Crowell v. Crowell
Docket Number | COA22-737 |
Decision Date | 01 August 2023 |
Parties | ANDREA CROWELL, Plaintiff, v. WILLIAM CROWELL, Defendant |
Court | North Carolina Court of Appeals |
Heard in the Court of Appeals 10 May 2023.
Appeal by Plaintiff from order entered 9 May 2022 by Judge Christy T. Mann in Mecklenburg County No. 14 CVD 002667 District Court.
Law Office of Thomas D. Bumgardner, PLLC, by Thomas D Bumgardner, and Plumides, Romano &Johnson, PC, by Richard B. Johnson, for plaintiff appellant.
No brief filed for defendant-appellee.
N.C G.S. § 1-294 strips a trial court of subject matter jurisdiction to enter further orders during the pendency of an appeal if the issues in the new order are embraced by the order previously appealed from. Here, the trial court entered an order granting a preliminary injunction on behalf of Defendant during the pendency of a previous appeal that prevented Plaintiff from disposing of property.[1] However the appropriateness of an order based on its collateral effect on that property was the primary issue in the second appeal; thus, the current order contains issues embraced by the order previously appealed from, and the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to enter it.
This is the third appeal in a protracted litigation involving the distribution of marital debt between Plaintiff Andrea Crowell and Defendant William Crowell. The bulk of the relevant facts were recounted in the previous appeal:
Plaintiff and Defendant were married on 11 July 1998 separated on 3 September 2013, and divorced in April 2015. As of the date of separation, Plaintiff and Defendant had incurred a significant amount of marital debt. On 17 February 2014, Plaintiff filed a complaint against Defendant for equitable distribution, alimony, and postseparation support. Defendant filed an answer to the complaint and included a counterclaim for equitable distribution.
From 6 July 2016 to 8 July 2016, the issues of equitable distribution and alimony were tried in Mecklenburg County District Court. The parties had stipulated in the final pretrial order that 14212 Stewarts Bend Lane, 14228 Stewarts Bend Lane, and 14512 Myers Mill Lane were all Plaintiff's separate property, and the trial court distributed the properties, along with their underlying debts, to Plaintiff. The trial court also found the following:
As a result of this equitable distribution Defendant[] will have more debt than property and Plaintiff[] will have to liquidate her property to pay the distributive award. . . . Neither party has any liquid marital property left.... There was no choice but to distribute all the debts to Defendant[] in his case which results in a heavy burden he may never be able to pay before his death and a distributive award owed by Plaintiff[] that she may never be able to pay before her death.
On 15 August 2016, the trial court entered its equitable distribution judgment and alimony order, denying alimony and specifically ordering Plaintiff to liquidate 14212 Stewarts Bend Lane and 14228 Stewarts Bend Lane to satisfy the distributive award to Defendant. On 14 September 2016, Plaintiff appealed from the equitable distribution judgment and alimony order; and, on 2 January 2018, this Court issued a divided opinion. See Crowell v. Crowell, 257 N.C.App. 264, 285 (2018). The Majority opinion held, in relevant part, that the trial court did not err by "considering" Plaintiff's separate property and ordering her to liquidate it to satisfy a distributive award to Defendant. Id. However, on 16 August 2019, our Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion reversing this Court's affirmation of the equitable distribution judgment and order and remanding with further orders to remand to the trial court. Crowell v. Crowell, 372 N.C. 362, 368 (2019). The Court concluded that "the trial court distributed separate property . . . when it ordered Plaintiff to liquidate her separate property to pay a distributive award" and that "there is no distinction to be made between 'considering' and 'distributing' a party's separate property in making a distribution of marital property or debt where the effect of the resulting order is to divest a party of property rights she acquired before marriage." Id. Our Supreme Court ultimately held the trial court could not order Plaintiff to liquidate her separate property to satisfy the distributive award because "trial courts are not permitted to disturb rights in separate property in making equitable distribution award orders." Id. at 370.
Pursuant to our Supreme Court's holding, the trial court held a hearing on 10 February 2021; and, on 16 July 2021, the trial court issued an Amended Equitable Distribution Judgment and Alimony Order. The trial court concluded "Plaintiff[] has the ability to pay the distributive award as outlined herein[,]" incorporated the bulk of the 2016 order by reference, and entered the following distribution order:
(Marks omitted.) Plaintiff timely appealed. Crowell v. Crowell, COA22-111, __ N.C.App. __, 2023 WL 3829196, *1-2 (unpublished).
On 3 November 2021, during the pendency of the second appeal, Defendant filed a motion to enjoin Plaintiff from hiding or disposing of property which, if relinquished, would prevent her from complying with her obligations under the trial court's Amended Equitable Distribution Judgment and Alimony Order. In an order entered the same day, the trial court granted the motion, making, inter alia, the following findings of fact:
Based on these findings of fact, the trial court issued the following temporary restraining order:
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