Title: Bahre v. Bahre

State: indiana

Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court

Document:

248 Ind. 656 (1967)
230 N.E.2d 411
BAHRE
v.
BAHRE.
No. 30,750.

Supreme Court of Indiana.
Filed October 24, 1967.
Harry M. Stitle, Jr., and Albert W. Ewbank, both of Indianapolis, for appellant.
Sidney A. Horn, Paul Rochford, John J. Rochford, Paul E. Blackwell and Frank W. Morton, all of Indianapolis, and Ivan Pogue, of Franklin, all for appellee.
JACKSON, J.
This is an appeal from a finding and judgment adjudging appellant to be in contempt for failure to pay attorney fees pursuant to orders previously made by the court.
The judgment appealed from, omitting formal parts thereof, reads as follows, to-wit:
Appellant's Motion For New Trial contained four (4) specifications, reading as follows, to-wit:
Appellant's Assignment of Error contains two grounds, viz:
*658 A brief resume of the marital and legal entanglement of the parties to this action is necessary to properly evaluate the issues to be here determined. On September 28, 1959, Rosemary Bahre was granted an absolute divorce and was awarded an alimony judgment of $24,400. George Bahre was ordered to support two minor children. On appeal the Appellate Court reversed that judgment insofar as alimony and support were involved. (See Bahre v. Bahre (1962), 133 Ind. App. 567, 181 N.E.2d 639.)
After the cause was certified back to the trial court for retrial on the questions of alimony and support, Rosemary filed three petitions in the trial court  one for attorney fees for services rendered on the appeal, one for support for the minor children, and one for preliminary attorney fees for the retrial of the cause. The trial court had a hearing on the petitions and ordered George to pay, inter alia, attorney fees and expenses relating to the first appeal. That order was appealed to this Court as an interlocutory order. Rosemary filed a motion to dismiss that appeal alleging, inter alia, that the order granting attorney fees and expenses related to the first appeal was a final judgment for a fixed sum of money and that no timely motion for a new trial had been filed from which an appeal could be taken. This Court concurred in her contentions and granted her motion to dismiss the appeal. (See Bahre v. Bahre (1964), 245 Ind. 522, 198 N.E.2d 751.)
No question is involved in this appeal as to the retrial on the merits of the award of alimony and support growing out of the original action for divorce, as those issues were determined by the Appellate Court on appeal therefrom. (See Bahre v. Bahre (1966), 140 Ind. App. 246, 211 N.E.2d 627.)
The issues in the case at bar were formed by the petition for citation for contempt for failure to comply with the order of court to pay to the clerk of the Johnson Circuit Court the various sums of money to the various attorneys and by the defendant-appellant's answer thereto alleging that the *659 refusal to discharge a money judgment is not a contempt of court. The petition for citation for contempt, omitting formal parts and signatures, reads as follows:
The appellant's answer, omitting formal parts and signatures, reads as follows:
"which entry read in part as stated as follows:
The question to be answered in the case at bar is of grave importance to all parties, including the bench and bar of the State, but it has already been answered by a previous decision of this Court. We held in the previous appeal, Bahre v. Bahre (1964), 245 Ind. 522, 198 N.E.2d 751, that the order for attorney fees and expenses related to the first appeal was a final judgment. That became the law of the case; therefore, we, as well as the litigants, are bound thereby. Egbert v. Egbert (1956), 235 Ind. 405, 132 N.E.2d 910.
The contempt citation was predicated on the erroneous assumption that a judgment for attorney fees, obtained after the decree of divorce was issued, reversed in part on appeal, could be used to coerce payment of the money judgment. Generally, money judgments are enforced by execution. Various other collateral or auxiliary remedies *662 are available for the enforcement of money judgments, but contempt of court is not one of those remedies. Marsh v. Marsh (1904), 162 Ind. 210, 70 N.E. 154; I.L.E., Judgment § 501 and I.L.E., Contempt § 7.
The judgment of the trial court is reversed and the cause remanded with instructions to sustain appellant's Motion For a New Trial on Judgment of Court of December 29, 1964, Finding Defendant Guilty of Contempt of Court.
Judgment Reversed.
Hunter, C.J., and Mote, J., concur.
Arterburn, J., concurs with opinion.
Lewis, J., not participating.
ARTERBURN, J.
I concur in the majority opinion, with certain reservations. First, I think the term "final judgment" as used in the cases of Haag v. Haag (1959), 240 Ind. 291, 163 N.E.2d 243; Cirtin v. Cirtin (1928), 199 Ind. 737, 164 N.E. 493; and Bahre v. Bahre (1964), 245 Ind. 522, 198 N.E.2d 751, does not necessarily have an application as broad as the majority opinion seems to indicate. Those cases construed the term "final judgment" as used in Burns' Ind. Stat. Anno. § 2-3201 [1946 Repl.] and as distinguished from an interlocutory order for the purpose of appeal only. The context within which that term is used is that procedural statute does not necessarily force a like meaning under other circumstances.
I likewise feel that no implication should be drawn from the majority opinion that a trial court is impotent in its ability to force the payment of attorney fees in order that a party may have an adequate and fair representation in a divorce case and on appeal. Crowe v. Crowe (1965), 247 Ind. 51, 211 N.E.2d 164.
It appears here that the appellant has given bond pending the appeal to pay the costs and "final judgment" involving the sums that are also the subject of this contempt citation *663 in this case, and thus it might be said that the appellee has not been deprived of adequately paid counsel, which was necessary by reason of the appeal brought by the opposing party.
If the majority opinion is to be interpreted as leaving the court without power to assure the adequate payment of the expenses of litigation, including that of appeal, such as transcripts and attorney fees once the appeal is determined, it will leave a party helpless unless the court insists that final payments be made pending the litigation. The majority opinion, therefore, will probably induce trial courts, in order to see that parties are fairly represented in divorce cases, to insist that full payment of all attorney fees and court costs incidental to the litigation on behalf of the party lacking funds (normally the wife) be paid practically instanter and pending the litigation and before the case is finally determined.
NOTE.  Reported in 230 N.E.2d 411.