In re Marriage of Edwards

• Citation: 308 Ill.Dec. 455,861 N.E.2d 1020
• Decision Date: 29 November 2006
• Docket Number: No. 5-06-0046.,5-06-0046.
• Parties: In re MARRIAGE OF Rebecca EDWARDS, Petitioner-Appellant, and William A. Edwards, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

861 N.E.2d 1020

308 Ill.Dec. 455

In re MARRIAGE OF Rebecca EDWARDS, Petitioner-Appellant, and William A. Edwards, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 5-06-0046.

Appellate Court of Illinois, Fifth District.

November 29, 2006.

Morris Lane Harvey, Joshua M. Bradley, Law Offices of Harvey & Bradley, LLC, Mt. Vernon, for Appellant.

Timothy R. Neubauer, Sean M. Featherstun, Neubauer, Hanson & Overstreet, P.C., Mt. Vernon, for Appellee.

Presiding Justice SPOMER delivered the opinion of the court:

The parties to the present appeal, petitioner Rebecca Edwards and respondent William A. Edwards, were married on April 11, 1987. Their marriage was dissolved by a final judgment for the dissolution of the marriage, entered in the circuit court of Jefferson County on March 24, 2005. The judgment incorporated a marital settlement agreement, in which the parties agreed that the circuit court would reserve jurisdiction relating to the issue of the classification of the petitioner's right to past-due child support in connection with the 1985 dissolution of her previous marriage and the attorney fees associated therewith. Following the 1985 dissolution, a purge order was entered, finding that the petitioner's ex-husband, Robert Eugene Mattingly, was in contempt for his failure to pay child support as previously ordered, and a judgment, including payment arrangements, was entered against him in the circuit court of Montgomery County on April 30, 2004. The judgment ordered Mattingly to pay $39,000 in past-due child support and $2,800 in attorney fees.

In the present case, on March 9, 2005, counsel for the respondent propounded supplemental interrogatories to the petitioner. The petitioner submitted an objection to the supplemental interrogatories, claiming that any sums of money paid to the petitioner pursuant to the above-mentioned purge order and judgment were not subject to claims by the respondent in the present case. The circuit court denied the petitioner's objection, concluding that the judgment found in the purge order was marital property. In response, the petitioner requested that the court certify the question for interlocutory appeal. On January 17, 2006, the circuit court certified the following question for appeal pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 308 (155 Ill.2d R. 308):

"Whether a judgment relating to the issues of the award of child support and attorney's fees associated therewith in a dissolution of marriage proceeding between one spouse and a former spouse is marital property in the current dissolution proceeding."

This court granted leave to appeal, and for the reasons that follow, we answer the certified question in the negative with regard to the past-due child support but in the affirmative with regard to the attorney fees associated therewith. Accordingly, we affirm that part of the circuit court's order denying the petitioner's objection to the respondent's supplemental interrogatories with regard to the attorney fees, reverse the order with regard to the past-due child support, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

We begin by noting the positions taken by the parties. The petitioner contends that although the issue presented is a matter of first impression in Illinois, courts in Missouri and Kentucky have addressed the same issue under statutory schemes "substantially identical" to the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (hereinafter the Act) (750 ILCS 5/101 et seq. (West 2004)). The petitioner posits that the opinions of the Missouri and Kentucky courts support the position that the judgment for the child support arrearage is not marital property in this case because the right to receive child support that underlies the judgment for the arrearage had been acquired prior to her marriage to the respondent. Accordingly, the petitioner contends, under the "source-of-funds rule" utilized in Illinois to classify property as marital or nonmarital, the right to the arrearage may be traced to the judgment dissolving the petitioner's previous marriage to Mattingly and awarding child support to the petitioner for the benefit of her children, a judgment that preceded the petitioner's marriage to the respondent and the purge order and judgment for the arrearage. The petitioner argues that because the source-of-funds rule classifies property on the basis of when the claim to the property accrued and because the petitioner's claim to the child support accrued prior to her marriage to the respondent, the claim is nonmarital property. The petitioner points out that personal injury actions and workers' compensation actions in Illinois operate in this manner, and she argues that by analogy the property at issue in the case at bar should as well. The petitioner concedes, however, that the child support arrearage and the attorney fees associated therewith must be analyzed separately and that a differing result could be reached for each.

The respondent, on the other hand, contends that both the arrearage and the attorney fees award are marital property and should have been divided accordingly. In support of his position, the respondent first points to section 505(d) of the Act, which states that "[a]ny new or existing" child support order entered by the circuit court under the Act "shall be deemed to be a series of judgments against the person obligated to pay support thereunder," with each judgment to be in the amount of each payment or installment of support and with each judgment "deemed entered as of the date the corresponding payment or installment becomes due under the terms of the support order." 750 ILCS 5/505(d) (West 2004). The respondent also points to section 503(a) of the Act, which states that all property acquired after the marriage is presumed to be marital property, except that which is excluded by section 503(a). 750 ILCS 5/503(a) (West 2004). The respondent contends that, taken together and applied to the case at bar, these two sections dictate that because past-due child support and the associated attorney fees are not excluded by section 503(a) and because, pursuant to section 505(d), a cause of action for a child support arrearage does not accrue on the date of a previous child support order but accrues on each date a child support obligor fails to make a court-ordered payment, each payment that was due but unpaid to the petitioner during her marriage to the respondent resulted in a claim that accrued during the marriage and so must be treated as marital property under the Act. The respondent claims that the entire $39,000 referenced in the purge order and judgment accrued during the course of the parties' marriage.

The petitioner responds to the respondent's argument by claiming that section 505(d) of the Act "is an aid to collection of support for the child in the case in which it was entered" and "does not and cannot affect the classification of child support payments in a subsequent marriage." The petitioner notes as well that even if one were to construe the judgments for unpaid support as coming due during the marriage, the source of the funds of the judgments would still be the underlying judgment for dissolution that created the obligation on the part of Mattingly to provide child support and the right of the petitioner to receive it.

With regard to the child support arrearage, we agree with the petitioner. The Act clearly and unequivocally defines marital property as "all property acquired by either spouse subsequent to the marriage," subject to certain exceptions. 750 ILCS 5/503(a) (West 2004). Although no reported decisions in Illinois address the question of whether a child support arrearage is marital property, Illinois courts have addressed various other types of judgments and classified them as marital or nonmarital on the basis of whether the underlying rights accrued during the marriage. For example, the Illinois Supreme Court has held that with regard to a workers' compensation...