In Re the Marriage of: Travis Edwards v. Valerie Edwards ( 2019 )

FILED
Jul 31 2019, 10:30 am
CLERK
Indiana Supreme Court
Court of Appeals
and Tax Court
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT
Cynthia A. Marcus
Carmel, Indiana
IN THE
COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA
In Re the Marriage of: July 31, 2019
Travis Edwards, Court of Appeals Case No.
19A-DR-509
Appellant-Respondent,
Appeal from the Hamilton
v. Superior Court
The Honorable Michael A. Casati,
Valerie Edwards, Judge
The Honorable Todd L. Ruetz,
Appellee-Petitioner.
Magistrate
Trial Court Cause No.
29D01-0901-DR-42
Riley, Judge.
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
[1] Appellant-Respondent, Travis Edwards (Edwards), appeals the trial court’s
partial denial of his motion for relief from judgment.
[2] We affirm.
ISSUE
[3] Edwards presents us with three issues on appeal, which we consolidate and
restate as: Whether the trial court abused its discretion when it partially denied
his Trial Rule 60(B) motion for relief from judgment.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
[4] During the marriage of Edwards to Valerie Edwards (Valerie), Edwards was in
active duty in the United States Army. Edwards’ last deployment was to Iraq.
Edwards was injured in combat during that deployment and was eventually
diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury.
[5] On February 23, 2010, the marriage of Edwards and Valerie was dissolved
pursuant to an agreement that provided that Valerie would “be entitled to 50%
of the monthly pension benefit accrued during the course of the marriage to and
including the date of the final dissolution to be received by [Edwards] from the
U.S. Military . . . .” (Appellant’s App. Vol. II, p. 35). At the time the
dissolution was entered, Edwards was still on active duty. On October 7, 2011,
Edwards retired from the military, having completed almost twenty-three years
of service. During the months of May 2012 through August 2012, Valerie
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received 50% of Edwards’ military pension benefit, as provided for by the
dissolution decree. Thereafter, Edwards elected to receive combat-related
service compensation (CRSC). As a result of that election, Edwards was
required to waive his right to his military pension benefit. In September 2012,
Valerie, who was unaware that Edwards had elected to receive CRSC, received
notice from the entity administering Edwards’ pension that she would no longer
receive 50% of Edwards’ pension benefit because he had discontinued receiving
it. After electing to receive CRSC, Edwards did not make any payments to
Valerie to replace the 50% of his pension benefit she had lost as a result of that
election.
[6] On November 12, 2014, Valerie filed a contempt motion seeking an order
directing Edwards to pay her the pension benefit arrears that had accumulated
and to continue to pay her 50% of the pension benefit, as provided in the
dissolution decree. On September 29, 2015, the trial court held a hearing on
Valerie’s contempt motion. Edwards’ counsel argued that Edwards had been
required to waive his military pension benefit as a result of his election to
receive CRSC and that CRSC was non-divisible income pursuant to federal
law. Edwards’ counsel also directed the trial court to Mansell v. Mansell, 490
U.S. 581, 109 S.Ct. 2023, 104 L.Ed.2d 675 (1989), which he contended stood
for the proposition that the trial court could not order Edwards to indemnify
Valerie for her loss of the 50% pension benefit amount. On December 18, 2015,
the trial court found Edwards in contempt and ordered him to pay Valerie the
amount she lost as a result of his election to receive CRSC. The trial court
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relied on this court’s decision in Bandini v. Bandini, 935 N.E.2d 253, 264 (Ind.
Ct. App. 2010), which it cited as holding that “[a] military spouse may not, by a
post-decree waiver of retirement pay in favor of disability benefits of CRSC,
unilaterally and voluntarily reduce the benefits awarded the former spouse in a
dissolution decree.” (Appellant’s App. Vol. II, p. 38). The trial court also
ordered Edwards to pay $47,263.75 1 in accumulated arrears.
[7] Edwards did not appeal the trial court’s December 18, 2015 Order (the 2015
Order). On May 3, 2018, Edwards filed his Verified Motion to Vacate
Judgment Pursuant to Trial Rule 60(B)(6) in which he argued that in Howell v.
Howell, 581 U.S. —, 137 S.Ct. 1400, 197 E.Ed.2d 781 (2017), the United States
Supreme Court had held that state courts were not permitted to order a veteran
to indemnify a divorced spouse for the loss of the spouse’s portion of the
veteran’s retirement pay caused by the veteran’s waiver of retirement pay to
receive service-related disability benefits. Pursuant to Howell, Edwards
contended that the trial court’s 2015 Order was void for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction.
[8] On December 5, 2018, the trial court held a hearing on Edwards’ motion, and,
on January 23, 2019, the trial court issued an order partially denying Edwards
relief. The trial court found that Edwards had not appealed the 2015 Order; the
2015 Order was, thus, binding on the parties; and the Howell decision, while
1
The trial court offset this amount with a credit for overpayment of child support, and judgment was entered
in the amount of $44,338.75.
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overruling Bandini, did not render the 2015 Order void because it did not
indicate that its application was to be retroactive. Nevertheless, in light of
Howell and treating Edwards’ motion as one made pursuant to Trial Rule
60(B)(7), the trial court held that it was no longer equitable for the 2015 Order
to have prospective effect. The trial court denied Edwards’ request to set aside
the previously-entered $44,338.75 judgment but ordered that the 2015 Order
was set aside and vacated effective May 3, 2018, the date of Edwards’ motion to
set aside.
[9] Edwards now appeals. Additional facts will be provided as necessary.
DISCUSSION AND DECISION
I. Standard of Review
[10] We begin by noting that Valerie did not file an appellate brief in this matter.
We do not develop arguments on behalf of an appellee who fails to file a brief.
WindGate Props., LLC v. Sanders, 93 N.E.3d 809, 813 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018). In
such cases, we will reverse if the appellant establishes prima facie error, meaning
error at first sight or error on the face of it. Id. However, even in light of this
relaxed standard, we still have the obligation to correctly apply the law to the
facts in the record to determine whether reversal is required. Id.[11] Edwards appeals following the trial court’s partial denial of his Trial Rule 60
motion to vacate judgment. Such motions entail the equitable discretion of the
trial court, and, as a general rule, we review the denial of such motions for an
abuse of the trial court’s discretion. In re Paternity of P.S.S., 934 N.E.2d 737,
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740-41 (Ind. 2010). Edwards offers us three related arguments all stemming
from his contention that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to
enter the 2015 Order because federal law and United States Supreme Court
precedent precluded it. Whether a trial court has jurisdiction is a question of
law that we review de novo. Kondamuri v. Kondamuri, 799 N.E.2d 1153, 1156
(Ind. Ct. App. 2003), trans. denied.
II. Subject Matter Jurisdiction
[12] Edwards argues that the 2015 Order was void ab initio because, in entering what
he contends was an order in contravention of federal law and binding
precedent, the trial court acted outside of its subject matter jurisdiction.
“Indiana courts only have jurisdiction to the extent that jurisdiction has been
granted to them by the constitution or by statute.” In re Custody of M.B., 51
N.E.3d 230, 234 (Ind. 2016). The question of whether a trial court has subject
matter jurisdiction “entails a determination of whether a court has jurisdiction
over the general class of actions to which a particular case belongs.” Troxel v.
Troxel, 737 N.E.2d 745, 749 (Ind. 2000). “Real jurisdictional problems would
be, say, a juvenile delinquency adjudication entered in a small claims court, or a
judgment rendered without any service of process.” K.S. v. State, 849 N.E.2d
538, 542 (Ind. 2006) (emphasis in original). Our supreme court has also noted
that
[t]he fact that a trial court may have erred along the course of
adjudicating a dispute does not mean it lacked jurisdiction. As
Justice Arterburn wrote four decades ago:
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Far too often there is an inclination in a law suit to attempt to
convert a legal issue into one of “jurisdiction” and from that
point contend all actions of the court are void, and that the
question of jurisdiction may be raised at any time or that the
proceedings are subject to collateral attack and are a matter of
original writs in this court.
Id. (quoting J.I. Case Co. v. Sandefur, 245 Ind. 213, 217-18, 197 N.E.2d
519, 521 (1964)).
[13] Here, the Hamilton County Superior Court No. 1 had original and concurrent
jurisdiction in all civil cases. Ind. Code § 33-29-1-1.5(1). Indiana Code section
31-15-2-2, which establishes a cause of action for the dissolution of marriage,
grants broad discretion to trial courts to entertain dissolution proceedings and
establishes subject matter jurisdiction over those proceedings. Kondamuri, 799
N.E.2d at 1158. Thus, the trial court unquestionably had subject matter
jurisdiction to entertain issues related to the civil matter of the division of
Edwards’ and Valerie’s assets pursuant to a dissolution proceeding. Whether
the trial court applied the correct law in this case, be it federal or state law, is a
question of legal error, not a question of subject matter jurisdiction. See Neese v.
Kelley, 705 N.E.2d 1047, 1051 (Ind. Ct. App. 1999) (holding that mere errors of
law do not deprive a court of its jurisdiction or open its judgment to collateral
attack and that such errors can only be corrected on direct appeal).
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III. Res Judicata
[14] Edwards did not appeal the 2015 Order, which was a final appealable judgment
because it disposed of all issues as to all parties, thus ending the case. See
Georgos v. Jackson, 790 N.E.2d 448, 451 (Ind. 2003); see also Ind. Appellate Rule
2(H)(1). The doctrine of res judicata prevents the re-litigation of issues that are
essentially the same. See Earl v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 91 N.E.3d 1066,
1074 n. 5 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018), trans. denied. The doctrine of res judicata
encompasses the principles of issue preclusion and claim preclusion. Freels v.
Koches, 94 N.E.3d 339, 342 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018). Claim preclusion applies
when a final judgment on the merits has been entered and acts as a complete
bar to subsequent litigation on the same claim between identical parties. M.G.
v. V.P., 74 N.E.3d 259, 264 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017).
When claim preclusion applies, all matters that were or might
have been litigated are deemed conclusively decided by the
judgment in the prior action. Claim preclusion applies when the
following four factors are present: (1) the former judgment was
rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction; (2) the former
judgment was rendered on the merits; (3) the matter now at issue
was, or could have been, determined in the prior action; and (4)
the controversy adjudicated in the former action was between
parties to the present suit or their privies.
Id. (quotation omitted). In addition, “the res judicata consequences of a final,
unappealed judgment on the merits [are not] altered by the fact that the
judgment may have been wrong or rested on a legal principle subsequently
overruled in another case.” Perry v. Gulf Stream Coach, Inc., 871 N.E.2d 1038,
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1048 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007) (quoting Federated Dep’t Stores, Inc. v. Moitie, 452 U.S.
394, 398, 101 S.Ct. 2424, 2428, 69 L.Ed.2d 103 (1981)).
[15] Here, the unappealed 2015 Order was res judicata as to the parties and
precluded further litigation on the same issue of whether Valerie was entitled to
the value of 50% of Edwards’ pension benefit, regardless of whether the case
relied upon by the trial court, Bandini, was subsequently overruled by Howell.
See id. Edwards’ only argument that res judicata did not apply to the 2015 Order
is that it was not rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction. That argument
fails for the reasons already decided. Because lack of subject matter jurisdiction
for the 2015 Order was the basis for all of Edwards’ appellate claims, we
conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it partially denied
Edwards’ motion to vacate judgment. See P.S.S., 934 N.E.2d at 740. For the
same reason, we conclude that Edwards has not demonstrated reversible error,
even in light of the relaxed standard of review applied to this appeal. See
WindGate Props., 93 N.E.3d at 813.
CONCLUSION
[16] Based on the foregoing, we conclude that the trial court had subject matter
jurisdiction to enter the challenged order and, therefore, that Edwards has failed
to demonstrate even prima facie error as a result of the trial court’s partial denial
of his motion for relief from judgment.
[17] Affirmed.
[18] Vaidik, C. J. and Bradford, J. concur
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