In re Marriage of Chalat

• Decision Date: 16 May 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04SC232.,04SC232.
• Citation: 112 P.3d 47
• Parties: In Re the Marriage of Nancy S. CHALAT n/k/a Nancy S. Shapiro, Petitioner, and James H. CHALAT, Respondent.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

112 P.3d 47

In Re the Marriage of Nancy S. CHALAT n/k/a Nancy S. Shapiro, Petitioner, and

James H. CHALAT, Respondent.

No. 04SC232.

Supreme Court of Colorado.

May 16, 2005.

Rehearing Denied June 6, 2005.¹

Jean E. Dubofsky, P.C., Jean E. Dubofsky, Boulder, James J. Keil, Jr., Wheat Ridge, Springer & Steinberg, P.C., Michael P. Zwiebel, Denver, for Petitioner.

Canges Iwashko Bethke & Bailey, P.C., James S. Bailey, Samler and Whitson, Eric A. Samler, Denver, for Respondent.

RICE, Justice.

Petitioner seeks review of the court of appeals' decision reversing the trial court's order obligating Respondent to pay his daughter's full postsecondary education expenses pursuant to a 1984 decree of dissolution. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

Respondent's agreement to pay his daughter's college expenses is not enforceable as a contract term. Rather, Respondent's agreement was adopted by the trial court and incorporated into the court's decree of dissolution. As a result, the trial court retains continuing jurisdiction to modify its orders concerning the daughter, including Respondent's postsecondary education support obligation. The child support guidelines statute does not divest the trial court of this authority.

Respondent, however, may only invoke the trial court's continuing jurisdiction upon a showing of substantial and continuing changed circumstances. Excluding a few specifically delineated situations that are inapplicable here, nothing in the statutory plain language alters this clear, unambiguous requirement. Amendments to the postsecondary education support scheme alone do not automatically trigger a court's continuing jurisdiction to modify child support orders.

I. Facts and Proceedings Below

This case concerns the modifiability of a separation agreement incorporated into a dissolution of marriage decree in which the father, Respondent James H. Chalat, promised to pay his daughter's college expenses. Respondent and Petitioner Nancy Shapiro, the mother, ended their three-year marriage in 1984. Their only child, Alexandra Chalat, had been born almost two years earlier.

The parties reached a separation agreement, which constituted the "entire agreement between the parties and, except for any modifications hereinafter agreed to by the parties in writing, no term of this agreement shall be modified after the date hereof except as provided for by law." As part of the agreement, Respondent promised "Child Support." This obligation encompassed "Cash Payment," "Medical Insurance and Expenses," "College Tuition and Expenses," and "Life Insurance."

Regarding the cash payment, Respondent agreed to pay Petitioner $500 per month until Alexandra reached twenty-one years of age or became emancipated. As for college tuition and expenses, Respondent promised to pay the daughter's postsecondary education expenses for four years at an undergraduate college, including tuition, room, board, books, and fees through her twenty-second birthday. If Alexandra chose to attend college and take advantage of Respondent's obligation to pay, it also was agreed that the parties would reassess the monthly $500 payment, considering the actual postsecondary education expenses. The trial court adopted the separation agreement in its 1984 decree of dissolution.

In 1993, Petitioner moved to modify the monthly child support cash payment based upon both parties'"substantially changed" incomes and Colorado's prior adoption of the child support guidelines, section 14-10-115, 6B C.R.S. (1987 & Supp.1992). A written stipulation was reached the following year, in which the parties agreed that the statutory guidelines "set out the standard for determining [the] child support obligations of each party." Accordingly, the stipulation set $500 as the monthly base amount of child support to be augmented annually, as statutorily appropriate, by retroactive lump sum payments. Importantly, the stipulation also provided that "[a]ll other provisions of the existing Stipulations and Orders of Court, not herein modified, shall remain in full force and effect."

By 2000, the parties had begun discussing Alexandra's upcoming college attendance, and disagreement over the obligation for the postsecondary education expenses arose. Petitioner again moved to modify child support in 2001, alleging a greater than ten percent income increase as a changed circumstance. That same year, Alexandra started college at the University of Vermont. Respondent paid all postsecondary education expenses for the first semester, but then moved for a determination of his actual obligation under the child support guidelines, which he contended were made applicable by the trial court's 1994 modification.

Specifically, Respondent argued that the statutory guidelines capped his postsecondary education obligation well below the absolute level provided for in the 1984 decree of dissolution. Petitioner, in contrast, argued that the "College Tuition and Expenses" provision was not modifiable under the child support guidelines because the decree had been entered before 1991. And, even if it were modifiable, according to Petitioner, the burden was on Respondent to show changed circumstances. Moreover, Petitioner argued that Respondent had made a promise to pay all of Alexandra's college costs—one he could not later avoid by relying on subsequent, less onerous legislative requirements.

After a hearing, the magistrate found that the postsecondary education expenses provision in the 1984 separation agreement was contractual in nature and could not be modified. In addition, the magistrate found that Respondent could have addressed postsecondary education expenses in the 1994 modification, but chose not to, thereby reaffirming his decade-earlier promise.² Then, examining the child support guidelines statute, the magistrate found that it was ambiguous concerning retroactive modification. The magistrate looked at the legislative history and selectively relied on one representative's equivocal statement that modification of pre-1991 orders was not allowed. Even if modifiable, the magistrate concluded that Respondent was not entitled to modification because he failed to show a substantial and continuing change of circumstances.

Accordingly, the magistrate held Respondent to his promise in the 1984 separation agreement, ordering him responsible for Alexandra's tuition, room, board, books, and fees at the University of Vermont until she reached the age of twenty-two. When Alexandra transferred to the University of Pennsylvania after her freshman year, the magistrate entered a second order directing Respondent to pay that school's tuition, room, board, books, and fees. The trial court affirmed, finding that Respondent was "still obligated to support his child" under a "nonmodifiable contract."

On Respondent's appeal, the court of appeals held that the magistrate and the trial court should have modified Respondent's postsecondary education expense obligation in accordance with the child support guidelines statutory cap. In re Marriage of Chalat, 94 P.3d 1191, 1194 (Colo.App.2004). Agreeing with Respondent's interpretation, the court of appeals concluded that postsecondary education support orders entered before July 1, 1997 are modifiable, and no showing of changed circumstances is required. Id. at 1195-96. Thus, the court of appeals rejected the magistrate and the trial court's statutory interpretation as well as their conclusion that the terms of the 1984 separation agreement were contractual and binding. Id. at 1194 (citing § 14-10-112(2), (6), 5 C.R.S. (2003)).

Petitioner sought further review, and we granted certiorari to determine whether the trial court can modify the parties' 1984 decree of dissolution, and if so, whether Respondent had to first show changed circumstances.³ Upon review, we affirm in part and reverse in part. We hold that since the trial court retained continuing jurisdiction to modify the 1984 decree, not limited by the child support guidelines statute, Respondent's postsecondary education support obligation may be modified, but only upon a showing by Respondent of substantial and continuing changed circumstances.

II. Colorado Child Support Statutes

To place the above events in the proper legal context, it is helpful to summarize Colorado's child support statutes and their repeated amendments.⁴ In 1984 as it does today, the Uniform Dissolution of Marriage Act ("the Act"), sections 14-10-101 to -133, C.R.S. (2004), allowed parties to end their marriage amicably by negotiating a separation agreement.⁵ Among the terms to which the parties could agree was postsecondary education support, subject to final adoption by the court.

In 1986, the General Assembly overhauled the child support guidelines to follow a formulaic calculation method. § 14-10-115(3), 6 C.R.S. (Supp.1986). In addition, reasonable and necessary college expenses were listed as an extraordinary education expense that could be added to the basic child support obligation when agreed by the parties and approved by the court. § 14-10-115(13). This subsection was changed the following year to allow for higher education expenses by either agreement of the parties or order of the court, but the support was still considered an "extraordinary" expense. § 14-10-115(13), 6B C.R.S. (1987). Further amendment came in 1990, when the General Assembly allowed room and board expenses to reduce monthly child support, in order to accommodate the child's residence away from the custodial parent during college. § 14-10-115(13), 6B C.R.S. (Supp.1990).

In 1991, more substantial changes were enacted as the General Assembly no longer considered college expenses an extraordinary adjustment to the basic child support schedule. § 14-10-115(13)(a)(III), 6B C.R.S. (Supp.1991). Instead, the court could order parents to pay reasonable postsecondary education costs whenever "appropriate," although not beyond the child's...