Wooddy v. Wooddy

• Decision Date: 13 May 1970
• Docket Number: No. 366,366
• Parties: Louise Rossiter WOODDY v. Arthur Overton WOODDY.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 224

258 Md. 224

265 A.2d 467

Louise Rossiter WOODDY v. Arthur Overton WOODDY.

No. 366.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

May 13, 1970.

Edward J. Skeens, Silver Hill, for appellant.

Robert T. Barbour, LaPlata, for appellee.

Argued before HAMMOND, C. J., and BARNES, MCWILLIAMS, SINGLEY and SMITH, JJ.

SINGLEY, Judge.

This case is but one of the matters generated by the domestic difficulties of Dr. Arthur O. Wooddy, here the appellee, and Mrs. Louise R. Wooddy, here the appellant. The rift culminated in a bitterly contested divorce suit in 1966 which was concluded by the entry of a decree of divorce a vinculo matrimonii on Dr. Wooddy's cross-bill of complaint. The other sequelae may be found in Wooddy v. Wooddy, 256 Md. 440, 261 A.2d 486 (1970) and in Wooddy v. Mudd, Md., 265 A.2d 458 (1970).

In the 1966 divorce decree, the Circuit Court for Charles County (Dorsey, J.) awarded to Mrs. Wooddy custody of the Wooddy's children, Clara Louise, now 18 years of age; Arthur Rossiter, now 12, and Edmund Lee (Eddie Lee), now 11, and directed that Dr. Wooddy pay $750 a month to Mrs. Wooddy, accounting from 15 October and subject to the further order of the court, presumably for the maintenance and support of the three children, because the decree awarded no alimony to Mrs. Wooddy, who had been the unsuccessful cross-defendant in the divorce case. There was a further provision directing '* * * Arthur O. Wooddy to pay in the meantime all tuition charges required for special schooling of the minor child, Edmund L. Wooddy.'

In 1960, it had been determined that Eddie Lee was suffering from Down's syndrome (mongolism). At the time of the divorce, he was enrolled at The Benedictine School For Exceptional Children at Ridgely, Maryland, where he remained until June of 1968, when the school recommended that he be transferred to a school for children who were trainable but not educable. In August of 1968, he entered the Van Hook-Walsh School in Middletown, Delaware. In 1966, Clara Louise was attending public school in Charles County. After graduating from La Plata High School in June of 1969, she entered Mary Washington College at Frdericksburg, Virginia.

In December of 1968, Mrs. Wooddy, who had been unsuccessful in her efforts to persuade her former husband to contribute to the expenses which she was bearing for the care of Eddie Lee and was about to incur for the college education of Clara Louise, filed in the Circuit Court for Charles County a petition for the modification of that portion of the 1966 decree which dealt with child support.

The relief which Mrs. Wooddy sought was wide ranging, since she urged:

(i) that Dr. Wooddy be held in contempt for failing to pay Eddie Lee's tuition bill for $338.82, incurred at The Benedictine School's summer camp, and the charges described in (iii) below;

(ii) that Dr. Wooddy be ordered to reimburse Mrs. Wooddy for the $338.82 which she had expended;

(iii) that Dr. Wooddy be ordered to pay Eddie Lee's tuition and incidental expenses at the Van Hook-Walsh School and to reimburse Mrs. Wooddy for the amounts which she had advanced commencing in August, 1968;

(iv) that Dr. Wooddy be ordered to 'provide a college education for Clara Louise Wooddy and Arthur Rossiter Wooddy'; ¹

(v) that Dr. Wooddy be ordered 'to reinstate or maintain any life insurance kept on his own life' at the time of the divorce, and that Mrs. Wooddy be irrevocably designated the primary beneficiary of such policies and the children be named contingent beneficiaries; ²

(vi) that the support provisions of the 1966 decree which provided for monthly payments of $750 be clarified, so that there be paid to each child the sum of $250 per month, in addition to educational expenses;

(vii) that Dr. Wooddy's visitation rights be specified; and

(viii) that a fee be allowed Mrs. Wooddy's counsel.

Dr. Wooddy, in his answer, averred that he had paid Eddie Lee's tuition at The Benedictine School amounting to some $1,000 a year (it was actually about $1,500); that he had refused to pay the charge of $338.82, which was a fee for a summer day camp conducted by the School in 1967, because he regarded it as beyond the scope of the 1966 decree; that he had never been consulted in regard to placing Eddie Lee in the Van Hook-Walsh School; and that the support provisions of the 1966 decree were sufficient to provide a college education for Clara Louise and Arthur Rossiter.

After hearing testimony, the chancellor (again Dorsey, J.) entered an order dismissing Mrs. Wooddy's petition with costs.

From this order, Mrs. Wooddy now appeals and assigns as error the court's failure:

(i) to hold Dr. Wooddy in contempt for his refusal to pay tuition charges for Eddie Lee and to enter judgment for arrearages;

(ii) to increase the provision for Clara Louise while she is in college;

(iii) to require Dr. Wooddy to irrevocably designate the three children as beneficiaries of one half of his life insurance; and,

(iv) to award counsel fees to Mrs. Wooddy's attorney.

We shall review each of these contentions, keeping in mind the oft-repeated principle that an order for support and maintenance of children may be varied or modified by the court in the exercise of its sound discretion, Code (1957, 1966 Repl. Vol.) Art. 16, §§ 25, 66; Seltzer v. Seltzer, 251 Md. 44, 246 A.2d 264 (1968); Bebermeyer v. Bebermeyer, 241 Md. 72, 215 A.2d 463 (1965); Price v. Price, 232 Md. 379, 194 A.2d 99 (1963), but that an award of support by a trial court will not be disturbed unless it is clearly erroneous. Rule 886 a, Pet v. Pet, 238 Md. 492, 209 A.2d 572 (1965).

First, of all, the issues must be viewed in the light of Dr. Wooddy's financial circumstances. Introduced in evidence were his United States income tax returns for 1967 and 1968. In the earlier divorce case there was evidence that in 1965, his adjusted gross income was $44,252.52 on which he paid a tax of $10,816.94. In 1967, his adjusted gross income was $28,938.91, and the tax was $7,315.35. In 1968, adjusted gross income was $50,768.56 (of which $5,973.36 represented earnings of his second wife) and the tax was $14,593.76. Consequently, his income after federal taxes was $33,435.58, in 1965; $21,623.56, in 1967; and $36,174.80, in 1968, if his wife's earnings are included. In 1967, he was not only paying $9,000 for the support of his children, but about $1,500 for Eddie Lee's tuition, and in 1968, $9,000 for support payments, but perhaps only about $800 for Eddie Lee's tuition. In addition there was testimony that Dr. Wooddy paid the taxes and made the mortgage payments on the house occupied by Mrs. Wooddy and the children, although not required to do so by the 1966 decree. There was conflicting testimony as to the value of his assets, but it seems clear that he had about $100,000 of life insurance, against which he had borrowed. Annual premiums were about $6,000.

At first blush, the situation would seem to come within the ambit of Burton v. Burton, 253 Md. 233, 252 A.2d 472 (1969) where we concluded that it was not clearly wrong to require a father with an annual income of $55,000 and a net worth of $400,000 to pay $700 per month for the support of his three minor children. However, if further evidence is needed that the amount of support payments, like alimony, is determined by the facts and circumstances of each case, Wagshal v. Wagshal, 249 Md. 143, 238 A.2d 903 (1968), Burton should be contrasted with Rothschild v. Strauss, Md., 263 A.2d 511 (1970) where we declined to disturb a support order calling for monthly payments of $600 for the maintenance of a 14 year old daughter of a well-to-do father. As Judge McWilliams, speaking for the Court, observed in Fuld v. Fuld, 252 Md. 254, 256, 250 A.2d 93, 95 (1969):

'* * * In our judgment no useful purpose will be served by setting forth herein an analytical recitation of the various factual situations presented (by the child support cases) and how we resolved them. * * *'

(i) Eddie Lee

We think that Dr. Wooddy is quite right in saying that the requirement of the 1966 decree that he pay 'all tuition charges required for special schooling' of Eddie Lee did not saddle him with the 1967 camp fee of $338.82. The chancellor concluded, as do we, that this was a responsibility beyond the scope of the original decree, for which Dr. Wooddy could not be held answerable either in a civil action, or in contempt.

We view the problem of Eddie Lee's tuition at the Van Hook-Walsh School in a somewhat different light, however. At the time of the 1966 decree, Eddie Lee was attending a nine months' program at The Benedictine School and was at home for frequent visits and during vacations, so that a maid had to be employed to assist in caring for him. While the monthly support payment of $750 was not separated, it is not illogical to regard it as separable, at least for these purposes, so that $250 could be regarded as having been intended for Eddie Lee's support at home, while Dr. Wooddy was required to continue to pay the school tuition of about $1,500.

There was testimony that the Van Hook-Walsh School, which Eddie Lee entered in August, 1968, offers a year-round resident program, and that Eddie Lee is only at home for several days every two months. The tuition there is $3,600 of which Maryland's Board of Education pays $800. In the nine months' period August, 1968 through April, 1969, Mrs. Wooddy's payments to Van Hook-Walsh, including tuition at an annual rate of $2,800 and miscellaneous incidentals, totalled $2,483.67, or an average of about $276 per month. If this were put on a yearly basis, Eddie Lee's total expenses at Van Hook-Walsh would appear to be between $3,300 and $3,350 each year. We think that the chancellor must have lost sight of this, and was in error when he failed to require Dr. Wooddy to contribute $30 a month, accounting from 1 August 1968, toward Eddie Lee's school expenses.

Because Mrs. Wooddy twice advised Dr. Wooddy of her intention to...