Myers v. Myers
| Decision Date | 21 October 2011 |
| Docket Number | No. 20100341.,20100341. |
| Citation | 693 Utah Adv. Rep. 11,2011 UT 65,266 P.3d 806 |
| Parties | Becky Sue MYERS, Respondent, v. Tracy Lynn MYERS, Petitioner. |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Samuel M. Barker and Jeffrey A. Callister, Murray, for respondent.
Guy L. Black, Provo, for petitioner.
On Certiorari to the Utah Court of Appeals
¶ 1 Tracy Lynn Myers filed this suit in an attempt to terminate his alimony obligations to his ex-wife Becky Sue Myers on the ground that she had been “cohabiting with another person” under Utah Code section 30–3–5(10). The district court concluded that Ms. Myers had cohabited in her parents' home with their teenage foster son (M.H.), and on that basis terminated Mr. Myers's alimony obligation. The court of appeals reversed, concluding that cohabitation involves a “relationship ‘akin to that generally existing between husband and wife’ ” and that Ms. Myers's relationship with M.H. “bore little resemblance to a marriage.” Myers v. Myers, 2010 UT App 74, ¶¶ 17–18, 231 P.3d 815 (quoting Haddow v. Haddow, 707 P.2d 669, 672 (Utah 1985)).
¶ 2 We agree with the court of appeals and affirm. A spouse's alimony duty terminates by statute upon a finding of cohabitation. In this statutory context, cohabitation requires more than a sexual relationship between two individuals living under the same roof. It contemplates a relationship “akin” to a marriage. Haddow, 707 P.2d at 672. Ms. Myers's relationship with M.H. fell well short of that mark. The two may have had a sexual relationship and they may have slept in the same house for a time. But their relationship lacked any other marker of marriage-like cohabitation. Ms. Myers and M.H. lived as separate guests with distinct roles in the home of Ms. Myers's parents—Ms. Myers as an adult child sleeping on her parents' couch and M.H. as their teenage foster son living in a bedroom with other foster children. This relationship did not rise to the level of marriage-like cohabitation, and Mr. Myers's alimony duty was accordingly not affected by it.
¶ 3 Mr. and Ms. Myers divorced in 2006 after eighteen years of marriage. The divorce decree entered at that time required Mr. Myers to pay $1,200 in monthly alimony to his ex-wife. During the following year or so, Ms. Myers “bounced all over the place” and “never had a permanent home.”
¶ 4 In the spring and summer of 2007, Ms. Myers resided at least some of the time at her parents' home in Provo. When she stayed there, Ms. Myers slept on a couch in the basement. The three bedrooms in the home were occupied by Ms. Myers's parents and by their foster children (one of whom was M.H.). Ms. Myers soon developed a relationship of some sort with M.H.—a relationship that Mr. Myers alleged (and Ms. Myers denied) to be sexual.
¶ 5 Mr. Myers filed a petition to modify the divorce decree in January 2008, seeking to terminate his alimony obligation on the basis of Ms. Myers's alleged cohabitation with M.H. The petition was tried to the bench in July 2008. After hearing testimony and evidence from both parties, the district court concluded that Ms. Myers had cohabited with M.H. and terminated Ms. Myers's right to alimony under Utah Code section 30–3–5(10).
¶ 6 The evidence at trial established that M.H. was a foster child who lived in the home of Ms. Myers's parents during the late spring and summer of 2007. It was also undisputed at trial that Ms. Myers stayed in the same home during at least part of that period. She also received mail at that address and listed it as her home address on documents related to a separate criminal proceeding. Beyond that, the parties presented very different versions of the extent of Ms. Myers's stay at her parents' home and the nature of her relationship with M.H.
¶ 7 Ms. Myers asserted at trial that she never lived at her parents' home but slept there only occasionally—“maybe once a month.” Mr. Myers sought to contradict this view with the testimony of a private investigator, who saw Ms. Myers's car at her parents' home four out of the five days he drove by the house in June 2007, including once early in the morning. The investigator also reported seeing Ms. Myers drive a young man fitting M.H.'s description to Independence High School, where M.H. was a student.
¶ 8 In her trial testimony, Ms. Myers denied the existence of a sexual relationship with M.H. There was no direct evidence to contradict her assertion. Mr. Myers admitted that he had no personal knowledge of a sexual relationship, and M.H. was never called to testify at trial. Yet Mr. Myers sought to undermine his ex-wife's testimony and to suggest the existence of a sexual relationship through circumstantial evidence.
¶ 9 Mr. Myers's evidence at trial on this point consisted principally of the testimony of the parties' children. A son and daughter of the Myerses submitted affidavits indicating that M.H. spoke of their mother as his “girlfriend,” that the two of them frequently “flirt[ed] with each other,” that they sometimes seemed jealous of each other, and that they acted like “boyfriend and girlfriend” in social settings. The son's affidavit also indicated that he once saw his mother pretending to be asleep on the couch while M.H. lay on the floor next to her. He also asserted that his mother once borrowed his car to visit M.H. after M.H. had moved to Salt Lake City, which she apparently used to drive to Salt Lake and to return the next morning. The parties' son equivocated on many of the points of his affidavit at trial, however, and acknowledged that he had no proof of a sexual relationship between his mother and M.H.
¶ 10 Based on this and other evidence presented at trial, the district court found that Ms. Myers “spent at least 80% of her nights at her parents' home” during this time, that her “residence during the spring and summer of 2007 was her parents' house,” and that Ms. Myers and M.H. were “paired up” and “going together ... to events as a couple.” The court also found that “[t]here was a sexual relationship between [Ms. Myers] and M.H.,” expressly inferring that “from the common residency” of the two and the fact that Ms. Myers “elected to spend the night with [M.H.] in Salt Lake City” (apparently the night she borrowed her son's car to drive there).
¶ 11 From these factual findings, the district court concluded that Ms. Myers and M.H. had a “common residency” in the late spring and summer of 2007. In light of that conclusion, the court shifted to Ms. Myers the “burden of proving a lack of sexual contact.” Although Ms. Myers denied such contact in her testimony, the court concluded that she had failed to carry her burden, asserting that “her actions indicate otherwise.” Given Ms. Myers's common residency and sexual relationship with M.H., the district court found that the two had cohabited under Utah Code section 30–3–5(10) and thus terminated Ms. Myers's alimony.
¶ 12 Ms. Myers appealed, and the court of appeals reversed. First, the court of appeals concluded that the district court had adopted “an unduly narrow view of cohabitation” by treating “common residency” and “sexual contact” as its only ingredients. Myers v. Myers, 2010 UT App 74, ¶ 17, 231 P.3d 815. It also ruled that the trial court had erred in shifting the burden of proof as to sexual contact to Ms. Myers, holding that the current version of the statute does not call for burden shifting. Id. ¶¶ 15, 18 n. 6. Ultimately, the court of appeals held that even if Ms. Myers and M.H. lived in the same household and had a sexual relationship, their relationship “bore little resemblance to a marriage.” Id. ¶ 18. It accordingly reversed and reinstated Ms. Myers's right to alimony. We granted Mr. Myers's petition for writ of certiorari, and we now affirm.
¶ 13 On certiorari to this court, Mr. Myers challenges the decision of the court of appeals on two principal grounds. First, he argues that the court misconstrued the governing statute and ignored the gloss placed on it by our decision in Haddow v. Haddow, 707 P.2d 669 (Utah 1985). Second, Mr. Myers contends that the court gave inadequate deference to the trial court's findings of fact, which were supported by substantial evidence and sufficed to sustain the court's termination of Mr. Myers's alimony obligation.
¶ 14 We disagree and affirm. On the first point, we endorse and elaborate on the legal standard articulated by the court of appeals as consistent with the statute and with Haddow. On the second issue, we conclude that the court of appeals gave proper deference to the district court's factual findings and uphold its decision to reverse the trial court's termination of Mr. Myers's alimony obligation under the law.
¶ 15 In Haddow we construed a divorce decree that awarded the parties' home to Ingrid Haddow in lieu of alimony, subject to an equitable lien in favor of her ex-husband, John Haddow, of half of the equity in the home. Haddow v. Haddow, 707 P.2d 669 (Utah 1985). Under the decree, Mr. Haddow's equity was to be payable when “all of the children ceased to reside in the house or [Ms.] Haddow moved out of the house, remarried, or ‘cohabited with a male person.’ ” Id. at 670. Our opinion in Haddow reversed the district court's conclusion that Ms. Haddow was cohabiting with another man and thus rejected the determination that Mr. Haddow was entitled to his equity in the home.
¶ 16 The Haddow opinion noted that the equitable lien in the divorce decree in that case was parallel to the then-governing statutory provision calling for termination of alimony when a “ ‘former spouse is residing with a person of the opposite sex, unless it is further established by the person receiving alimony that the relationship ... is without any sexual contact.’ ” Id. at 672 (alteration in original) (quoting Utah Code Ann. § 30–3–5(3) (1985)). In reversing the trial court's finding of cohabitation, we defined the term to follow the meaning endorsed in “a majority of cases and statutes”—“ ‘[t]...
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