Coppedge v. Coppedge
| Decision Date | 22 February 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. S15A1450.,S15A1450. |
| Parties | COPPEDGE v. COPPEDGE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Maxine Hardy, Maxine Burns Hardy, PC, Columbus, for appellant.
Elizabeth Wagner McBride, Page Scrantom Sprouse Tucker & Ford, P.C., Columbus, for appellee.
Appellant Bradley Coppedge (husband) appeals from a trial court's order denying his petition for modification of child custody and visitation and holding him in contempt of a final divorce decree. For the reasons that follow, we affirm in part and reverse in part.
The record demonstrates that husband and appellee Catherine Coppedge (wife) were divorced in December 2006 by a final judgment incorporating the parties' settlement agreement. At the time the final decree was entered, husband and wife had two minor daughters who attended private school and summer and after-school care at St. Luke School in Columbus, Georgia. The final decree required husband to pay wife $2,000 in monthly child support and further provided in a provision entitled "Educational Expenses: (1) Expenses Through High School" that:
Included in the direct cash payment to Wife from Husband pursuant to [the $2,000 child support calculation] are what the parties have determined to be Husband's proportional shares of a private school education for each Child at St. Luke. In addition, the parties recognize that also included in Husband's direct cash payment to Wife from Husband pursuant to [the child support calculation] are his proportional shares for any amounts paid in connection with either after school or summer care for either or both of the Children. Should the expenses associated with St. Luke increase or decrease for either or both Children for any reason, including the after school or summer care amounts, the parties shall evenly divide (i.e. 50/50) the amount of any such increase or decrease, and Husband's direct cash amount pursuant to subparagraph ("B") above shall be adjusted accordingly.... Wife shall be responsible for making all payments directly to the schools. Notwithstanding Wife's decision making-authority over the Children's educations, if either or both of the Children be removed from St. Luke and placed [in] another private school that is more expensive than St. Luke, Husband's obligation to pay for private school expenses shall be limited to those amounts that he would be charged by St. Luke for given grade level(s) in which the Children are enrolled.
In the spring of 2010, wife decided to remove the children from St. Luke summer care and hired a babysitter to provide summer and after-school child care for the children in her home. In May 2010, husband filed a petition seeking modification of the final decree's child custody and visitation awards. Husband subsequently reduced the amount of his monthly child support payments by the amount of his share of the cost of sending the children to after-school and summer care at St. Luke. Wife answered and counterclaimed for contempt, arguing, among other things, that husband had failed to pay approximately $7,000 in child support, an amount determined by calculating what husband would have been required to pay if the children were still attending after-school and summer care programs at St. Luke.
After a hearing at which both parties presented evidence and argument, the trial court entered a final order denying husband's petition for modification and holding him in contempt for his failure to pay his share of the children's after-school and summer care expenses and for his failure on one occasion to give wife her court-ordered visitation. The trial court concluded as a matter of law that the final divorce decree did not "confine these parties to St. Luke after care or summer camp, and that [husband] was not entitled to reduce child support without a Court order." Husband's motions for new trial and reconsideration were denied.1 Husband now appeals from the trial court order holding him in contempt of the final divorce decree as well as the denial of his petition for modification of custody and visitation.2
1. Husband contends the trial court erred in holding him in contempt based on his payment of the reduced child support amounts after the children stopped attending St. Luke's summer and after-school care. Specifically, husband argues that he only agreed to pay his proportionate share of after-school and summer care expenses incurred at St. Luke, and therefore, he was not obligated to pay for any of the expenses associated with the in-home babysitter hired by wife. He also contends that the decree permitted him to make an adjustment to his payment for child care without court order. Wife asserts that the cost of the babysitter is an after-school and summer child care expense which husband is obligated to pay a portion of under the terms of the decree.
(Footnotes omitted.) Hall v. Day, 273 Ga. 838, 839–840(1), 546 S.E.2d 469 (2001). The trial court found the language of the parties' agreement, and thus the final decree, did not as a matter of law confine husband's obligation to pay for after-school and summer care to care provided by St. Luke. Therefore, the court concluded, husband was in violation of the divorce decree when, after wife hired a babysitter to provide after-school and summer child care, he reduced the amount of child support by the amount he would have otherwise paid for after-school or summer care at St. Luke.
Applying general rules of contract construction, we cannot agree with the trial court's conclusion that the relevant language of the decree unambiguously imposed upon husband an obligation to pay for a proportionate share of the cost of the babysitter hired by wife. A careful review of the language of the decree proves it is capable of more than one reasonable interpretation. For instance, the decree says that "Husband's direct cash payment" of $2,000 includes "his proportional shares for any amounts paid in connection with either after school or summer care for either or both of the Children." Read in isolation, this proportional share provision reasonably could be interpreted as imposing upon husband a general and unrestricted obligation to contribute to the cost of after-school and summer care even if it is not provided by St. Luke, thus not permitting him to deduct from his "direct cash payment" his proportional share of child care provided by the babysitter in this case.
The very next sentence of the decree (the "adjustment provision"), however, creates an ambiguity regarding this issue. It provides that the parties shall evenly divide any increase or decrease in "the expenses associated with St. Luke for either or both Children ..., including the after school or summer care amounts." It also says that "Husband's direct cash amount shall be adjusted" according to the increase or decrease in "expenses associated with St. Luke." "[W]e generally accept that contractual terms carry their ordinary meaning[,]" Archer Western Contractors, Ltd. v. Estate of Mack Pitts, 292 Ga. 219, 224, 735 S.E.2d 772 (2012), and "[w]ords, like people, are judged by the company they keep," Warren v. State, 294 Ga. 589, 590–591, 755 S.E.2d 171 (2014) (citation and punctuation omitted); accord Anderson v. Anderson, 274 Ga. 224, 227, 552 S.E.2d 801 (2001). The word "associated" means "join[ed] or connect[ed] together." See Merriam–Webster Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/associated (Website last accessed February 4, 2016). Giving it its ordinary meaning, the phrase "the expenses associated with St. Luke for either or both Children" could reasonably be interpreted to mean expenses (1) connected with St. Luke (2) that are incurred for the parties' children. The adjustment provision thus would appear to give husband the right to deduct from his "direct cash payment" his proportional share of expenses for child care provided by St. Luke once the children's child care was no longer provided by St. Luke. In such a case, there would be a decrease in the expenses connected with St. Luke for the care of the children.
Alternatively, the adjustment provision could be interpreted as setting a benchmark for the cost of the children's child care at the amount charged by St. Luke, regardless of who was providing the child care, with the parties monitoring St. Luke's increases or decreases in the amount it charged for after-school and summer care and dividing any increases or decreases. But the ordinary meaning of the terms of the adjustment provision makes this reading of the decree uncertain. Those terms describe the expenses as connected with St. Luke for either or both children, so it is not clear that expenses provided by the babysitter would qualify.
Given the ambiguity in the divorce decree regarding husband's obligation to pay for after-school and summer care expenses provided by someone...
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