Title: Ex parte Russell S. Lacey. PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS (In re: Dana J. Lacey v. Russell S. Lacey) (DeKalb Circuit Court: DR-05-167.01; Civil Appeals : 2110692). Writ Denied. No Opinion.
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 1120625
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: April 26, 2013

REL: 04/26/2013
Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance
sheets of Southern Reporter.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions,
Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-
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SUPREME COURT OF ALABAMA
OCTOBER TERM, 2012-2013
____________________
1120625
____________________
Ex parte Russell S. Lacey
PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI
TO THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS
(In re: Dana J. Lacey 
v.
Russell S. Lacey)
(DeKalb Circuit Court, DR-05-167.01;
Court of Civil Appeals, 2110692)
STUART, Justice.
WRIT DENIED.  NO OPINION.
1120625
Bolin, Parker, Shaw, Main, and Wise, JJ., concur.
Moore, C.J., and Murdock, J., dissent.
Bryan, J., recuses himself.*
*Justice Bryan was a member of the Court of Civil Appeals
when that court considered this case.
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MURDOCK, Justice (dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from the denial of certiorari
review in this case.  I write briefly to explain my concerns. 
First, it is well established that, because alimony in
gross cannot be altered once ordered, a provision in a divorce
judgment for alimony in gross should be "unequivocally
expressed" by, or "necessarily" inferred from, the language
used.  Brunner v. Ormsby, 10 So. 3d 18 (Ala. Civ. App. 2008);
Le Maistre v. Baker, 268 Ala. 295, 299, 105 So. 2d 867, 870
(1958).   The provision of the divorce judgment at  issue here
simply does not meet this standard.
Second, and to the contrary, a provision for monthly
payments to continue for a period of eight years appears on
its face to contemplate payments to be made from the ongoing
earnings of the payor spouse, not some division of property
already held in the estate of that spouse at the time of the
divorce.  Furthermore, the payments here were structured to
end at the wife's death, a fact suggesting an intent to help
rehabilitate or support the wife and inconsistent with a
"vested" transfer of property rights (the opinion in Hager v.
Hager, 293 Ala. 47, 299 So. 2d 743 (1974), notwithstanding). 
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The Court of Civil Appeals relies heavily on the fact
that the obligation here is secured by life insurance and a
security interest in certain property owned by the husband. 
Lacey v. Lacey, [Ms. 2110692, Feb. 15, 2013] ___ So. 3d ___
(Ala. Civ. App. 2013).  It is the intrinsic nature of the
obligation, however, not the nature of that which secures its
payment, to which we primarily should look in assessing the
nature of the obligation.  Moreover, life insurance commonly
is prescribed in divorce judgments in which periodic alimony
is awarded; I do not see the provision for it here as
particularly remarkable in regard to the issue at hand.    The
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The Court of Civil Appeals states that "life insurance
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may not be used to fund an obligation that is terminable at
death."  Lacey, ___ So. 3d at ___.  I find no authority for
this proposition.  As support for it, the Court of Civil
Appeals cites a special writing of one judge in Alexander v.
Alexander, 65 So. 3d 958, 968–69 (Ala. Civ. App. 2010) (Moore,
J., concurring in the result) ("I agree with the husband that
the obligation to pay periodic alimony ends upon the death of
the obligor spouse; thus, life insurance cannot possibly be
ordered to 'secure' that obligation.").  The very reason that
most cases such as this find their way into appellate courts
for resolution, however, is that the trial court has mixed and
matched different attributes normally associated with either
periodic alimony or alimony in gross.  It is one thing to note
that one of the attributes of periodic alimony normally is its
payment only during the life of the payor spouse and that
because of this it need not be and perhaps logically should
not be "secured" by life insurance.   It is quite another in
the context of such cases to establish an overriding or
absolute rule that whenever a court of equity orders a
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other security ordered, a security interest in certain
property owned by the husband, can be seen as a means by which
the trial court simply sought to assure the continuation of
periodic payments for the wife's support during the husband's
life, a purpose obviously not served by the life insurance.
The Court of Civil Appeals also relies upon a statement
in Hager, 293 Ala. at 54, 299 So. 2d at 750, that "'[w]e have
found no case which holds that the unmodifiable character of
"alimony in gross" is changed by a clause that terminates the
installments in case of the [payee's] death.'" ___ So. 3d at
___.  In Hager, however, the divorce judgment explicitly
designated the obligation as "alimony in gross."  The question
before the Court in Hager was whether the fact that this
obligation was to terminate upon the payee spouse's death also
somehow subjected it to court-ordered modification during the
payee spouse's life.  As the Court of Civil Appeals more
recently explained in Brunner v. Ormsby, 10 So. 3d 18 (Ala.
Civ. App. 2008), "[i]n Hager ...  our [S]upreme [C]ourt held
purchase of life insurance, it "cannot possibly" have intended
a separate stream of payments from the payor spouse to be
periodic alimony if it has used the term "secured" and
thereby, 
perhaps 
carelessly 
or 
perhaps 
deliberately, 
connected
that stream of payments with the provision for the additional
benefit of life insurance.
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that a clause providing that alimony would terminate upon the
death of the payee spouse would not prevent that award from
being unmodifiable if the award was intended to be alimony in
gross." 10 So. 3d at 23 (citing Hager, 293 Ala. at 55, 299 So.
2d at 750).  That is, given the facts in Hager, this Court was
not so much concerned with whether those payments were, in
fact, alimony in gross, as it was with whether the fact that
the payment of that alimony would terminate at the payee
spouse's death would somehow also make it modifiable during
the payee spouse's life.  
The trial court in the present case held that it was the
intent of the original divorce judgment to provide for 
periodic alimony.  The petition before us argues that the
Court of Civil Appeals erred in not affirming this
interpretation of the divorce judgment. Because I believe
there is probable merit in that petition, I respectfully
dissent from its denial.
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