Opinion ID: 1896603
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Relief From JudgmentM.R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6)

Text: [¶ 14] The District Court concluded that Rule 60(b)(6) relief was precluded by the Supreme Court's opinion in Mansell. [6] For the reasons discussed earlier, the USFSPA, as construed in Mansell, does not preclude all relief pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6); it only precludes relief that treats a veteran's disability pay as marital or community property. Subject to this restriction, the court is not barred by federal law from awarding Lorraine relief from judgment pursuant to Rule 60(b)(6) if it concludes that such relief is both warranted and necessary. [7] [¶ 15] Relief from judgment may be warranted but not necessary here if the court determines that the manifest injustice that warrants relief from judgment can be fully addressed through an enforcement remedy. When confronted with a choice between enforcing a judgment or granting relief from judgment under M.R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6), a court should consider enforcement relief first because of the public policy favoring the finality of property distributions and nonmodifiable waivers of spousal support in divorce judgments. Because divorce judgments affect so many collateral rights and interests of third persons[,] . . . uncertainty and fluctuation respecting them would be greatly detrimental to the public interest. Reville v. Reville, 370 A.2d 249, 253 (Me. 1977). The use of Rule 60(b)(6) to reopen otherwise nonmodifiable property and spousal support provisions of a final divorce judgment should be limited to those circumstances in which the court concludes that a manifest injustice cannot be adequately addressed through another avenue of relief. The entry is: Judgment vacated and remanded to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. CLIFFORD, J., with whom ALEXANDER, J., joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part. [¶ 16] I agree with the Court that federal law does not preclude the District Court from taking any remedial action. In my view, however, the only remedy that is available to grant relief to Lorraine Black is M.R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6). [¶ 17] The 1993 divorce judgment correctly found David Black's United States Air Force Retirement pay to be marital property, and divided that property. As a result of that division, each party received $667 per month before taxes. Courts are precluded from changing the distribution of marital property specified in the original divorce judgment. St. Hilaire v. St. Hilaire, 526 A.2d 28, 29 (Me.1987). We have said that [i]t is necessary that judgments, especially those settling property rights. . . have a high degree of stability and finality. Merrill v. Merrill, 449 A.2d 1120, 1125 (Me.1982). Although courts are expressly permitted by statute to consider postjudgment motions to modify spousal and child support, no such authority exists to modify the division of marital property and the courts are without jurisdiction to do so. Wardwell v. Wardwell, 458 A.2d 750, 752 (Me.1983). [¶ 18] I agree that a divorce court can enforce a property distribution by making adjustments to the mechanisms necessary for the distribution to occur. See Metivier v. Metivier, 582 A.2d 971, 973 (Me.1990); St. Hilaire, 526 A.2d at 29. Both Metivier and St. Hilaire, however, involved postdivorce judgment orders by the court to shift from one spouse to the other spouse the responsibility for the sale of the marital home. Metivier, 582 A.2d at 973; St. Hilaire, 526 A.2d at 29. That kind of adjustment to the mechanisms necessary for the distribution of marital property to occur is procedural in nature. [¶ 19] In this case, the postjudgment enforcement relief requested by Lorraine is not merely procedural, but is very substantive. The focus of the provision of the divorce judgment that is now in dispute was not on awarding Lorraine spousal support, but rather was on the distribution of marital property, a component of which was David's retirement pay. The amount of $667 happens to be one-half of the monthly value of that marital property. A postjudgment order to enforce the judgment would have to be directed at the distribution of martial property and how that property was divided, i.e., the division of David's retirement pay. David's retirement pay, however, is no longer available to David. What is available to him is disability pay, which, by reason of federal law, is beyond the reach of the court. Mansell v. Mansell, 490 U.S. 581, 594-95, 109 S.Ct. 2023, 104 L.Ed.2d 675 (1989). In my view, the original focus of the divorce judgment and the lack of authority of courts to modify divisions of property in divorce judgments, Wardwell, 458 A.2d at 752, combined with the decision in Mansell, precludes any effective action to enforce the judgment. [¶ 20] Relief pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 60(b), however, is not precluded. We said in Wardwell that the appropriate procedure for obtaining postjudgment relief from the division of marital property is a Rule 60(b) motion for relief from judgment. 458 A.2d at 752. Rule 60(b)(6) provides that [o]n motion and upon such terms as are just, the court may relieve a party . . . from a final judgment, order, or proceeding for . . . any other reason justifying relief from the operation of the judgment. M.R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6). [¶ 21] The District Court found that, in the circumstances of this case, the conversion of David's retirement benefit to a disability benefit has resulted in a manifest injustice to Lorraine. Such a finding allows the court to consider granting relief pursuant to Rule 60(b)(6). See Calaska Partners, L.P. v. Dahl, 676 A.2d 498, 501 (Me.1996). [¶ 22] The Supreme Court of Alaska has properly focused on the issues that must be considered by a court when dealing with a Rule 60(b)(6) motion in a case such as this one. In Clauson v. Clauson, Alaska's highest court held that the Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act (USFSPA) does not prohibit the modification of a divorce judgment to consider the loss of military pension benefits that was waived in order to receive veteran's disability benefits. 831 P.2d 1257, 1261-64 (Alaska 1992). The Court recognized that a court is prohibited by federal law from distributing any part of disability pay to a former spouse and from treating the disability pay as marital property, but found that neither the USFSPA nor prior [U.S.] Supreme Court decisions require . . . courts to completely ignore the economic consequences of a military retiree's decision to waive retirement pay in order to collect disability pay. Id. at 1263. In Clauson, the former husband waived his military pension to collect disability four years after the marital property settlement granted the former wife a portion of her ex-husband's military pension. Id. at 1258. The former wife stopped receiving payments and the trial court granted her 60(b)(6) relief from the divorce judgment, ordering that the former husband pay his former wife an amount equal to what she had been receiving as part of the pension. Id. The Supreme Court of Alaska vacated the trial court's order, concluding that the trial court effectively awarded the former wife a portion of the disability benefits, which was contrary to the ruling in Mansell. Id. at 1259. The Court did conclude that the circumstances supported relief under Rule 60(b)(6), however, and remanded the case back to the trial court so that the trial court could properly consider the effect that the change from military pension to disability benefits had on the financial circumstances of the two former spouses, and could consider an equitable distribution of marital assets. [8] Id. at 1261, 1264. [¶ 23] Because the reduction of David's pension benefits has resulted in manifest injustice to Lorraine, Rule 60(b)(6) allows the District Court to address Lorraine's request for relief from the divorce judgment. See Calaska Partners, L.P., 676 A.2d at 501. Rule 60(b)(6) would allow the court to revisit the provisions of the divorce judgment, especially as that judgment relates to spousal support. See Reville v. Reville, 370 A.2d 249, 253 (Me. 1977) (characterizing Rule 60(b) as grand reservoir of equitable power to do justice in a particular case) (internal quotations omitted). Such relief is subject to the discretion of the District Court. See Sargent v. Sargent, 1997 ME 38, ¶ 13, 691 A.2d 184, 188. Contrary to the conclusion of the District Court, it is not precluded by federal law from granting Rule 60(b)(6) relief to Lorraine. See Clauson, 831 P.2d at 1261-64. Rule 60(b)(6) would allow the court to address provisions of the divorce judgment, or some of them, to consider Lorraine's need for spousal support, and David's ability to pay such support, see 19-A M.R.S.A. § 951-A (Supp.2003), and in its discretion, to grant relief accordingly. I would vacate the District Court judgment and remand for further proceedings pursuant to Rule 60(b)(6).