Stevens v. Stevens

• Decision Date: 09 January 1964
• Docket Number: No. 155,155
• Citation: 233 Md. 279,196 A.2d 447
• Parties: Walter H. STEVENS, Jr. v. Mary Wiggins STEVENS.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 279

233 Md. 279

196 A.2d 447

Walter H. STEVENS, Jr. v. Mary Wiggins STEVENS.

No. 155.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Jan. 9, 1964.

Bernard M. Goldstein, Baltimore, for appellant.

Henry V. Wagner, Baltimore (Fair, Vidali & Wagner, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before HENDERSON, HAMMOND, PRESCOTT, MARBURY and SYBERT, JJ.

HAMMOND, Judge.

A husband, unsuccessful in his petition seeking reduction of support payments to his former wife ordered by a divorce decree which adopted the terms of a separation agreement, asks us to reverse the order denying him relief.

The parties entered into a separation agreement dated October 21, 1954. It recited that they had ceased to live as husband and wife and had agreed 'upon a settlement of all questions of Alimony, Alimony Pendente Lite, and all rights of every kind and character that have accrued, or may accrue, to each of the parties hereto against the other by reason of their marital relations.' It was agreed that the husband should pay the wife twenty-five dollars a week 'which payments shall cease upon the death or remarriage' of the wife. Each party released the other and his or her estate from 'any debt or claims of any nature or kind now existing or hereafter arising * * * because of the fact the said parties are or were at any time, husband and wife * * *' and further released 'all rights, or all claims' against the estate of the other 'except such rights, or claims as are specifically given to either should there be any outstanding Last Will and Testament.'

On October 21, 1958, the Circuit Court for Baltimore County granted the husband an absolute divorce from the wife on the ground of voluntary separation, and in the decree provided that the agreement between the parties dated October 21, 1954, 'be and the same is hereby approved to the same extent as if all provisions of said agreement were outlined in detail herein.'

In 1959 the husband filed a 'Petition for Reduction of Alimony' on the claim that his income had dropped some one hundred thirty dollars a month. The wife agreed that the provision of paragraph six of the separation agreement, calling for the husband to maintain existing life insurance policies without change of beneficiary could be deleted from the agreement, and relief was denied as to the amount of support on the recommendation of the Master.

In 1962 another petition seeking a reduction in the amount of the weekly payments was filed by the husband on the basis of an alleged reduction in pay of some $100.00 a month from that he enjoyed at the time of the decree, his remarriage and an inheritance of some $38,000 the wife had received.

The testimony at the hearing on the 1962 petition showed that at the time of the divorce the husband made about six hundred dollars a month and the wife was employed at a salary of approximately forty-five dollars a week take home pay and had no other income. The husband's gross earnings in 1959 were $9,377.21, in 1960 they were $8,148.62, in 1961 about the same, and in 1962 were $8.900.00. Also he no longer had to pay $15.00 a week for the support of the couple's daughter, she having become emancipated under the definition in the agreement. He had a bank account of $5,000 and owned a ten-acre tract of land near Monkton.

The wife's salary has not changed. She had inherited some $38,000 from the husband's father, but had paid $4,500 of this to the husband in compromise of his claim to all of the inheritance. Payments for inheritance taxes and counsel fees further reduced the inheritance to a net of about $30,000.

Judge Raine said that because of the $30,000 inheritance of the wife he would be inclined to lower the support payments if he could, but that he had concluded the court was without power to modify the support provision of the separation agreement. He said 'Article 16, Section 28, provides that an agreement made between husband and wife respecting support and maintenance shall be valid, binding and enforceable to every intent and purpose. It is a contradiction in terms for the Court to hold that a binding agreement can be modified. Rule S-77b provides that an agreement of the type under consideration may be incorporated into a divorce decree, but the rule does not purport to give the court any power of modification.'

As we see it the court had the power to reduce the amount for the maintenance of the wife it would order and enforce as alimony but the circumstances do not suggest that a reduction is warranted. It has long been established in Maryland that an equity court can modify a decree providing for the payment of alimony when changed circumstances indicate that it should be modified, and that the power is not different where the decree approved the provisions of an agreement between the parties for the payment of a periodic sum, meeting the definition of alimony. In Emerson v. Emerson, 120 Md. 584, 596-597, 87 A. 1033, 1038 which held that an alimony decree based on a separation agreement could be modified, the Court, referring to such agreements, said:

'The law has generally regarded all agreements made during the pending of the suit for divorce as void, as being against public policy. Too easy is it for the parties to come to such an arrangement on property division as to amount to collusion on the question of the divorce itself. The practice is common, nevertheless, for courts to incorporate in their decrees provisions as to alimony which have been agreed to by the parties. The court, however, must be satisfied that the agreement is not the result of collusion on the main point of the divorce. The practice is to submit the agreement to the court, and, if the court is satisfied that it is a proper settlement, it will receive the sanction of a decree. * * * Then the validity of the award depends not upon the agreement, but upon the judgment or decree.'

Sec. 28 of Art. 16 of the Code (1957), was made the law by Ch. 220 of the Laws of 1931. A reason for its passage is suggested by the reference to the possible invalidity of agreements as to alimony in the Emerson opinion....