Weiss v. Weiss

• Decision Date: 15 June 2005
• Docket Number: No. CIV. 3:04CV1831(JBA).,CIV. 3:04CV1831(JBA).
• Citation: 375 F.Supp.2d 10
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut
• Parties: Claudia S. WEISS, Plaintiff, v. Martin T. WEISS, Defendant.

375 F.Supp.2d 10

Claudia S. WEISS, Plaintiff, v. Martin T. WEISS, Defendant.

No. CIV. 3:04CV1831(JBA).

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

June 15, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Steven H. St. Clair, Putnam, CT, William R. Moller, Law Offices of Peck & O'Brien, Wethersfield, CT, for Plaintiff.

Anthony Rosato Minchella, Anthony R. Minchella, LLC, Middlebury, CT, for Defendant.

RULING ON DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO DISMISS [DOC. # 10]

ARTERTON, District Judge.

Plaintiff brings a four-count complaint against her former husband and law partner, alleging breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and conversion, arising out of defendant's alleged noncompliance with certain terms of their marital dissolution agreement. See Second Am. Compl. [doc. # 18] ¶¶ 28-42. Plaintiff, currently a resident of Massachusetts, invokes this Court's diversity jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332. Defendant now moves to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). For the reasons that follow, defendant's motion to dismiss [Doc. # 10] will be granted.

I. Factual Background

Plaintiff and defendant were married in 1987 in Woodstock, Connecticut and practiced together as law partners in Danielson, Connecticut from December 1988 to December 1999. Second Am. Compl. ¶ 2; Weiss v. Weiss, No. FA 99-0071672S, slip op. at 3 (Conn.Super.Ct. Jan. 3, 2003) (Scholl, J.), attached to Aff. of Martin Weiss [Doc. # 12] as Ex. B. The plaintiff practiced family law and the defendant handled criminal, personal injury and worker's compensation cases. Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ 4-6; Weiss v. Weiss, slip op. at 4. Their law practice was extremely successful, and the parties "amassed significant assets, including a house in Nantucket, a house valued at $545,000 in Woodstock, Connecticut, as well as horses and airplanes" and several cars. Weiss v. Weiss, slip op. at 4.

"After several years of strife and infidelity on the part of both parties, the beginning of the end of this marriage occurred on October 29, 1999 when the parties fought in their home." Id. at 10. After another incident the next day, the parties agreed to divorce, and the plaintiff volunteered to draft the papers. Id. "The Plaintiff was the most likely person to draft the dissolution papers, if the parties were to represent themselves, because her law practice was limited to divorce work. She is known as, and considers herself, one of the top matrimonial lawyers in Windham county. She has drafted hundreds of matrimonial agreements." Id. at 11.

The parties signed the marital dissolution agreement on November 20, 1999, and the plaintiff filed for divorce the next day. After lengthy litigation, including an order of alimony pendente lite and a nine-day trial involving 73 exhibits and 22 witnesses, the Connecticut Superior Court entered an order that, among other things: dissolved the marriage on the grounds of irretrievable breakdown; found that the marital dissolution agreement was fair and equitable and incorporated it by reference in the judgment; ordered the plaintiff to pay half the defendant's attorneys' fees because she "sought to undermine" the separation agreement, "which has resulted in this lengthy litigation"; ordered the defendant to pay the plaintiff the remainder due to her for her share of the Woodstock house; ordered the defendant to pay any sums still owing on his obligation to give the plaintiff one-third of all contingency fees generated from personal injury cases active at Weiss & Weiss as of November 1, 1999, as required by Paragraph 9 of the dissolution agreement; and ordered the defendant to provide an accounting as to how the payment of personal injury fees was calculated. Id. at 27, 29. The order further instructed that a "signed copy of the Marital Dissolution Agreement dated November 30, 1999 shall be attached to the judgment file." Id. at 29-30.

As relevant to the present lawsuit, Paragraph 6 of the separation agreement, entitled "Alimony," also includes a provision that "the husband shall pay monthly stable board up to $650.00 monthly for one horse for a period of one year. Said alimony shall be non-modifiable...." Marital Dissolution Agreement, Aff. of Martin Weiss, Ex. B, at 33.

Paragraph 9 of the separation agreement reads:

BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP AND ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE. The husband and wife are partners at the Law Offices of Weiss & Weiss located at 133 School Street, in Danielson, Connecticut. The wife agrees that she will withdraw as a partner at the Law Offices of Weiss & Weiss as of January 1, 2000, but will remain of counsel without pay excepting the conditions of this paragraph to assist with the conclusion of all pending family law cases... The wife shall receive 1/3 of all contingency fees generated from personal injury cases at the Law Offices of Weiss & Weiss active as of November 1, 1999 and 50% of all fees generated from closed dissolution and custody files at the Law Offices of Weiss & Weiss as of November 1, 1999. The parties have also agreed that the wife shall receive a 20% interest in the fee generated from a recent stipulated settlement in the Second District Workers' Compensation Division entitled "COTE VS. TOMASSO CONSTRUCTION". Other than the aforementioned, the wife therefore, agrees to waive any claim in the business...

Id. at 34-35.

After entry of the Superior Court judgment, this contentious divorce litigation continued unabated. See Docket Sheet, Weiss v. Weiss, No. FA 99-0071672S, available at www.jud2.state.ct .us/ civil_inquiry (last visited May 25, 2005). The plaintiff filed a motion to reargue on January 22, 2003, which was denied on February 6, 2003, and the Judgment file was entered May 22, 2003. Id. On September 12, 2003, the plaintiff filed a motion for contempt alleging that the defendant had failed to pay the plaintiff's stable board of $650 monthly, and also had failed to pay the plaintiff 50% of all fees from closed divorce and custody files at Weiss & Weiss as of November 1, 1999, and 20% of the fee from the Cote v. Tomasso worker's compensation case, as stipulated in the dissolution agreement. See Pl. Mot. for Contempt Post Judgment, Aff. of Martin Weiss, Ex. C. The defendant objected to plaintiff's motion on October 14, 2003, Id. at Ex. F, and filed a motion for clarification on October 16, 2003, Id. at Ex. D, asserting that the horse board provision was unclear because the bills submitted by plaintiff were not itemized and the judgment does not state when the payments were to start. The docket sheet does not reflect that rulings were entered on any of these motions.

On November 3, 2003, however, the defendant filed a further motion to clarify the stable board provision and to clarify the definition of a "personal injury case" under the terms of the dissolution agreement. This motion for clarification was granted orally by Judge Scholl on April 20, 2005. Transcripts provided by the parties at the request of this Court, see Letter to Counsel, 6/6/05 [Doc. # 19], reveal that Judge Scholl ruled that: (1) she had jurisdiction to clarify the terms of a previously-issued divorce judgment; (2) "personal injury cases" within the meaning of the separation agreement did not include worker's compensation cases; and (3) the horse board provision was not restricted to any particular one-year period and therefore defendant must pay when presented with receipts.

On May 5, 2005, plaintiff appealed the clarification ruling to the Connecticut Appellate Court, arguing that Judge Scholl lacked jurisdiction to interpret the divorce judgment through the vehicle of a motion to clarify. Defendant filed a motion to dismiss the appeal on May 26, 2005, arguing that Judge Scholl's clarification was not a final judgment and therefore not appealable. The motion and appeal remain pending.

Before defendant's motion for clarification, plaintiff filed the instant action in federal court on October 29, 2004. Count One of the plaintiff's Second Amended Complaint, filed February 22, 2005, alleges that defendant breached the provision of the separation agreement requiring him to pay plaintiff's horse board and the provision requiring him to pay the plaintiff one-third of fees collected from personal injury cases. See Second Am. Compl. ¶ 29. Count Two of the complaint alleges that the defendant breached his fiduciary duty to the plaintiff by failing "to disclose all active contingent fee files of the partnership as of November 1, 1999." Second Am. Compl. ¶ 31. Count Three of the complaint alleges that the defendant "fraudulently misrepresented that he would disclose all contingent fee personal injury files active as of November 1, 1999 to the plaintiff to induce plaintiff to sign the [separation] agreement" and that he "concealed and failed to disclose at least ninety (90) contingent fee cases." Id. ¶¶ 35-36. Finally, Count Four alleges "conversion/theft," in that the defendant has "wrongfully detained or exercised dominion of" unspecified personal property or money to which plaintiff alleges she is entitled under the separation agreement. Id. ¶ 41.

The defendant now moves to dismiss all claims of the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1). He argues that the crux of plaintiff's complaint is a disagreement over the meaning of "personal injury cases" in the Marital Dissolution Agreement — specifically whether worker's compensation cases are personal injury cases — and because the separation agreement was incorporated into the divorce judgment, interpretation of the agreement falls within the domestic relations exception to federal court diversity jurisdiction. In the alternative, he argues that this Court should abstain from deciding the case because of the ongoing state court proceedings. In his supplemental brief, defendant further argues that because Judge Scholl recently ruled that the 90 worker's compensation ca...