Note: Decisions of a three

- justice panel are not to be considered as precedent before any tribunal.

ENTRY ORDER

SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 2012

- 427

APRIL TERM, 20 1 3

Joel E. Langlois } APPEALED FROM: } } Superior Court, Bennington Unit

,

v. } Family Divisio n } } Mary Langlois } DOCKET NO. 219

- 9

- 04 Bndm

Trial Judge: David Howard

In the above

- entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

Plaintiff appeals pro se from the trial court’s order denying his request to modify spousal

maintenance. We affirm.

P ursuant to the parties’ 2007 final divorce order, plaintiff was required to pay defendant $850 per month in spousal maintenance for six years and $425 per month for two years thereafter

. During the ensuing years, the parties sought the court’s interventio n in connection with a host of financial issues, including motions to enforce and for contempt in connection with the spousal maintenance obligation, child support modifications, and issues relating to parental rights and responsibilities. In 2012, plaint iff moved to modify his spousal maintenance obligation

. Following a hearing, the court denied his request

. That ruling is the subject of this appeal.

The court found as follows. Plaintiff argued that modification was appropriate because

his New York h ome had been foreclosed upon. In light of the foreclosure proceedings, p laintiff

and his wife moved to Vermont in 2009

, and they later filed for bankruptcy

. Plaintiff now lives

in a mobile home with his new wife and children on his in

- laws’ property. He and his wife do chores in lieu of paying rent. Plaintiff also changed jobs as a result of the move to avoid greater gas costs and travel time. He earns approximately $1 less per hour than his previous job , or $50 less per week. In 201 1, plaintiff’s for eclosure debt as well as plaintiff’s and his wife’s other debts were discharged in the bankruptcy proceeding

. The court found that although plaintiff now

live s in a mobile home rather than a house, he ha s less debt than before due to the bankruptcy proceeding , leaving more money for other expenses.

As to defendant’s circumstances, the court found that she had recently moved out of the

marital home and moved in with her father due to financial difficultie s. Plaintiff ’s failure to pay

maintenance contributed to defendant’s financial difficulties. Although defendant now lived in a nicer residence, the court found that she was dependent on her father’s largesse for housing and,2

in many respect s, she was les s well off than before. The court found that defendant very much needed the continued level of maintenance to maintain even a modest lifestyle.

Plaintiff also asserted that maintenance should be reduced because defendant had been living in the marital h ome, which was awarded to him in the divorce, and she had stayed there past the one year allowed to her under the divorce decree. The court found that this issue had been the subject of prior hearings and decisions. It noted that defendant ’s ability to m ove out had been hampered by plaintiff’s failure to pay maintenance. For that reason, defendant had

been allowed to remain in the marital residence. At one point, the court proposed t o cancel $8000 in maintenance if plaintiff signed over the mobile home to defendant. That did not happen, however, and plaintiff lost the mobile home in the bankruptcy proceeding without getting any credit for it against his maintenance arrearage. The court found that defendant bore no fault for any issue over the mobile ho me, and concluded that the facts surrounding this issue did not justify any reduction in maintenance.

Based on its findings, the court concluded that plaintiff failed to show a real, s ubstantial,

and un anticipated change of circumstan ces necessary for th e court to m odify maintenance. See Taylor v. Taylor , 175 Vt. 32, 36 (2002) (recognizin g that trial court may modify maintenance

order only if it finds “a real, substantial and unanticipated change of circumstances

, ” and court has discretion in deciding wh ether changed circumstances exist). As set forth above, the court found that plaintiff’s earnings were almost the same as before and he had fewer debts. He did not have to pay rent. While h e had moved from a hous e to a mobile home, the court found that this fact, when weigh ed w ith all the other facts and cir c umst ances, did not amount to a real,

substantial

, and unanticipated change of circumstances . The court noted that plaintiff’s spousal maintenance obligation would be reduced automatically, consistent with the divorce order , in approximately six months. D e fendant meanwhile had to move in with her f ather. She faced

financial difficulties due to plaintiff’s actions. Plaintiff’s claim that she was enjoying a better lifesty le because her fathe r’s house was nice r than the marital home ignored the fact that she was dependent on her father’s generosity ins tead of having her own place. For these reasons, the

court denied the motion. This appeal followed.

At the outset, we emphasize that the onl y order on appeal is the court’s denial of plaintiff ’s motion to modify spousal maintenance, and the only question before us is whether the court erred in denying this motion . We do not consider plaintiff ’s challenges to other orders that are not properly before us. For example, plaintiff argues that the problems with this case go back to the beginning of the whole divorce proceeding. He points to the lack of findings in the 2007 final divorce order, a claimed violation of the Serviceman’s Civil Relief A ct in connection with the temporary child support order, and the trial court’s claimed failure to consider that plaintiff was already required to make a substantial monthly maintenance supplement payment to defendant pursuant to the child support order whe n it included an additional spousal maintenance award. The unappealed 2007 final divorce order and the 2007 child support order have long been final, and plaintiff cannot now challenge the rulings . Likewise, plaintiff challenges the trial

court’s orders in connection with prior contempt motions , including orders relating to defendant’s continued occupancy of the residence awarded to plaintiff in the final divorce order beyond the per iod provided in the final order and defendant’s non

- payment of rent in co nnection with that occupancy. Neither of these issues is the subject of this appeal of the trial court’s3

denial of his motion to modify. Finally, p laintiff argues that a prior garnishment order in this

case required garnishment of a higher percentage of his disposable income t han allowed by law. 15 U.S.C. § 1673(b)(2)(A). The magistrate has since stricken the garnishment provision, and it is not on appeal here.

We thus turn to plaintiff’s claims relating to the denial of his motion to modify spousal

ma intenance . Because plaintiff did not order a transcript, we must assume that the court’s findings are supported by the record. See V.R.A.P. 10(b)(2) (“ By failing to order a transcript, the appellant waives the right to raise any issue for which a transcript is necessary for informed appellate review .”); In re S.B.L. , 150 Vt. 294, 307 (1988) (explaining that appellant bears consequences of failing to order transcript and without transcript Supreme Court assumes that evidence supports trial court ’ s f indings).

We thus reject plaintiff’s contention that the court erred in finding that his financial situation had not changed significantly ; that defendant was under financial strain due in part to plaintiff’s failure t o pay spousal maintenance; and that defendant moved in with her father due to

financial difficulties . W e cannot credit plaintiff’s argument that the court misunderstood wife’s sources of income or living situation. We cannot consider plaintiff’s arguments that he is under

so much financial strain that he qualifies for public assistance, and that the only reason he does not currently pay rent is that he cannot afford it. And we cannot review plaintiff’s claims that defendant did not tell the truth about the parties’ daughter’s income and bo th children’s bank

accounts , and that defendant must be making more than she claims

. All of these arguments require us to review the testimony before the trial court and to determine whether there was enough evidence to support the trial court’s conclusio n s

— something we cannot do without a transcript.

Plaintiff points to the parties’ filed affidavits of income and assets and argues that the combination of spousal maintenance, maintenance supplement, and child support payments to defendant requires him to pay an unreasonably high percentage of his total gross income to

defendant , while covering all of defendant’s monthly expenses . The trial court could go through

the calculations defendant suggests only if it first found a real, substantial, and unanticip ated change of circumstances that allowed the court to consider modifying the original order. As noted above, the trial court concluded that plaintiff had not proven enough of a change in circumstances to get to that step in the analysis, and on the recor d available to us we cannot conclude that the trial court’s conclusion about that was wrong.

Plaintiff next argues that defendant did not promptly respond to pretrial discovery

requests and that t he trial court should have held defendant in contempt for th at. The trial court dismissed plaintiff’s contempt motion once defendant actually provided the information

. Plaintiff asserts in a general way that defendant’s delay in providing discovery answers hampered his ability to ask follow

- up discovery questions before the trial . Plaintiff does not identify any specific information that he could not get

, and he fails to show how any delay in discovery affected the court’s decision on the motion to modify.4

Finally, we reject p laintiff’s claim that the trial court showed favoritism by denying his

motion to hold defendant in contempt. See DeLeonardis v. Page , 2010 VT 52, ¶ 30, 188 Vt. 94 (e mphasizing that adverse rulings alone do not show bias)

.

Affirmed

.

BY THE COURT:

_______________________________________ John A. Dooley, Associate Justice

_______________________________________ Brian L. Burgess, Associate Justice

_______________________________________ Beth Robinson , Associate Justice