cruel and abusive nature of the practice as it existed in England under the early common law, ³ imprisonment for debtors was transferred to the American colonies, substantially intact. V. Countryman, supra, at 76-77. In Maryland the colonial Assembly early on recognized the existence of the writ of capias ad satisfaciendum by which a debtor was imprisoned where a judgment against him remained unsatisfied. 1715 Md.Laws, ch. 40. The growing sensibilities concerning the harshness and inequity of this imprisonment practice produced minor statutory reform in the Acts of 1820, ch. 186, which required the creditor to pay eighty-seven and one-half cents per week for the support of his imprisoned debtor, and the abolition of the practice as it applied to females by ch. 206 of the Acts of 1824. Imprisonment for debt, however, did not immediately abate to any substantial degree for it appears that as of 1830, three to five times as many persons were imprisoned for debt (3000 annually in Maryland) as were imprisoned for crime. Ford, supra, 25 Mich.L.Rev. at 29. Responding to a reform movement advocating the banning of such incarceration which pervaded this country in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the Constitutional Convention of 1851 proposed its abolition which became a part of the organic law of this State with the inclusion of section 44 of Article III as part of the Maryland Constitution adopted in that year. The prohibition was absolute: "No person shall be imprisoned for debt."

The evident purpose of the framers was to abolish the useless, and sometimes cruel, imprisonment of persons who having honestly become indebted to another, were unable to pay as promised. ⁴ State v. Mace, 5 Md. 337, 351 (1854). However, early in the development of the case law under this section, a distinction was drawn by this Court between a "debt" within the meaning of section 38, and a legal "duty" arising from or imposed by law. Thus in the very first case to reach this Court requiring an interpretation of that constitutional provision, the Court held that the term debt does not include fines or penalties levied against one who has been adjudged in violation of the public law. State v. Mace, supra, at 351-52. See Ruggles v....