Gaylord v. Stuart, 32

• Court: Supreme Court of Michigan
• Writing for the Court: SOURIS; CARR; ADAMS
• Citation: 372 Mich. 216,125 N.W.2d 485
• Parties: Martha GAYLORD, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Clifford W. STUART, Defendant and Appellant.
• Docket Number: No. 32,32
• Decision Date: 06 January 1964

Page 485

125 N.W.2d 485 372 Mich. 216 Martha GAYLORD, Plaintiff and Appellee,
v.
Clifford W. STUART, Defendant and Appellant. No. 32. Supreme Court of Michigan. Jan. 6, 1964.

Page 486

Peter F. Cicinelli and Eugene D. Mossner, Saginaw, for plaintiff-appellee.

Bauer, Williams & Smith, Saginaw, for defendant and appellant.

Before the Entire Bench.

[372 Mich. 217] SOURIS, Justice (for affirmance).

This is an appeal from judgment for $8,400 in plaintiff's favor in her action for accrued and unpaid alimony due from defendant under the terms of a Connecticut divorce decree. The Connecticut decree, entered in 1948, awarded plaintiff 'alimony in the amount of $350 per month from this date through and including the month of June, 1949' and thereafter at the rate of $250 per month. With plaintiff's consent, alimony on and after October 1, 1956 was reduced to $200 per month.

Defendant's claim on appeal is that alimony in Connecticut may be awarded only from 'the husband's income, whether the same is derived from property already acquired or from his personal daily exertions or from both', as provided by the statutory law of Connecticut, 1949 Rev., § 7335, C.G.S.A. § 46-21, and that during the period he failed to pay plaintiff alimony he had no income from which such alimony could be paid. In addition to the Connecticut statute cited, defendant relies upon a stipulation of the parties incorporated into the divorce decree by which the parties agreed that the Connecticut decree would order 'alimony [to] be paid to the plaintiff from the defendant's income' in the amounts and for the periods actually provided in the decree.

Defendant's contention is that the reference to 'the husband's income' in the Connecticut statute means his net taxable income for federal income tax purposes. Defendant claims that since he had no net taxable income for federal income tax purposes from 1958, when he stopped alimony payments to plaintiff, to date of trial, the trial court erred in awarding plaintiff judgment on the Connecticut decree's alimony provision.

[372 Mich. 218] Defendant acknowledges there is no Connecticut case defining the term 'income', as used in the statute, in the limited manner he urges upon us. Although a Connecticut court someday might find some merit in such a contention, we are not persuaded that we should anticipate such result. Were we construing a Michigan statute, we would require of our legislature more precise language than that used by...