Saint-Clair v. Saint-Clair

Decision Date30 June 2022
Docket Number21-P-898
PartiesNAROMIE SAINT-CLAIR v. DARDINY SAINT-CLAIR.
CourtAppeals Court of Massachusetts

Summary decisions issued by the Appeals Court pursuant to M.A.C. Rule 23.0, as appearing in 97 Mass.App.Ct. 1017 (2020) (formerly known as rule 1:28, as amended by 73 Mass.App.Ct. 1001 [2009]), are primarily directed to the parties and therefore, may not fully address the facts of the case or the panel's decisional rationale. Moreover, such decisions are not circulated to the entire court and, therefore represent only the views of the panel that decided the case. A summary decision pursuant to rule 23.0 or rule 1:28 issued after February 25, 2008, may be cited for its persuasive value but, because of the limitations noted above, not as binding precedent. See Chace v. Curran, 71 Mass.App.Ct. 258, 260 n.4 (2008).

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0

This is an appeal by Dardiny Saint-Clair (father) of a judgment of contempt dated April 12, 2021. This case has a somewhat complex history. On January 10, 2019, the trial court issued a judgment and rationale on the complaint for separate support filed by Naromie Saint-Clair (mother). That judgment ordered the father to pay $300 per week in child support nunc pro tunc from June 15, 2018. It also ordered the father to pay $8,142.50 in child support arrears within 90 days. The father did not appeal from that judgment, and so the orders for payment of these amounts became final and may not be contested in this appeal.

On March 18, 2019, the trial court issued a supplemental judgment and rationale (supplemental judgment). This recalculated the father's child support obligations for 2018 and 2019 as well as current child support. It ordered current child support of $422.50 per week and recalculated his child support arrears as $13,695, to be paid by June 30, 2019.

The defendant filed an appeal of this supplemental judgment. Although the supplemental judgment was not stayed pending appeal, a panel of this court concluded on May 18, 2020, in a memorandum and order issued pursuant to our former Rule 1:28, that the judge erred in calculating the child support order by using an erroneous 2019 weekly income figure. Saint- Clair v. Saint-Clair, 97 Mass.App.Ct. 1118 (2020). The $422.50 per week nunc pro tunc order contained in the supplemental judgment, as well as some corresponding arrearage, was based on a finding of fact that the father's weekly income in 2019 was $1,613.60. Id. The paystub on which that amount was based was apparently misread by the judge, because it indicated that in fact the father's weekly pay was $979.52. Id. We vacated the child support order that required the father to pay child support to the mother in the amount of $422.50 weekly, and remanded the case to the Probate and Family Court for further factual findings, including the rationale, if any, for determining that the father's weekly income in 2019 was $1,613.60. Id.

On December 14, 2020, the judge issued a memorandum and order. It indicated that the remand of the supplemental judgment as well as a complaint for contempt filed by the mother on October 22, 2019, remained open. With respect to the original supplemental judgment, the judge concluded that the portion of the supplemental judgment requiring the father to pay the mother nunc pro tunc from June 15, 2018, $445 per week through January 4, 2019, remained in full force and effect, and was not affected by the decision of this court on appeal. Utilizing that amount, the judge calculated that there were an additional $4,350 of child support arrearages over and above those stated in the January 10, 2019, judgment, for a total arrears balance up to January 4, 2019 of $12,492.50.

After reviewing all submissions, the judge found that the father's income for 2019 was $1,070.65 weekly. This resulted in a guidelines calculation of $218 of weekly child support for the period January 4, 2019, through September, 2019. As the judge had done with all previous child support orders, she deviated above that guidelines number by 25% due to the father's lack of physical presence in the life of the child, who is in the mother's physical custody. Consequently, she ordered child support for the period from January 4, 2019, through September 20, 2019, in the amount of $272.50, and from the period beginning on September 27, 2019, when there was an increase in the mother's income, to the present, ordered child support in the amount of $248.75 per week.

Regarding the complaint for contempt filed by the mother, the judge concluded that, although the amount of the father's 2019 income was at issue in the appeal of the supplemental judgment, those aspects of the January 10, 2019, judgment and the supplemental judgment that did not depend on his 2019 income, remained in full force and effect. The judge found that the father had failed to comply with the order regarding payment of the established arrears and therefore would be found in contempt. The judge ordered presentation of an updated affidavit of fees concerning the contempt action to be presented at a subsequent hearing and ordered the parties to work together to calculate the current arrears based on payments made by the father during the pendency of the action.

Notwithstanding the conclusion just described, that the father would be held in contempt for failure to pay arrearage, in the memorandum and judgment dated April 12, 2021 on the complaint for contempt - the one on appeal here - the judge instead concluded that the father had violated a "clear and unequivocal order for father to pay weekly support" pursuant to the supplemental judgment. The judgment of contempt also concluded that child support arrears as of March 26, 2021 were $8,762.18, that the father should continue to pay child support in the amount of $248.75 each Friday, and that in order to address the outstanding arrearage, an additional payment of $62.20 per week should be made.

The judge acknowledged that following the entry of the January 10, 2019, judgment in which the father was ordered to pay $300 per week in child support, the father in fact paid $325 per week for four weeks and $400 per week for nine weeks through March 29, 2019. Following the entry of the supplemental judgment, however, the father stopped paying the $400 per week he had been paying and "began to make sporadic payments, paying $0 for several weeks at a time and then paying random amounts such as $600 twice a month from April 2019 through July 2019, and then one payment of $600 in August 2019 followed by bimonthly payments of $558 twice a month through August 2019[,] etc. Several weeks would go by with no payment of support and no explanation from [f]ather."

The judge found that "there was clear and unequivocal order for [f]ather to pay weekly support. Father deliberately and willfully failed to comply with that order by failing to make weekly support payments. Father is therefore found in contempt for each week in which he failed to make weekly child support payments."

Put another way, the father was found in contempt for failing to pay what turned out to be an erroneously large weekly child support payment. The order to make those payments, however, was not stayed pending appeal, and we agree with the judge that the order was clear and unequivocal.

Of course, holding someone in contempt for failure to pay an amount that was erroneously calculated and larger than it should have been may work a substantial unfairness. Any unfairness, however, is addressed by the rule that one cannot be held in contempt for failure to pay an amount that one is not able to pay. Salvesen v. Salvesen, 370 Mass. 608, 611 (1976).

The father argued below, as he does...

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