Case Title: Shaw v. Shaw

Citation: 162 Vt. 338, 648 A.2d 836

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1994-07-08T00:00:00Z

Document:
SHAW_V_SHAW.93-399; 162 Vt. 338; 648 A.2d 836

[Opinion Filed July 8, 1994]


 NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P. 40
 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports.
 Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme
 Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of any errors in
 order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.


                                 No. 93-399


 Dorothy M. Shaw                              Supreme Court

                                              On Appeal from
      v.                                      Chittenden Family Court

 Normand J. Shaw                              March Term, 1994




 Alden T. Bryan, J.


 John C. Gravel of Bauer, Anderson, Gravel & Abare, Burlington, for
    plaintiff-appellee

 John J. Bergeron and Norman C. Smith of Bergeron, Paradis, Fitzpatrick &
    Smith, Burlington, for defendant-appellant




 PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.



      GIBSON, J.   Husband appeals from an order of the Chittenden Family
 Court denying his motion for termination of rehabilitative maintenance, but
 adjusting the payment schedule in light of his new employment and lower
 income.  We affirm.
      The parties were divorced in 1991, pursuant to a stipulation providing
 that husband would pay wife $500 per month for a period of ten years as
 rehabilitative maintenance.  Husband was then earning $44,000 a year at IBM,
 where he had been employed for twenty-seven years.

 

      About ten months after the divorce, husband was fired from his job, due
 in part at least to his unauthorized purchase of a pickup truck from an IBM
 vendor about eight years before the divorce.  Husband was unemployed for
 about nine months, during which time the court granted his motion to suspend
 maintenance payments.  After he obtained a job as a car salesman, wife moved
 to enforce the payment of maintenance, and husband moved to modify the
 original order on grounds that he could not afford to make the required
 payments.
      At the time of the hearing on the motions, husband had an average
 weekly gross income of $278, or about $1,200 per month.  He testified that
 he could not afford to live on his own, and was living with his parents,
 paying room and board.  At the time of the hearing, wife had a monthly
 income of approximately $1438, consisting of $836 in unemployment
 compensation, $452 for taking care of a granddaughter, and about $150 from a
 part-time sales job.
      The court found that husband could not meet a $500-per-month payment
 obligation and ordered as follows:
           As of this date, the defendant is current in his
         payments, not counting the period during which his
         payments have been suspended.  The plaintiff agrees that
         he has paid $7,500 to date, and we so find.

           We decline to modify his maintenance obligation.  He
         was fired from IBM for wrongdoing of a serious nature.
         One who causes himself to lose his job cannot, in this
         court at least, walk away from a maintenance obligation.
         His obligation is for $500 per month for 10 years.  That
         order . . .  shall remain in full force and effect.  How-
         ever, the defendant's obligation will remain suspended
         until he earns $1000/month.  All net earnings over $1,000
         per month shall be paid toward his maintenance obligation
         ($60,000, less the amounts paid to date) until the full
         maintenance obligation is paid in full.

 This appeal followed.

 

      Husband argues that the trial court erred in declining to vacate his
 maintenance obligation because it found that he was fired for "wrongdoing of
 a serious nature."  According to husband, the court ruled, in effect, that
 he had become unemployed voluntarily and was therefore not eligible to seek
 modification.  Voluntary termination of employment without good reason by an
 obligor spouse will disqualify the spouse for modification.  Jacobs v.
 Jacobs, 144 Vt. 124, 127,