Messina v. Agee
| Decision Date | 26 June 2020 |
| Docket Number | 2180718,2180733 |
| Parties | Joseph MESSINA v. Christine AGEE Christine Agee v. Joseph Messina |
| Court | Alabama Court of Civil Appeals |
G. John Durward, Jr., and Nancy K. Bird of Durward & Durward, Birmingham, for appellant/cross-appellee Joseph Messina.
Charles H. Dunn and Joseph P. Callaway of Boyd, Fernambucq & Dunn, P.C., Birmingham, for appellee/cross-appellant Christine Agree.
On Applications for Rehearing
This court's opinion of April 17, 2020, is withdrawn, and the following is substituted therefor.
Joseph Messina ("the former husband") appeals from a judgment entered by the Jefferson Circuit Court ("the trial court") in a postdivorce enforcement action. Christine Agee ("the former wife") cross-appeals to the extent that the trial court declined to award her interest on the judgment entered in her favor. As to the appeal, we affirm the trial court's judgment. With regard to the cross-appeal, we reverse the trial court's judgment and remand the cause.
The parties married in September 1995. The former wife filed a complaint for a divorce in 2004. On July 25, 2006, Judge R.A. "Sonny" Ferguson, Jr., entered a judgment divorcing the parties ("the divorce judgment").
Paragraph 18 of the divorce judgment provides as follows:
Paragraph 30 of the divorce judgment provides as follows:
Paragraph 33 of the divorce judgment provides as follows:
The former wife filed a postjudgment motion to amend the divorce judgment, which Judge Ferguson granted, making no material changes to the foregoing provisions. The former husband did not file a postjudgment motion or appeal the divorce judgment.
On July 15, 2016, the former wife filed a petition for a rule nisi or, in the alternative, for an accounting and the entry of a judgment in her favor ("the enforcement action"). She asserted that the former husband had paid her only $16,156.04 toward the $59,750 that she had been awarded in paragraph 33 of the divorce judgment. The former husband answered the former wife's petition on July 25, 2016, denying the material allegations of the petition. The enforcement action was assigned to Judge Nakita R. Blocton, a successor judge to Judge Ferguson, who had retired from the bench in 2011. Judge Blocton scheduled a trial on the petition for August 16, 2018.
At the trial of the enforcement action, the former wife and the former husband testified. The parties testified similarly regarding the following facts. The parties had maintained an American Express investment account ("the investment account"), which was an umbrella account. The investment account consisted of numerous subaccounts, none of which were owned jointly. The subaccounts owned exclusively by the former wife included the two policies referred to in paragraph 18 of the divorce judgment, which were both life-insurance policies, and two individual retirement accounts referred to in paragraph 30 of the divorce judgment. In 2010 or 2011, the former wife transferred all of her individually owned assets from the investment account into a separate account in only her name. The subaccounts owned exclusively by the former husband included a "money market and cash" subaccount, a "market strategy" subaccount, and several retirement subaccounts. During the divorce trial, the parties submitted into evidence statements regarding the investment account from 2004, 2005, and 2006. The former wife could not locate those exhibits, but the former wife did locate a September 2005 statement and submitted that document into evidence during the 2018 trial in the enforcement action. The former husband had retained copies of the 2004, 2005, and 2006 investment-account statements until 2016, when he disposed of them while cleaning out his home following its sale. The former husband attempted to secure the transcript of the divorce trial, but the transcript had been discarded by the court reporter in approximately 2013.
The parties disagreed as to the meaning and effect of the divorce judgment. The former wife testified that the divorce judgment awarded her the two life-insurance policies referred to in paragraph 18, her individual retirement accounts, and an additional monetary award of $59,570 payable from the investment account. The former wife testified that she could not transfer the $59,750 from the investment account because, she said, after transferring her assets from the investment account, the only remaining assets of the investment account were the subaccounts titled exclusively in the name of the former husband, to which she had no access. The former husband had tendered a check to the former wife in the amount of $16,156.04 in December 2006. The former wife considered that check as partial payment on the $59,750 owed to her under paragraph 33 of the divorce judgment. After not receiving any further payments, she contacted her attorney, who eventually commenced the enforcement action in order to obtain the remaining allegedly amount owed to the former wife, plus postjudgment interest.
The former husband testified that the divorce judgment awarded the former wife assets with a total value of $59,750, which, he said, included the cash value of the two life-insurance policies referred to in paragraph 18 of the divorce judgment and of the individual retirement accounts referred to in paragraph 30 of the divorce judgment. In 2006, the former husband calculated the total cash value of those assets to be $43,593.96 based on a current statement of the investment account. The former husband then determined that, in order to satisfy paragraph 33 of the divorce judgment, $16,156.04 needed to be transferred from the investment account to the former wife. However, because the former husband had completely depleted the "fungible" "money market and cash" and "market strategy" subaccounts while the divorce action was pending, and because the only other assets remaining in the investment account were his individual retirement accounts, which he could not access without adverse tax consequences, he elected to issue a check to the former wife in the amount of $16,156.04 from his personal checking account. The former husband testified that he believed the payment of $16,156.04, when coupled with the transfer by the former wife of her two life-insurance policies and her individual retirement accounts, fully satisfied the $59,750 award contained in paragraph 33 of the divorce judgment.
On December 28, 2018, Judge Blocton entered a judgment construing paragraph 33 of the divorce judgment as awarding the former wife the two life-insurance policies, her individual retirement accounts, and an additional $59,750 to be transferred from the investment account. The judgment provides, in pertinent part:
"The Court further finds that the only [investment-account subaccounts] that the [$59,750 in] funds awarded to [the former wife] could have been paid out of and/or transferred from were from accounts belonging solely to [the former husband] in which [the former wife] did not have the authority or ability to perform the act of paying and/or transferring said funds to herself."
The judgment determines that the former husband had not transferred to the former wife the $59,750 from the investment account, although he had voluntarily paid the former wife $16,156.04 for which he was entitled to a credit. The judgment ordered the former husband to pay the former wife $43,593.96 to satisfy paragraph 33 of the divorce judgment. As for postjudgment interest, the judgment provides as follows:
"The Court finds that the award to [the former wife] as written in the Paragraph 33 of the Final Judgment of Divorce is not a judgment for which this Court can grant any award of statutory interest as said sum was never reduced to a judgment nor did said decree note the name of a person or an entity in which said judgment was to be rendered against."
Both parties timely filed postjudgment motions; those motions were denied on April 2, 2019. The former husband appealed on May 13, 2019. The former wife cross-appealed on May 24, 2019.
In his appeal, the former husband argues that the trial court erred in interpreting paragraph 33 of the divorce judgment to award the former wife an additional monetary award of $59,750 payable from his subaccounts. In her cross-appeal, the former wife contends that the trial court erred in failing to award her postjudgment interest.
Divorce judgments should be interpreted or construed like any other written instrument. See Vest v. Vest, 215 So. 3d 552 (Ala. Civ. App. 2016). The meaning of a written instrument is a question of law ordinarily to be determined from the language within the four corners of the instrument. Holston v. Holston, 128 So. 3d 736, 743 (Ala. Civ. App. 2013). "Alabama appellate courts have stated that a court will not look beyond the four corners of a written instrument unless the instrument contains latent ambiguities." Judge v. Judge, 14 So. 3d 162, 165 ...
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