Reid v. Reid, 921001

• Decision Date: 16 April 1993
• Docket Number: No. 921001,921001
• Citation: 245 Va. 409,429 S.E.2d 208
• Parties: Judith N. REID v. Robert A. REID. Record
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Page 208

429 S.E.2d 208

245 Va. 409

Judith N. REID v. Robert A. REID.

Record No. 921001.

Supreme Court of Virginia.

April 16, 1993.

John K. Taggart, III, Charlottesville (Patricia D. McGraw, Tremblay & Smith, on briefs), for appellant.

Ronald R. Tweel, Charlottesville (Michie, Hamlett, Lowry, Rasmussen & Tweel, on brief), for appellee.

Present: CARRICO, C.J., COMPTON, STEPHENSON, WHITING, LACY and HASSELL, JJ., and COCHRAN, Retired Justice.

LACY, Justice.

In this appeal we consider whether a trial court may order restitution from a spouse who received spousal support payments pursuant to a court order when that order subsequently was reversed on appeal.

The history of this litigation has been well documented in three published opinions of the Court of Appeals, Reid v. Reid, 7 Va.App. 553, 375 S.E.2d 533 (1989) (Reid I ), Reid v. Reid, 12 Va.App. 1218, 409 S.E.2d 155 (1991) (Reid II ), and Reid v. Reid, 14 Va.App. 505, 419 S.E.2d 398 (1992) (Reid III ). In 1986, the Circuit Court of Albemarle County granted Dr. Robert A. Reid and Judith N. Reid a divorce a vinculo matrimonii on the ground that the parties had lived separate and apart for one year. Code § 20-91(9)(a). Dr. Reid also was ordered to pay Mrs. Reid $900 per month in spousal support as part of that order. On appeal of that judgment, the Court of Appeals held that the trial court erred when it denied Dr. Reid a divorce on the grounds of desertion and, consequently, also erred in granting Mrs. Reid spousal support. ¹ Reid I, 7 Va.App. at 566, 375 S.E.2d at 540.

On remand, Dr. Reid filed a motion seeking a judgment against Mrs. Reid for $25,200, the amount he had paid in spousal support pursuant to the court order. ² The trial court denied the motion, finding that it had no jurisdiction to enter such an order. Dr. Reid appealed the denial, but a panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court judgment. Reid II, 12 Va.App. at 1234, 409 S.E.2d at 164. On rehearing en banc, the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court judgment and remanded the case for a determination of the amount of restitution that should be ordered. Reid III, 14 Va.App. at 514, 419 S.E.2d at 404. Finding that the issue involved is a matter of significant precedential value, Code § 17-116.07(B), we awarded Mrs. Reid an appeal.

The Court of Appeals determined that the trial court had both the statutory and inherent authority to order restitution of the amounts Dr. Reid had paid to Mrs. Reid as spousal support. We hold that, to the contrary, neither statutory nor case law vests such authority in the trial court.

The only legislative language cited by the Court of Appeals to support its determination that the trial court had statutory authority to order restitution is found in the first sentence of Code § 20-107.1:

Upon decreeing the dissolution of a marriage, and also upon decreeing a divorce, whether from the bond of matrimony or from bed and board, and upon decreeing that neither party is entitled to a divorce, the court may make such further decrees as it shall deem expedient concerning the maintenance and support of the spouses.

(Emphasis added.) But the italicized phrase does not constitute an open-ended grant of authority to the divorce court. The authority granted by § 20-107.1 relates to orders entered at the time divorce is awarded or denied and is limited to matters of "maintenance and support." Restitution is the recovery of money already paid. It is not concerned with the needs of dependent spouses or with what may be deemed expedient concerning the "maintenance and support of the spouses." Even the authority granted by § 20-107.1 with respect to support orders is subject to limitations contained in that Code section and in other relevant statutes, further demonstrating a lack of statutory authority to order restitution. See, e.g., Code § 20-109.

Nor do we find persuasive Dr. Reid's argument that the absence of an explicit statutory prohibition against granting restitution supports the existence of implied statutory authority to order restitution. The General Assembly did not ignore the possibility of altering spousal support awards retroactively, which would effectively occur if restitution were ordered. Provision was made for retroactive treatment when "proceedings are reopened to increase, decrease or terminate maintenance and support for a spouse or for a child," but only "with respect to any period during which there is a pending petition for modification, but [even then] only from the date that notice of such petition has been given to the responding party." Code § 20-112. These provisions are of no aid to a party seeking restitution for spousal support paid pursuant to an order later reversed. Indeed, the provisions contradict the existence of implied authority to grant such relief.

For its conclusion that the trial court had inherent authority to order restitution, the Court of Appeals relied on Flemings v. Riddick's Executor, 46 Va. (5 Gratt.) 272 (1848). There, we reversed a trial court order that required payment of money from the assets of certain estates to the plaintiff, Riddick. On remand, the trial court held that it had no jurisdiction to grant the estates' motions for judgment against Riddick for the monies he received pursuant to the previous court order because the mandate on remand did not direct the trial court to order restitution. We reversed again, holding that a trial court's inherent jurisdiction to correct abuse of its process also allows that court to order restitution when its original judgment is reversed on appeal. Id. at 280-81.

Without discussing the point, the Court of Appeals assumed that Flemings, decided in the context of reversal of a money judgment, is applicable to reversal of an order of spousal support. This Court has not addressed this specific issue previously, but we have recognized that divorce and related matters constitute a distinct category, one not always subject to the body of jurisprudence generally applicable to common law suits and actions.

"A suit for divorce ... does not involve an appeal to the general jurisdiction of the equity forum." McCotter v. Carle, 149 Va. 584, 592, 140 S.E. 670, 673 (1927). "The many limitations, both in respect to jurisdiction and procedure, placed upon divorce suits by the statute, differentiate the divorce case from ordinary suits in equity and render it a chancery case sui generis." Id. at 593, 140 S.E. at 673. Specifically, we have described a spousal support order as "an order compelling [one spouse] to support [the other], and this is a public as well as a marital duty--a moral as well as a legal obligation." West v. West, 126 Va. 696, 699, 101 S.E. 876, 877 (1920); accord Eddens v. Eddens, 188 Va. 511, 517, 50 S.E.2d 397, 400 (1948).

Clearly, there are significant differences between a spousal support order and an ordinary money judgment order. For one thing, the former is based on need, the latter on entitlement. This distinction alone makes the application of Flemings to cases involving spousal support orders suspect.

But more important, the inherent authority discussed in Flemings is...