St. John-Parker v. Parker

• Court: Tennessee Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: Carma Dennis McGee, J.
• Citation: St. John-Parker v. Parker, 638 S.W.3d 624 (Tenn. App. 2020)
• Decision Date: 27 March 2020
• Docket Number: No. E2018-01536-COA-R3-CV,E2018-01536-COA-R3-CV
• Parties: Jill ST. JOHN-PARKER v. Virgil Duane PARKER

638 S.W.3d 624

Jill ST. JOHN-PARKER

v.Virgil Duane PARKER

No. E2018-01536-COA-R3-CV

Court of Appeals of Tennessee, Eastern Section, AT KNOXVILLE.

December 3, 2019 Session

FILED March 27, 2020

Application for Permission to Appeal Denied September 16, 2020

Donald N. Capparella and Kimberly Macdonald, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Virgil Duane Parker.

Randall D. Larramore, Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the appellee, Jill St. John-Parker.

Carma Dennis McGee, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which D. Michael Swiney, C.J., and Thomas R. Frierson, II, J., joined.

OPINION

Carma Dennis McGee, J.

This is an appeal from a trial court's order holding an ex-husband in civil contempt on twelve counts and ordering him to pay $240,507.70 in attorney fees and accounting fees incurred by the ex-wife in this case and a related bankruptcy proceeding. The ex-husband appeals. We affirm the judgment and remand for further proceedings.

I. FACTS & PROCEDURAL HISTORY

This is the third appeal in which this Court has considered various issues related to the contentious divorce of Virgil Duane Parker ("Husband") and Jill St. John-Parker ("Wife"). The parties were married for over twenty years and had one child. Husband is an attorney, and Wife is a certified public accountant. They accumulated a sizeable estate during the marriage. While the divorce was pending, Husband purchased a 400-acre ranch for approximately $3 million. Wife remained in the marital residence, valued at over $1 million.

As we noted in a previous appeal, the parties’ litigation has "a long and complicated history." St. John-Parker v. Parker , No. E2014-01338-COA-R3-CV, 2016 WL 2936834, at *1 (Tenn. Ct. App. May 17, 2016). During the divorce proceeding, the trial court's main challenge was to classify and divide corporate debentures, or bonds, worth over two million dollars. The trial court found that Husband lacked credibility, particularly with respect to financial dealings.¹ It took note of his "basic propensity for sharp dealing or dishonest dealing" in regard to various issues. Husband was disbarred in Maryland and disciplined by the Board of Professional Responsibility in Tennessee for "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation."

Both Husband and Wife presented expert testimony from certified public accountants. Ultimately, the trial court classified all of the debentures as marital property and awarded Wife $450,000 out of the debentures. This would have resulted in income to her of $4,500 per month. However, while the first appeal was pending, this Court granted Husband's motion to stay execution on distribution of the assets. As a result, Wife filed a motion seeking temporary alimony until she was able to secure the judgment awarded to her by the trial court. She argued that, because of the stay, she was unable to execute on and secure the funds she needed to provide for her daily living. The trial court granted Wife's request and awarded her temporary alimony in the sum of $3,000 per month, retroactive to the date of the divorce. This created an alimony arrearage of $60,000. The trial court's order noted Husband's "obstructionist behavior in this case," and it provided that "execution may issue" on the $60,000 arrearage judgment.²

Husband's temporary alimony payments were to begin on July 22, 2015. Husband paid his monthly alimony payment for two months (July and August) "under protest" but then stopped paying. The record reflects extensive efforts by Wife in the months and years that followed to enforce the alimony obligation, while Husband engaged in equally extensive efforts to avoid paying his obligation.

On October 6, 2015, Wife filed a petition for contempt against Husband, alleging that he had failed to pay temporary alimony as ordered by the court and failed to provide proof of health insurance coverage for the parties’ son. She sought compensatory damages and an award of attorney fees. On or about October 12, 2015, Wife caused a garnishment to be served on Regions Bank, where Husband maintained several bank accounts, in an attempt to satisfy the alimony arrearage judgment.

Husband filed an answer to the petition for contempt, claiming that he was unable to make current alimony payments because Wife had garnished his bank accounts, leaving him unable to tender checks to pay his bills. Husband also filed a motion to quash the garnishment, claiming that the majority of the funds garnished by Wife actually belonged to the parties’ son, who had recently attained the age of majority. Wife agreed to release around $28,800 of the garnished funds on the understanding that they belonged to their son. However, she later learned that the garnished account was titled in Husband's name, contrary to his representations about their son's ownership. In the end, the garnishment only successfully captured around $3,000, which was applied toward the retroactive alimony judgment of $60,000.

Unbeknownst to Wife, shortly after the garnishment at Regions Bank, Husband initiated a wire transfer of $260,000 from a TD Ameritrade account he owned to a law firm in Maryland, where his long-time friend and best man from his wedding is employed as a partner. The money was placed in the law firm's escrow account. Husband made other smaller wire transfers during this time as well. Husband left some accounts with no liquid assets as he opened new accounts at other institutions. During this timeframe, Husband failed to pay his $3,000 monthly alimony obligation during the months of September, October, November, and December 2015.

On December 17, 2015, Husband executed a revocable living trust agreement, naming himself and his son as co-trustees. Husband conveyed to the trust "all of [his] right, title, and interest in and to all real and personal property, tangible or intangible, of any nature, in any location, which may be owned by [Husband] or later acquired by [Husband]," including his $3 million ranch. He also executed a quitclaim deed conveying the ranch to himself and his son as co-trustees.

In January 2016, Wife notified Husband that she was serving a subpoena on TD Ameritrade, as she was attempting to locate the $260,000 he wired out of his account weeks before. The very next day, Husband liquidated his stock positions held in an account at TD Ameritrade, and he wired roughly $56,500 out of the account days later. A garnishment was issued against the account that same day, but it came too late because Husband had already withdrawn the funds, leaving a balance of one dollar.

In early February 2016, garnishments were issued against Husband's accounts at a third financial institution, First Tennessee Bank. Husband had just opened an account at the bank in January, and the garnishment captured nearly $60,000. However, days later, on February 10, 2016, Husband filed a petition for Chapter 12 bankruptcy (for family farmers), and the garnishment was released as a result. Husband withdrew $52,500 in cash from the account on February 11.

Although Wife was unaware of this at the time, after a subpoena was issued to yet another financial institution, T. Rowe Price, she discovered that an account was opened for the parties’ nineteen-year-old son via online application on February 19, 2016. At that point, the Maryland law firm sent a check to T. Rowe Price for $240,000 for deposit in the newly created account. From the remaining $20,000 on deposit with the law firm (of the $260,000 initially transferred), $10,000 was sent to Husband, and another $10,000 was sent to the parties’ son.

The parties reached an agreement whereby Husband made a few payments of temporary alimony for the months of January, February, March, and April 2016. However, the obligations from September, October, November, and December 2015 remained unmet. Additionally, Husband stopped making payments again in May 2016.

Wife retained an additional attorney, who primarily practices in bankruptcy court, to represent her interests in Husband's bankruptcy case. Wife filed a motion in the bankruptcy court seeking relief from the automatic stay to allow her contempt action pending in state court to proceed. She asserted that her state court contempt action was "the most expeditious process" for pursuing her claims against Husband. It appears that Husband opposed Wife's motion to lift the stay but that the stay was eventually lifted at some point.

Husband stated under oath on two different occasions that he filed for bankruptcy because of Wife's garnishments against his accounts. Because of her alimony claim, Wife was the only priority creditor under the bankruptcy code until the parties’ son, who was living with Husband, filed a priority claim for unpaid child support in the sum of one million dollars. Eventually, Husband's bankruptcy proceeding was dismissed, and Husband was barred from refiling for a period of four years due to his bad faith throughout the bankruptcy proceeding.

On April 24, 2017, Wife filed an amended petition for contempt back in the circuit court, which clarified that she was alleging both criminal and civil contempt. She noted that the trial court had ordered Husband to pay temporary alimony and entered the $60,000 judgment for retroactive alimony in June 2015. Wife claimed that she had obtained records indicating that Husband had sufficient assets to pay these alimony obligations at that time and that he simply refused to pay. Wife described the various efforts she had made to enforce the alimony obligation through garnishments and detailed her participation in the bankruptcy proceeding. She described how Husband convinced her to release garnished funds by claiming they belonged to their son, transferred funds to the escrow account in Maryland, and conveyed all of his property to the revocable trust. The trial court had terminated Husband's temporary alimony obligation on December 21, 2016. However, Husband had accumulated an arrearage of $31,964.19 in unpaid monthly alimony obligations and interest,...