Molitor v. Molitor

• Decision Date: 07 July 1981
• Citation: Molitor v. Molitor, 184 Conn. 530, 440 A.2d 215 (Conn. 1981)
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Donna MOLITOR v. Joseph T. MOLITOR, Jr., et al.

Page 215

440 A.2d 215

184 Conn. 530

Donna MOLITOR v. Joseph T. MOLITOR, Jr., et al.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued March 11, 1981.

Decided July 7, 1981.

Louis I. Gladstone, Bridgeport, with whom, on the brief, was Matthew B. Woods, Bridgeport, for appellant (defendant).

Elaine T. Silver, Stamford, with whom, on the brief, was Robert M. Wechsler, Stamford, for appellee (plaintiff).

Before BOGDANSKI, C. J., and PETERS, HEALEY, PARSKEY and ARMENTANO, JJ.

PETERS, Associate Justice.

In this action for marital dissolution, the principal issue is the propriety of the trial court's order setting aside as fraudulent a conveyance of marital property. The plaintiff, Donna Molitor, brought an action against the defendant, Joseph T. Molitor, Jr., seeking a dissolution of their marriage, custody of their two minor children, alimony, support, counsel fees, and a division of the parties' real and personal property. The defendant counterclaimed for a dissolution, custody and a division of the property.

The underlying facts giving rise to the present controversy are as follows: The plaintiff initiated the action for dissolution on January 17, 1977. Orders for alimony and support pendente lite were rendered in September, 1977, and in March and April, 1978. On October 25, 1978, when the defendant was in arrears on payments due under these orders for alimony and support, he transferred his one-half interest in the marital home to his uncle, Raymond Keywork, as trustee for the two Molitor children, for a consideration of one dollar. Shortly before the transfer, the defendant had been notified of the imminent termination of his employment.

Upon her discovery of these events, the plaintiff amended her complaint to add a count alleging that the transfer of the marital home was a fraudulent conveyance. The trial court permitted this amendment, and also allowed Raymond Keywork to be named as an additional party defendant. A lis pendens was placed on the property and an attachment of Keywork's interest in the property was also obtained.

After a two-day trial, Hon. W. L. Tierney, Jr., state referee, acting as the trial court, dissolved the marriage, awarded joint custody of the children and ordered the defendant to pay alimony and support. Furthermore, the court annulled the conveyance to Keywork and judicially transferred the defendant's interest in the marital home to the plaintiff. Although Keywork was represented by the defendant's trial counsel, he did not appear for the trial, and has not appealed from the judgment. The defendant has appealed only from that part of the judgment setting aside the conveyance to Keywork and transferring that property to the plaintiff.

Before we can discuss the merits of the judgment, we must consider two challenges to our jurisdiction to hear this appeal. The plaintiff argues that the defendant lacks standing to prosecute this appeal because, having conveyed to Keywork all of his rights to the property at issue, he has no further interest in its disposition and is therefore not aggrieved by the action of the trial court. The defendant argues that, because he conveyed the property at a time antecedent to the entry of the trial court's decree, that court lacked jurisdiction to make any order relating thereto.

With regard to the plaintiff's challenge to our jurisdiction, we hold that the defendant has sufficient standing to prosecute this appeal. Measured by the criteria for standing recently reiterated in Maloney v. Pac, --- Conn. ---, ---, ---, 439 A.2d 349 (42 Conn.L.J., No. 38, pp. 2, 4) (1981), his appeal raises issues that are justiciable and that are sufficiently immediate to afford the assurance of their vigorous litigation. While it is true that the trustee Keywork might have adequately contested the avoidance of the conveyance of the defendant's interest in the marital property, the trustee has elected not to participate in these proceedings. It is evidently the view of the trustee that there is in this case such a unity of interest between the trustee and the settlor of the trust that the trustee's position can adequately be represented by the settlor, the defendant. The defendant has consistently, from the time that the validity of the trust was first put into issue, manifested his interest in the preservation and fulfillment of the trust agreement, whose enforceability he has defended with vigor. In the light of all of these circumstances, the defendant, as settlor of the trust, is sufficiently aggrieved by its judicial defeasance to have standing here.

Turning next to the defendant's challenge to the trial court's jurisdiction, ¹ we hold it also to be unavailing. It is important, in assessing this challenge, to be clear about what is not at stake. The defendant does not argue that the trial court lacked personal jurisdiction over him; he was served personally and participated fully in the dissolution proceedings in the trial court. See Hodge v. Hodge, 178 Conn. 308, 315, 422 A.2d 280 (1979). Nor can the defendant deny that he had notice that the plaintiff was asserting an interest in his share of the marital home, since her complaint so indicated from the outset and his own financial affidavit, filed in 1977 in connection with this case, listed this property as an asset. Finally, the conveyance to the trustee Keywork was not a sale to a good faith purchaser for value. The consideration was nominal at best, and Keywork, the defendant's uncle, knew of the pending dissolution action. Keywork has never asserted any interest independent of that of the defendant, although, having been made a party to the proceedings, he had every opportunity to do so. The same residual interest that gives the defendant standing in this court afforded subject matter jurisdiction to the trial court. A party to an action for dissolution does not have unlimited power to frustrate orderly judicial adjudication of rights in marital property. While neither marriage nor an action for dissolution serves, in and of itself, to transfer an interest in property from one spouse to another; General Statutes § 46b-36; Tobey v. Tobey, 165 Conn. 742, 748, 345 A.2d 21 (1974); the institution of judicial proceedings serves, at least between the parties, to preserve the status quo from impairment by fraud. A transfer made after notice of an actual or imminent action seeking alimony or support may be found fraudulent and set aside. See Pappas v. Pappas, 164 Conn. 242, 244-45, 320 A.2d 809 (1973); Harrison v. Harrison, 228 Ga. 126, 184 S.E.2d 147, 148 (1971); Sherrill v. Mallicote, 57 Tenn.App. 537, 417 S.W.2d 798 (1967).

We come then at last to the defendant's principal argument on this appeal, that the trial court erred in finding fraudulent his conveyance of his interest in the marital property to the trustee Keywork. ² Our fraudulent conveyance statute, now General Statutes § 52-552, ³ was first adopted in 1702, and has long been held substantially identical to the similar provisions of the statute of frauds, 13 Eliz. c. 5 (1570); O'Neill v. Kilduff, 81 Conn. 116, 121, 70 A. 640 (1908); Curtis v. Lewis, 74 Conn. 367, 373-74, 50 A. 878 (1902); Benton v. Jones, 8 Conn. 186, 189 (1830). We have held it to be an adoption of the common law of fraudulent conveyances and that the common law remedy still exists. White v. Amenta, 110 Conn. 314, 318-19, 148 A. 345 (1930). While Connecticut has never adopted the Uniform Fraudulent Conveyance Act, now in force in twenty-five states, the similarities between it and our law are strong, since the uniform act also is largely an adoption and clarification of the standards of the common law. See Uniform Fraudulent Conveyance Act (1978), Commissioners' Prefatory Note, p. 162.

Both under our law and under the uniform act, a conveyance may judicially be declared void and set aside as against any person except a purchaser for fair consideration without knowledge of the fraud at the time of purchase, if the conveyance was fraudulent. General Statutes § 52-552; Uniform Fraudulent Conveyance Act §§ 9, 10; Genovese Coal Co. v. River Bend Builders, Inc., 146 Conn. 48, 51-52, 147 A.2d 193 (1958); White v. Amenta, supra, 318-19, 148 A. 345. A conveyance is fraudulent if made with actual intent to avoid any debt or duty or if made without any substantial consideration by a person who is or will be thereby rendered insolvent. General Statutes § 52-552; Uniform Fraudulent Conveyance Act §§ 4, 7; Town Bank & Trust Co. v. Benson, 176 Conn. 304, 307, 407 A.2d 971 (1978); Genovese Coal Co. v. River Bend Builders, Inc., supra, 51-52, 147 A.2d 193. A person is insolvent for these purposes when he is unable to pay his then-existing debts. Town Bank & Trust Co. v. Benson, supra, 307, 407 A.2d 971; Boiselle v. Rogoff, 126 Conn. 635, 643, 13 A.2d 753 (1940); Dombron v. Rogozinski, 120 Conn. 245, 247, 180 A. 453 (1935); cf. Uniform Fraudulent Conveyance Act § 2(1); Meyer v. General American Corporation, 569 P.2d 1094 (Utah 1977); Glenn, Fraudulent Conveyances (Rev.Ed.1940) § 272.

The trial court found that the conveyance of the defendant's interest in the marital home to Keywork was fraudulent as to the plaintiff on two separate bases. On the one hand, it found that the...