Smith v. Smith
Decision Date | 05 September 2003 |
Citation | 892 So.2d 384 |
Parties | Constance P. SMITH v. Gregory L. SMITH, Jr. |
Court | Alabama Court of Civil Appeals |
W. Gregory Hughes, Mobile; and James R. Harper, Jr., Mobile, for appellant.
Ian F. Gaston of Gaston & Gaston, Mobile, for appellee.
Constance P. Smith ("the wife") and Gregory L. Smith, Jr. ("the husband"), were divorced in May 2001. The trial court incorporated into the divorce judgment an agreement the parties had reached as the result of mediation. After providing for the division of the parties' retirement accounts, the division of certain real property, the allocation of various items of personal property, and the husband's payments to the wife of alimony in gross, the agreement recites, in paragraph 9:
"Each party shall keep any other account and any other property presently in their individual names with Wife disclaiming any and all interest she may have in any interest in which Husband owns in any business or other property including, but not limited to, Flowerwood Nursery of Alabama, Flowerwood Nursery of Georgia, Flowerwood Liners, PDSI, Summit Landscaping, Inc. and Flowerwood Management."
The agreement requires the parties to "execute all necessary documents to carry out the provisions of their agreement."
After the divorce, the husband sought to have the wife execute a quitclaim deed transferring to him her interest in a 19-acre parcel of real property located in Baldwin County and used in connection with the operation of the husband's business, Flowerwood Nursery. The wife refused to execute a quitclaim deed; instead, she filed suit in Baldwin Circuit Court seeking a sale for division of the 19-acre parcel.1
In July 2003, the husband filed an action seeking a judgment declaring that he had been awarded the 19-acre parcel by virtue of paragraph 9 of the agreement incorporated into the divorce judgment; he also filed a motion to enforce the divorce judgment, seeking to compel the wife to execute a quitclaim deed to the property. The wife answered, alleging that she still had an interest in the 19-acre parcel that she had not relinquished by agreeing to paragraph 9 of the agreement. Following a hearing, the trial court held that, pursuant to paragraph 9 of the agreement, the husband had been awarded the disputed property; the court ordered the wife to execute, within 30 days of the entry of its judgment, the necessary deed to convey title to the husband. The wife appeals.
This court has stated:
Hallman v. Hallman, 802 So.2d 1095, 1098 (Ala.Civ.App.2001).
Apparently, the trial court concluded that paragraph 9 of the agreement incorporated into the divorce judgment was ambiguous because it held a hearing and received parol or extrinsic evidence concerning the parties' intent with regard to the ownership of the 19-acre parcel. The record contains a deed, dated August 17, 1988, and recorded on August 22, 1988, conveying the disputed property from Charles W. Barnhill and Virginia P. Barnhill, husband and wife, to the husband and the wife, as joint tenants with the right of survivorship. The record also contains an unrecorded instrument dated August 18, 1988, and signed by the husband and wife, which reads as follows:
The husband testified that Flowerwood Nursery is a corporation owned by his family; that in 1988 he was the corporate secretary; and that he is now the president and general manager. He presented evidence that Flowerwood Nursery had paid for the 19-acre parcel in 1988; that it had listed the property as a capital asset on its books since that time; that it had made numerous improvements to the property; and that the property was essential to its business operations. The husband testified that the August 17, 1988, deed from the Barnhills was the result of a tax-free exchange. He explained that naming the wife and him as grantees in the deed was a "mistake" and that, therefore, he had typed a document that he called a "Deed Correction" the following day, August 18, 1988. The husband acknowledged that the "Deed Correction" did not purport to transfer title to the property to Flowerwood Nursery and that the parties never executed another deed conveying the property to Flowerwood Nursery. The husband conceded that his argument that the wife had no interest in the property was based solely on paragraph 9 of the agreement incorporated into the divorce judgment. The wife testified that she did not read the deed correction instrument before she signed it on August 18, 1988, but, she said, she signed it because the husband had asked her to do so. The wife stated that the husband had told her that the purpose of the deed correction document "was to protect the nursery from lawsuits, and that was good enough for [her]."
We must first decide whether paragraph 9 of the agreement is ambiguous. This court has held:
Van Allen v. Van Allen, 812 So.2d 1276, 1277 (Ala.Civ.App.2001). Because the issue whether a contract provision is ambiguous is a question of law for the trial court to determine, see Sealing Equipment Products Co. v. Velarde, 644 So.2d 904, 908 (Ala.1994),
and a trial court's conclusion on a question of law carries no presumption of correctness on appeal, see Ex parte Cash, 624 So.2d 576 (Ala.1993), we review the trial court's ambiguity determination de novo.
Laney v. Laney, 833 So.2d 644, 646 (Ala.Civ.App.2002).
Paragraph 9 of the parties' agreement is composed of two clauses. The first clause provides that each party will retain all property that, at the time of the...
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