Burns v. Burns

• Decision Date: 25 July 2018
• Docket Number: CA 17–01854,399
• Citation: 81 N.Y.S.3d 846,163 A.D.3d 210
• Parties: Eleanor McQuilkin BURNS, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Andrew McIntosh BURNS, Defendant–Respondent.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

163 A.D.3d 210
81 N.Y.S.3d 846

Eleanor McQuilkin BURNS, Plaintiff–Appellant,
v.
Andrew McIntosh BURNS, Defendant–Respondent.

399
CA 17–01854

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department, New York.

Entered: July 25, 2018

BARNEY & AFFRONTI, LLP, ROCHESTER (FRANCIS C. AFFRONTI OF COUNSEL), FOR PLAINTIFF–APPELLANT.

BURNS & SCHULTZ LLP, PITTSFORD (ANDREW M. BURNS OF COUNSEL), FOR DEFENDANT–RESPONDENT.

PRESENT: CENTRA, J.P., NEMOYER, CURRAN, AND TROUTMAN, JJ.

OPINION AND ORDER

Opinion by NeMoyer, J.:

It is hereby ORDERED that the order so appealed from is unanimously affirmed without costs.

According to the Domestic Relations Law and its common-law antecedents, the concept of spousal maintenance is limited to payments made to an unmarried ex-spouse. If divorcing spouses wish to vary this definition and provide for post-remarriage maintenance, they must do so clearly and unambiguously. In this case, nothing in the parties' agreement reflects an intent to depart from the statutory definition of maintenance with the clarity required by the governing caselaw. Consequently, as Supreme Court properly determined, defendant husband's maintenance obligation ended when plaintiff wife remarried.

81 N.Y.S.3d 848

FACTS

The parties were married in June 1992. In September 2004, the husband vacated the marital residence; shortly thereafter, the wife sued for divorce. The parties subsequently executed a divorce settlement agreement pursuant to Domestic Relations Law § 236(B)(3). In the agreement, the parties specified that "[a]ll matters affecting interpretation of this [a]greement and the rights of the parties [t]hereto shall be governed by the laws of the State of New York."

The agreement obligated the husband to pay "rehabilitative maintenance" to the wife pursuant to the following schedule:

"(a) From December 1, 2007—November 30, 2012: $5,500.00 Per Month = $66,000.00 Rehabilitative Maintenance Per Annum

(b) From December 1, 2012—November 30, 2014: $2,916.00 Per Month = $34,992.00 Rehabilitative Maintenance Per Annum

(c) From December 1, 2014—November 30, 2015: $2,500.00 Per Month = $30,000.00 Rehabilitative Maintenance Per Annum

(d) From December 1, 2015—November 30, 2020: $2,200.00 Per Month = $26,400.00 Rehabilitative Maintenance Per Annum."

The foregoing constitutes the entirety of the agreement's maintenance provision. Critically, the agreement is silent regarding the effect, if any, of the wife's remarriage upon the husband's maintenance obligation. The agreement was subsequently incorporated, but not merged, into a judgment of divorce rendered by Supreme Court (Doyle, J.) in July 2008. The judgment includes a verbatim reproduction of the agreement's maintenance provision.

The wife remarried in December 2015. In April 2016, the husband emailed the wife to inform her that he would stop paying maintenance as a result of her remarriage. The husband's last maintenance payment was made that month.

The wife then moved to, inter alia, recover a monetary judgment for the amount outstanding and hold the husband in contempt for ending the maintenance payments. According to the wife, "a plain reading of ... the agreement[ ] leads to only one conclusion: [the husband's] rehabilitative maintenance obligation survives [her] remarriage." That was so, the wife continued, because "[o]ther than November 30, 2020, no termination events are identified in the agreement. Since none can be implied and the Court cannot rewrite the parties' agreement, this Court must conclude [that the husband's] obligation to pay maintenance survives not only the wife's remarriage, but also her death and his death. The maintenance obligation ends on November 30, 2020 and no other time."

The husband opposed the wife's motion. Noting that the agreement contains no provision entitling the wife to continued maintenance payments upon her remarriage, the husband argued that the "fact that the parties did not expressly provide in the Agreement that maintenance payments would continue if [the wife] remarried establishes that the parties intended that [the husband's] obligation to pay [the wife] maintenance terminated upon her remarriage."

Supreme Court (Dollinger, A.J.) denied the wife's motion in its entirety. In a well-reasoned and thorough decision, the court held that, in light of the agreement's silence on the subject, the wife's remarriage ended the husband's obligation to pay maintenance. The wife now appeals.

DISCUSSION

The friction point here is easily stated: the wife says that the husband's

81 N.Y.S.3d 849

maintenance obligations are unaffected by her remarriage; the husband says that his maintenance obligations do not extend beyond the wife's remarriage. For the reasons that follow, we agree with the husband.

I

A divorce settlement agreement is a contract, subject to standard principles of contract interpretation (see Rainbow v. Swisher, 72 N.Y.2d 106, 109, 531 N.Y.S.2d 775, 527 N.E.2d 258 [1988] ; Gurbacki v. Gurbacki, 270 A.D.2d 807, 807–808, 708 N.Y.S.2d 761 [4th Dept. 2000] ). The agreement at issue does not explicitly define the term "maintenance," and it is silent regarding the effect of the wife's remarriage upon the husband's maintenance obligation. Thus, the plain text of the agreement—which the Court of Appeals says is the best source of the parties' intent (see Goldman v. White Plains Ctr. for Nursing Care, LLC, 11 N.Y.3d 173, 176, 867 N.Y.S.2d 27, 896 N.E.2d 662 [2008] )—is not conclusive of the question on appeal.

"Nevertheless, it is basic that, unless a contract provides otherwise, the law in force at the time the agreement is entered into becomes as much a part of the agreement as though it were expressed or referred to therein, for it is presumed that the parties had such law in contemplation when the contract was made and the contract will be construed in the light of such law" ( Dolman v. United States Trust Co. of N.Y., 2 N.Y.2d 110, 116, 157 N.Y.S.2d 537, 138 N.E.2d 784 [1956] ; see Ronnen v. Ajax Elec. Motor Corp., 88 N.Y.2d 582, 589, 648 N.Y.S.2d 422, 671 N.E.2d 534 [1996] [applying Dolman ] ). The Dolman rule is of longstanding vintage, and the "principle embraces alike those [laws in force at the time of a contract's execution] which affect its validity, construction, discharge, and enforcement" ( Von Hoffman v. City of Quincy, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 535, 550, 18 L.Ed. 403 [1866] [emphasis added] ). By virtue of the Dolman rule, when parties enter into an agreement authorized by or related to a particular statutory scheme, the courts will presume—absent something to the contrary—that the terms of the agreement are to be interpreted consistently with the corresponding statutory scheme (see e.g. Mayo v. Royal Ins. Co. of Am., 242 A.D.2d 944, 945, 662 N.Y.S.2d 654 [4th Dept. 1997], lv dismissed 91 N.Y.2d 887, 668 N.Y.S.2d 564, 691 N.E.2d 636 [1998] ; Matter of Andy Floors, Inc. [Tyler Constr. Corp.], 202 A.D.2d 938, 938–939, 609 N.Y.S.2d 692 [3d Dept. 1994] ).

The statutory scheme corresponding to the agreement in this case is Domestic Relations Law § 236, which authorizes divorce settlement agreements and directs that such agreements specify the "amount and duration of maintenance," if any ( § 236[B][3][3] ). The term " ‘maintenance’ " is defined within this statutory scheme as "payments provided for in a valid agreement between the parties or awarded by the court ..., to be paid at fixed intervals for a definite or indefinite period of time" ( § 236[B][1][a] ). Critically, the statutory definition includes the following caveat: any maintenance award "shall terminate upon the death of either party or upon the payee's valid or invalid marriage" (id. ). As thus defined, the concept of maintenance is unequivocally limited to payments made to an unmarried ex-spouse (see Matter of Howard v. Janowski , 226 A.D.2d 1087, 1088, 641 N.Y.S.2d 940 [4th Dept. 1996] ). And unless the parties contract otherwise, the Dolman rule incorporates this statutory limitation directly into a divorce settlement agreement "as though it were expressed or...