In re the Marriage of: Julie Ellen OÂ?Mara-Meyer v. William Philip Meyer ( 2016 )

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2014).
STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A15-1748
In re the Marriage of:
Julie Ellen O’Mara-Meyer, petitioner,
Respondent,
vs.
William Philip Meyer,
Appellant.
Filed September 19, 2016
Reversed and remanded
Peterson, Judge
Dissenting, Rodenberg, Judge
Houston County District Court
File No. 28-FA-13-47
Michael A. Murphy, Hammell & Murphy, P.L.L.P., Caledonia, Minnesota; and
Scott M. Flaherty, Briggs and Morgan, P.A., Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)
Susan A. Daudelin, Ben M. Henschel, Henschel Moberg Goff, P.A., Minneapolis,
Minnesota (for appellant)
Considered and decided by Rodenberg, Presiding Judge; Peterson, Judge; and
Bjorkman, Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
PETERSON, Judge
Appellant challenges the district court’s denial of his motion to modify
maintenance, arguing that the district court misread the parties’ stipulated dissolution
judgment to preclude modification and failed to make adequate findings. Because the
district court’s factual findings are not sufficient to permit meaningful review, we reverse
and remand for more detailed findings.
FACTS
The 26-year marriage of appellant-husband William Philip Meyer and respondent-
wife Julie Ellen O’Mara-Meyer was dissolved by a stipulated judgment and decree that
was entered in August 2014. The parties’ financial disclosures during the dissolution
proceeding in July 2014 show that wife was employed by Hiawatha Valley Mental Health,
with monthly compensation of $5,700, which equals $68,400 annually. Husband worked
selling farm equipment and was paid a draw, commissions, and bonuses. His total
compensation was $24,378 per month, which equals $292,536 annually.
With respect to spousal maintenance, the judgment states that “both parties have
fully discussed with each other future possible changes in income and recognize that either
or both parties may have a substantial change upward or downward in their future income
due to market forces, changes in health, inheritance, or other foreseeable as well as
unforeseeable circumstances.”
Husband waived his right to receive spousal maintenance, and the judgment states
that the court is divested from any future jurisdiction to award maintenance to husband.
The judgment ordered husband to pay wife $4,500 per month for maintenance until “the
earliest of [husband] turning 65 years of age; the death of either party; or [wife’s]
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remarriage.” The judgment also states that “[t]he ‘Karon’[1] language will not be
employed.”
In March 2015, eight months after the dissolution judgment was entered, husband
moved to modify maintenance. Although husband had claimed in July 2014 that his
monthly income was $24,378, in his 2015 motion to modify, he stated that his income had
declined from $482,810 in 2013 to $349,919 in 2014. An attachment to the judgment
indicates that the Medicare income reported on husband’s W-2 income-tax form for 2013
was $482,810. Husband’s 2014 W-2 form shows Medicare income of $348,919.2
Husband alleged that the farm economy was poor and his income for 2015 was
projected to be less than his income in 2014, based on the first ten weeks of 2015. Husband
asked the court to reduce his maintenance obligation (a) to ten percent of his commissions
less $1,000 per week as a draw or (b) by the percentage change in his income from 2013
to 2014, which husband calculated to be 27.773%.
In support of his motion, husband provided a list of expenses, which includes some
upward and downward adjustments of expenses from the affidavit that husband filed during
the dissolution; primarily, husband asserted that his mortgage expenses had greatly
1
In Karon v. Karon, 435 N.W.2d 501, 503-504 (Minn. 1989), the supreme court held that
parties may enter into an enforceable stipulation to prohibit or limit modification of
maintenance awards. This principle has been codified at Minn. Stat. § 518.552, subd. 5
(Supp. 2015).
2
Husband’s statement in his affidavit that his Medicare income for 2014 was $349,919
appears to be a typographical error.
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increased.3 Husband also alleged that wife’s income had increased by $15,325.00 to
$88,036 annually.4 The financial issues were complicated by disputes over payment of
overdue taxes, husband’s failure to pay wife one-half of a $2,786.37 credit the parties
received from Spring Grove Communications, and a $21,500 payment to a college fund
for the parties’ children that husband was ordered to make because he had improperly
liquidated assets during the dissolution.
The district court denied husband’s motion. The court found:
In less than eight (8) months after signing the
stipulation, [husband] requests the Court to, in effect, lower his
maintenance due to a substantial change in his financial
situation citing several factor[s] including decrease in
[husband’s] income due to the farm economy and a substantial
change in [husband’s] circumstances brought about by the
financial arrangements with [wife] in the dissolution. The
Court finds that such factors were contemplated and
considered by the parties as per the language of the stipulation
and agreed to by the parties and thereafter ordered by the Court.
The court found “that the parties contemplated and considered potential changes in
financial circumstances, including substantial changes, at the time of establishing spousal
maintenance and in agreeing to a division of property and assets by stipulation and shortly
thereafter ordered by the Court.” This appeal followed.
3
The monthly-living-expenses worksheet prepared by husband for 2014 and 2015 contains
an arithmetical error in the “miscellaneous” category that inflates husband’s monthly
expenses by more than $3,000. Neither party has addressed this error.
4
The confidential-information form attached to the judgment shows that Medicare income
reported on wife’s W-2 form for 2013 was $72,711. Documents submitted in support of
husband’s motion show that Medicare income reported on wife’s W-2 for 2014 was
$88,035.
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DECISION
Husband argues that “[t]he district court essentially viewed the language [in the
judgment] acknowledging the parties’ recognition of the possibility that their future income
could increase or decrease as constituting a waiver of the right to seek a modification based
on substantial changes in these circumstances.” He contends that the judgment does not
expressly waive the right to seek modification under appropriate circumstances and,
instead, the parties agreed that the judgment would not include Karon language.
The district court has discretion to modify a maintenance award upon a party’s
motion. Minn. Stat. § 518A.39, subd. 1 (2014); Lee v. Lee, 775 N.W.2d 631, 637 (Minn.
2009). A maintenance order may be modified for various reasons, including a substantial
increase or decrease in an obligor’s or obligee’s income or needs that makes the existing
maintenance award unreasonable and unfair. Minn. Stat. § 518A.39, subd. 2(a) (2014).
The party requesting modification “must not only demonstrate the existence of a substantial
change of circumstances, but is also required to show that the change has the effect of
rendering the original maintenance award both unreasonable and unfair.” Beck v. Kaplan,
566 N.W.2d 723, 726 (Minn. 1997). “Unreasonable and unfair are strong terms which
place upon the claimant a burden of proof more than cursory.” Kielley v. Kielley, 674
N.W.2d 770, 779 (Minn. App. 2004) (quotation omitted).
“Effective appellate review of an award of maintenance is possible only when the
[district] court has issued sufficiently detailed findings of fact to demonstrate its
consideration of all factors relevant to an award.” Hemmingsen v. Hemmingsen, 767
N.W.2d 711, 718 (Minn. App. 2009) (quotation omitted), review granted (Minn. Sept. 29,
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2009) and appeal dismissed (Minn. Feb. 1, 2010). The findings must be sufficiently
particularized to show that the district court has considered the relevant statutory factors.
Tuthill v. Tuthill, 399 N.W.2d 230, 232 (Minn. App. 1987).
The district court found that the parties “contemplated and considered” “several
factor[s] including decrease in [husband’s] income due to the farm economy and a
substantial change in [husband’s] circumstances brought about by the financial
arrangements with [wife] in the dissolution,” but it did not make any findings regarding
these factors. Instead of determining whether husband met his burden of proving that a
substantial change of circumstances made the original maintenance award unreasonable
and unfair, the district court appears to have concluded that because the parties
contemplated and considered potential changes in husband’s financial circumstances when
they entered into their stipulation, changes in these factors may not be a basis for modifying
maintenance.
The parties’ recognition in their stipulation that there could be substantial changes
in husband’s financial circumstances does not mean that maintenance may not be modified
because of such changes. The judgment states that “‘Karon’ language will not be
employed,” and wife acknowledged in the district court that the court retained jurisdiction
over maintenance modification and that she did not claim that maintenance could never be
modified. This indicates that the parties also recognized that there could be a change in
circumstances sufficiently substantial to support a modification of maintenance.
We therefore reverse the district court’s order denying husband’s motion to modify
maintenance and remand to permit the district court to consider whether husband has
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proved that there has been a substantial change in circumstances that makes the original
maintenance order unreasonable and unfair and to make particularized findings of fact that
demonstrate that it has considered these statutory factors.
Reversed and remanded.
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RODENBERG, Judge (dissenting)
Less than eight months after he signed a stipulation calling for a monthly
maintenance payment of $4,500, appellant moved to amend the judgment and decree of
dissolution to incorporate a percentage-of-commissions-based maintenance award. The
record supports the district court’s finding that the parties’ agreement, and the judgment
and decree entered thereon, contemplated the income fluctuation upon which appellant
based his motion. I therefore respectfully dissent.
I agree with the majority that the district court’s findings are imperfect, but those
findings were made in the context of a motion by appellant “that the court amend its
findings to reduce the order for maintenance to a percentage of commissions and
bonuses.”5 The district court analyzed the motion as appellant presented it—a motion to
fundamentally alter the mechanism of computing the amount of respondent’s temporary
spousal maintenance, and not as a motion to reset the maintenance obligation for a reduced
monthly amount. It was in this context that the district court found that, when the parties
contracted for a $4,500 monthly maintenance amount, they were “well aware of the
fluctuating [nature of appellant’s] income.” The record amply supports that finding of fact.
5
Appellant’s original motion, dated March 30, 2015, requested alternative relief reducing
his maintenance obligation “by the percentage of change [in appellant’s income] from 2013
to 2014, that being 27.773%.” Appellant later served and filed a second motion, dated May
22, 2015, requesting that his maintenance obligation be re-cast as a percentage of his
income, and also requesting amendment of the earlier judgment and decree or,
alternatively, a new trial.
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At the time of appellant’s motion, only eight months had passed since the parties’
agreement and the district court’s judgment and decree.
A stipulation is significant in the context of a motion to modify maintenance as “the
identification of the baseline circumstances against which claims of substantial change are
evaluated.” Hecker v. Hecker, 568 N.W.2d 705, 709 (Minn. 1997). Here, the stipulation
did not rely on any specific annual or monthly net income amount, and instead recited only
that appellant had a “base salary of $54,080.00 in 2014 with the remainder of his income
as commission and bonuses.” It identified the possibility of future changes in income “due
to market forces, changes in health, inheritance, or other foreseeable as well as
unforeseeable circumstances,” before specifying the monthly $4,500 maintenance
payments on which the parties agreed.
Imperfect though they may be, the district court’s findings are adequate for me to
see what the district court did. It found that appellant had not borne his burden of proving
a substantial change in circumstances sufficient to warrant a fundamental change in the
mechanism for computing maintenance payments less than a full calendar year after the
parties, despite recognizing the fluctuating nature of appellant’s commission income,
agreed on a set monthly amount of maintenance as part of a global settlement of their
dissolution.
“The cases are legion supporting the position that the discretion conferred on the
family court judge to amend prior [maintenance] orders is to be exercised cautiously, and
any alteration must be based on a clear showing of a substantial change of circumstances
in one or both of the parties.” Sieber v. Sieber, 258 N.W.2d 754, 757 (Minn. 1977). This
D-2
is particularly so when the parties have stipulated concerning maintenance. Id. We review
the district court’s determination for abuse of discretion. Hecker, 568 N.W.2d at 709.
I see no abuse of discretion here.
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