Dohn v. Dohn, S03A0309.

• Decision Date: 16 July 2003
• Docket Number: No. S03A0309.,S03A0309.
• Citation: 276 Ga. 826,584 S.E.2d 250
• Parties: DOHN v. DOHN.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

584 S.E.2d 250

276 Ga. 826

DOHN v. DOHN.

No. S03A0309.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

July 16, 2003.

McCorkle, Pedigo & Johnson, LLP, Carl S. Pedigo, Jr., Patricia M. Murphy, Savannah, for appellant.

Anthony L. Harrison, P.C., Brunswick, for appellee.

BENHAM, Justice.

Ms. Dohn appeals an order denying her motion for contempt and holding that Dr. Dohn is no longer required by their divorce decree to maintain a $500,000 life insurance policy naming her as beneficiary. Pursuant to the agreement incorporated into their divorce decree, Dr. Dohn was required to pay, in addition to periodic alimony, specified expenses, including the costs of private school for their two children, health and medical expenses for the children, educational expenses for Ms. Dohn, certain mortgage payments, federal and state income taxes, and all of the couple's outstanding debts. The agreement and decree also required Dr. Dohn to maintain a $500,000 insurance policy with Ms. Dohn as beneficiary until all his financial obligations had terminated and provided that if he failed to do so, any future financial obligations would be a charge against his estate.¹ The motion for contempt contended that although Dr. Dohn still had a financial obligation to Ms. Dohn in the form of periodic alimony, he failed to maintain a $500,000 life insurance policy with Ms. Dohn as the beneficiary. Dr. Dohn answered by asserting that because periodic alimony, his only remaining financial obligation, was not the type of financial obligation contemplated in the "Life Insurance" section of the divorce decree, he is not required to keep Ms. Dohn as beneficiary of a life insurance policy. Holding that Dr. Dohn's periodic alimony obligation expires at his death and is not the type of "financial obligation" that would compel Dr. Dohn to maintain his ex-wife as beneficiary of the insurance policy, the trial court concluded that because all other financial obligations (mortgage, education expenses, outstanding debts, etc.) had been satisfied, Dr. Dohn is no longer required to maintain Ms. Dohn as beneficiary on a life insurance policy. We granted Ms. Dohn's application for discretionary appeal and posed the following question:

Did the trial court err in interpreting the parties' divorce agreement to find that the ex-husband's periodic alimony obligation is not a "financial obligation" required of the ex-husband, as stated in Paragraph 13 of the agreement, thus relieving the ex-husband of his obligation under the agreement to maintain a $500,000 life insurance policy naming his ex-wife as beneficiary?

"Where the parties in a divorce action enter into a settlement agreement, its meaning and effect should be determined according to the usual rules for the construction of contracts, the cardinal rule being to ascertain the intention of the parties. [Cits.]" Cousins v. Cousins, 253 Ga. 30(1), 315 S.E.2d 420 (1984). "The construction of a contract is a question of law for the court." OCGA § 13-2-1. "In any situation involving the construction of a domestic ... contractual agreement, the goal is to look for the intent of the parties. [Cit.]" Carlos v. Lane, 275 Ga. 674, 675, 571 S.E.2d 736 (2002).

In the present case, the trial court undertook a construction of the settlement agreement and concluded that the insurance requirement was intended by the parties only to secure his performance of obligations imposed by the settlement agreement other than periodic alimony. To reach that conclusion, the trial court reasoned that if the parties had intended for the insurance policy to be income for Ms. Dohn, i.e., a replacement of periodic alimony after Dr. Dohn's death, the consequence of a default would have been that the face amount of the policy would become a charge against his estate. Since the agreement provided instead that a default would result in "all future support payments" being a charge against the estate, the trial court reasoned that the insurance requirement was intended to fund only those obligations which would survive Dr. Dohn's death.

That conclusion, however, runs afoul of another principle of contract construction: "In applying the rules of construction of contracts, we look to that construction which will uphold the contract as a whole and not make any provision meaningless. [Cit.]" Harvey v. J.H. Harvey Co., 256 Ga.App. 333, 342, 568 S.E.2d 553 (2002). As Ms. Dohn argues, the trial court's interpretation violates the principle stated above in that it makes meaningless the use of the word "all" in the requirement...