Morgan v. Morgan
| Decision Date | 11 July 2014 |
| Docket Number | 2120101,2120390. |
| Parties | Steven Mark MORGAN v. Cathy Renee MORGAN. Steven Mark Morgan v. Cathy Renee Morgan. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Civil Appeals |
Kelli F. McDaniel, Montgomery, for appellant.
Angie Avery Collins, Clanton, for appellee.
On Application for Rehearing in Case No. 2120101
The opinion of April 18, 2014, is withdrawn, and the following is substituted therefor. Steven Mark Morgan ("the husband") appeals from a judgment of the Chilton Circuit Court ("the trial court") divorcing him from Cathy Renee Morgan ("the wife") and a subsequent order holding him in contempt for failing to comply with the divorce judgment.
The parties were married in August 1984. The wife filed a complaint for a divorce and seeking pendente lite relief in the trial court on July 16, 2010, in which she alleged that the parties were incompatible and that the husband had committed adultery. Two of the parties' three children were minors at the time the complaint was filed. The trial court entered a standing pendente lite order that same day that, in pertinent part, awarded the wife exclusive use of the marital residence and custody of the minor children.
On July 30, 2010, the trial court entered another pendente lite order requiring the husband to pay the wife $4,100 in monthly alimony, $1,898 in monthly child support, $323 per month for health insurance, and $1,845 per month for house and automobile payments. Additionally, the trial court ordered the husband to purchase a laptop computer and to pay college expenses for the parties' minor daughter ("the daughter").
On August 2, 2010, the husband filed an answer to the wife's complaint and a counterclaim for a divorce. He alleged that the parties were incompatible and that the wife had committed adultery. The husband also claimed that the wife had committed certain torts and asked the trial court for compensatory and punitive damages. The wife filed an answer to the counterclaim, a motion to strike, and a motion for relief pursuant to the Alabama Litigation Accountability Act ("the ALAA"), § 12–19–270 et seq., Ala.Code 1975, on September 2, 2010, in which she asked the trial court to strike the tort claims as irrelevant to the divorce proceedings; the wife further alleged that the tort claims were intended for harassment. The trial court set the wife's motions for a hearing on September 27, 2010. Although the record does not indicate the outcome of the hearing, or whether the hearing was held, it appears that the husband's tort claims and the wife's ALAA claim were abandoned at trial.
On October 26, 2010, the wife filed a motion requesting that the trial court find the husband in contempt for his alleged failure to comply with certain provisions of the July 30, 2010, pendente lite support order. On December 1, 2010, the wife filed a second motion for contempt, arguing that the husband had continued to fail to meet the support obligations under the July 30, 2010, pendente lite order. The husband filed a response on December 13, 2010, in which he averred that he was in compliance with the pendente lite order.
On March 15, 2011, the husband filed a motion for, among other things, relief from the July 30, 2010, pendente lite order. In that motion, the husband asserted that his employment had changed and that his income had decreased, and, therefore, the husband asked the trial court to recalculate his alimony and child-support obligations.
The wife filed a third motion for contempt on April 25, 2011, in which she again alleged that the husband had failed to comply with the July 30, 2010, pendente lite order. The husband responded on April 26, 2011, by filing a motion in which he renewed an earlier motion for sanctions pertaining to a discovery dispute and sought a stay of scheduled mediation, for an order pertaining to the filing of the parties' 2010 income-tax returns, and for relief from certain pendente lite support obligations. After conducting a hearing on the wife's contempt motion and the husband's April 26, 2011, motion, the trial court entered an order on April 29, 2011, that reduced the husband's pendente lite child-support obligation to $1,442 per month, ordered the parties to jointly file their 2010 tax return, relieved the husband of the requirement to pay the wife for health insurance for the parties' children because both parties had family health-insurance plans, and reserved "all other issues."1
On September 30, 2011, the wife filed a motion for a temporary restraining order ("TRO") in which she requested that the trial court enjoin the husband from having any contact with the parties' remaining minor child ("the youngest son") as a result of recent interactions between the husband and the youngest son. The trial court entered an order on October 2, 2011, setting a hearing on October 13, 2011, on the issue of the husband's visitation with the youngest son. The trial court entered an order on October 13, 2011, granting the TRO.
A trial was held on June 20, 2012, July 12, 2012, and July 13, 2012, at which the trial court received ore tenus evidence from the parties, the daughter, the husband's supervisor at work, and the husband's girlfriend, Mischa Terry Morgan ("the girlfriend").2 The parties' youngest son testified before the trial court in camera.
The parties disputed the date of their separation. The wife testified that the parties did not separate until after a June 2010 incident in which she traveled to Georgia to visit the husband and learned that the husband was living with the girlfriend. The husband disputed that testimony. The husband testified that he had moved to Georgia for work in April 2009. The husband testified that the parties separated when he moved to Georgia. The husband testified that he met the girlfriend through an Internet dating Web site, that they began dating in October 2009, and that they began living together in his apartment in Georgia in April 2010.
Evidence from a social-media site indicates that the girlfriend made several references to her relationship with the husband. In December 2010, she displayed a photograph on that social-media site of what she described as "the ring!" and she referenced an upcoming wedding. The record indicates that, in October 2011, the husband and the girlfriend traveled together to a beach resort in the Dominican Republic and had photographs of themselves taken on the beach. Those photographs, which were admitted into evidence, depict the husband and the girlfriend, who was wearing a white dress, in various poses on or near a beach. Another photograph shows the husband's and the girlfriend's hands wearing what appear to be wedding rings. The husband denied that he and the girlfriend were engaged or had conducted any type of ceremony while at the beach resort; he stated that the pictures were for fun and that the photographer had lent them the rings.
The husband testified that he has a master's degree in engineering and had moved to Georgia to work for a company as an independent contractor. However, he stated that his independent-contractor position had been terminated but that the company had offered him a position as a full-time employee, which he had accepted in or around March 2011. The husband stated that he took that job for stability, and he answered in the negative the wife's questions attempting to establish that his motivation for accepting that employment was that it would allow him to be closer to the girlfriend. The husband stated that he had looked for other employment, and he named one other potential employer he had been in contact with before he was offered his current employment. According to the husband, his gross annual salary was $300,000 in 2010 and approximately $200,000 in 2011, and, he said, his annual salary as a full-time employee would be $165,000 in 2012.
The husband testified that he had paid for one semester of the daughter's college tuition; he also stated that he had not been supplied with a class schedule, any information regarding tuition or other costs, or information concerning the daughter's grades. The husband further testified that neither the daughter nor the youngest son would return his telephone calls or text messages and that he believed that the wife had alienated the children from him.
The husband testified initially that he believed the marital residence was worth approximately $400,000; he later testified that $300,000 was a more realistic value. The husband testified that he maintained a checking account, a money-market account, and an individual retirement account ("IRA") and that the current balances of those accounts were $2,000, $400 to $500, and $6,000, respectively. The husband also testified that he had a 401(k) retirement account and that it had a balance of $83,000 at the time the complaint for divorce was filed. The husband further testified that his monthly expenses were $705 in rent, $60 to $80 for water, and a $500 truck payment.
The wife testified that she has a bachelor's degree in marketing, but she further testified that she did not work between the birth of the daughter in 1992 and February 2011, when she began working for the Chilton County Board of Education as a bookkeeper. The wife stated that her current salary was $21,000 per year. The wife further testified that she had "inherited" a bank account from her mother but that she was not sure how much money was in the account when the divorce action was filed.3 The husband testified that he had paid the taxes on the interest that bank account had earned since 2005, and, according to him, there was approximately $250,000 in the bank account when he and the wife separated.
The wife testified that the marital residence was located on property that had been given to the parties by her parents and that it was located near or adjacent to other property owned by her family. The wife described the condition of the marital residence and described...
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