Murphy v. Bartlett

• Decision Date: 04 February 2014
• Docket Number: Docket No. Wal–13–11.
• Citation: 86 A.3d 610,2014 ME 13
• Parties: Christine A. MURPHY v. William E. BARTLETT.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

86 A.3d 610

2014 ME 13

Christine A. MURPHY

v.William E. BARTLETT.

Docket No. Wal–13–11.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Submitted on Briefs: Oct. 31, 2013.

Decided: Feb. 4, 2014.

Thomas F. Shehan, Jr., Esq., Searsport, on the brief, for appellant William E. Bartlett.

Christine A. Murphy did not file a brief.

Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, LEVY, SILVER, MEAD, and JABAR, JJ.

LEVY, J.

[¶ 1] William E. Bartlett appeals from a judgment entered in the District Court (Belfast, Worth, J.) finding him in contempt for failing to make payments required by a divorce judgment, and ordering Bartlett's incarceration should he not remedy his contempt. Bartlett contends that the judgment was premised on erroneous factual findings regarding his ability to meet his obligations under the divorce judgment. We affirm the court's finding of contempt to the extent that it was based on Bartlett's past failure to comply with the divorce judgment, but vacate the court's imposition of coercive imprisonment as a remedial sanction for Bartlett's prospective noncompliance and remand for further proceedings.

I. BACKGROUND

[¶ 2] Christine A. Murphy and William E. Bartlett were married in 1991. Murphy filed for divorce in 2009. In January 2011, the District Court entered a divorce judgment dividing the parties' property and ordering Bartlett to make the following payments: child support of $192.56 per week from January 2011 until the parties' minor child graduated from high school; spousal support of $1000 per month from January 2011 through June 2012, and then $1500 per month from July 2012 through October 2019; fifty percent of the mortgage, real estate taxes, and homeowners insurance associated with the marital home; and a combined $26,598.27 in credit card debt on five separate credit accounts.

[¶ 3] After the divorce judgment was entered, Bartlett made timely payments until early 2012, when he told Murphy that he expected to be laid off from his job as a construction foreman and would no longer be able to meet his obligations under the divorce judgment. Beginning in March 2012, Murphy paid Bartlett's share of the mortgage, insurance, and real estate taxes. Bartlett also fell behind on the credit card debt, resulting in Murphy making seven monthly payments on three different accounts throughout 2012. Bartlett also missed several child support and spousal support payments during 2012.

[¶ 4] In May 2012, Murphy filed a motion for contempt against Bartlett pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 66(d). The court held a hearing in October 2012 at which Murphy testified that she had been forced to borrow money to make Bartlett's payments for him and that his failure to meet his obligations had negatively affected her credit rating. With respect to spousal support and child support, though, Murphy testified that Bartlett had met nearly all of his obligations as of the date of the hearing.

[¶ 5] When Bartlett was asked at the hearing why he fell behind on his payments in early 2012, Bartlett testified, “Well, basically, I ran out of money. My financial resources were exhausted.” Bartlett introduced tax returns showing that his gross yearly income had decreased from about $57,000 in 2010 to $46,754 in 2011. With respect to Bartlett's earnings in 2012, his pay stubs showed wages of approximately $650 to $900 per week in gross pay, and Bartlett testified that he had been temporarily unemployed for three weeks earlier in the year. When questioned further, Bartlett admitted that he had taken two weekend trips to Tennessee and North Carolina during the period in which he failed to make payments. Bartlett testified that both trips were paid for by a companion and that, due to the trips, he missed four days' worth of pay.

[¶ 6] On October 31, 2012, the court entered a judgment finding Bartlett delinquent in making the following payments: $1774.77 in mortgage payments; $1062.56 in real estate taxes; $134.25 in homeowners insurance; and a combined $18,857.90 in credit card payments. The court found that Bartlett was “on track” to earn in 2012 what he had earned the previous year, that he had money left over at the end of each week that he could have used to make his payments, and that he took several unpaid vacation days during the months in which he claimed he could not meet his family obligations. The court also found that Bartlett's ability to become current on his spousal and child support payments demonstrated that he was “able to pay as ordered.” Accordingly, the court found that Murphy had met her burden of demonstrating by clear and convincing evidence that Bartlett had “failed to comply with the January 10, 2011, Divorce Judgment, despite having had and now having the ability to comply with the judgment provisions, at least in part.” The court held Bartlett in contempt and committed him to ninety days in jail, suspended, subject to Bartlett making each payment specified in the divorce judgment for three years, at which point he will have purged himself of contempt. The court also ordered that, upon the sale of Bartlett and Murphy's home, Bartlett was to apply his share of the expected proceeds to the outstanding credit card balances and Murphy's legal fees. Bartlett moved for additional findings of fact and conclusions of law pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 52, which the court denied.¹ This appeal followed.

II. DISCUSSION

[¶ 7] Bartlett argues that the court's judgment of contempt should be vacated because it was based upon erroneous factual findings regarding his ability to make the payments required by the divorce judgment. We address Bartlett's arguments in two parts: first, we examine the court's findings regarding Bartlett's ability to comply with the divorce judgment, and second, we examine the remedial sanctions imposed by the court to cure Bartlett's contempt. In doing so, we review the factual findings that form the basis of the court's judgment of contempt for clear error. Lewin v. Skehan, 2012 ME 31, ¶ 18, 39 A.3d 58 (citing Wrenn v. Lewis, 2003 ME 29, ¶ 13, 818 A.2d 1005).

A. Bartlett's Ability to Comply with the Divorce Judgment

[¶ 8] Bartlett contends that the court erred in finding that he had the ability to comply with the divorce judgment. Addressing the court's findings regarding Bartlett's ability to meet his obligations requires a two-part analysis. First, we review the court's judgment of contempt to the extent that it was based on Bartlett's failure to comply with the divorce judgment to the fullest extent possible as of the date of the contempt judgment. Second, we review the court's finding that Bartlett has the prospective ability to make all of the payments required by the divorce judgment.

1. Bartlett's Failure to Make Past Payments Required by the Divorce Judgment

[¶ 9] For a court to find a party in contempt, the complaining party must establish by clear and convincing evidence that the alleged contemnor failed or refused to comply with a court order and presently has the ability to comply with that order. Efstathiou v. Efstathiou, 2009 ME 107, ¶ 11, 982 A.2d 339;White v. Nason, 2005 ME 73, ¶ 7, 874 A.2d 891;M.R. Civ. P. 66(d)(2)(D). Although a party cannot be held in contempt when compliance is impossible, see Lewin, 2012 ME 31, ¶ 19, 39 A.3d 58, the ability to pay or comply with a court order is, as we stated in Efstathiou, “not an all or nothing proposition,” 2009 ME 107, ¶ 13, 982 A.2d 339. A party subject to a court order “must comply to the fullest extent possible, regardless of whether such efforts result in compliance in whole or in part.” Id. (quotation marks omitted).

[¶ 10] Here, the court found that Bartlett “failed to comply with the January 10, 2011, Divorce Judgment, despite having had and now having the ability to comply with the judgment provisions, at least in part.” Competent evidence—including Bartlett's bank statements, his earnings history, and his testimony regarding taking two trips that resulted in missing four days of work—supported the court's finding by clear and convincing evidence that Bartlett had not complied with the divorce judgment to the fullest extent possible. See Efstathiou, 2009 ME 107, ¶¶ 11, 13, 982 A.2d 339. We therefore affirm the court's finding of contempt to the extent that it was based on Bartlett's failure to make the payments required by him until the date of the judgment of contempt.

2. Bartlett's Prospective Ability to Fully Comply With the Divorce Judgment

[¶ 11] Although competent evidence supported the court's finding that Bartlett could have more fully complied with the divorce judgment, we separately review the question of whether the court erred in finding, by clear and convincing evidence, that Bartlett has the ability to make all future payments required by the divorce judgment. The distinction is critical because, as discussed below, the court's imposition of coercive imprisonment as a remedial sanction for Bartlett's contempt was necessarily premised upon its finding that Bartlett has the ability to fully comply with the divorce judgment for the next three years. See Wells v. State, 474 A.2d 846, 851–52 (Me.1984) (holding that coercive imprisonment as a remedy for contempt must be based upon a specific finding that the contemnor has the present ability to comply with the court's order but refuses to do so). Accordingly, we review the court's finding regarding Bartlett's prospective ability to make every payment required by the divorce judgment.

[¶ 12] In finding that Bartlett is “able to pay as ordered,” the court did not make specific findings regarding Bartlett's earning capacity as compared to his expenses and obligations. Because a court's prospective imposition of coercive imprisonment as a remedy for contempt is premised upon the requirement that the contemnor has the ability to perform the required acts “no later than the date established for the onset of incarceration,” see Wrenn, 2003 ME 29, ¶¶ 27–28, 818 A.2d 1005, the preferred practice is for ...