Opinion ID: 1983706
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Financial Inability to Comply

Text: As the purpose of the contempt proceedings and orders in the instant cases was not punitive but was to coerce the defendants to comply with court orders for the benefit of their children, the contempt proceedings were civil and not criminal. See, e.g., Elzey v. Elzey, 291 Md. 369, 373, 435 A.2d 445 (1981); Williams and Fulwood v. Director, 276 Md. 272, 313, 347 A.2d 179 (1975), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 976, 96 S.Ct. 2178, 48 L.Ed.2d 801 (1976); McDaniel v. McDaniel, 256 Md. 684, 687, 262 A.2d 52 (1970); Donner v. Calvert Distillers Corp., 196 Md. 475, 77 A.2d 305 (1950). The Maryland law concerning a defendant's ability to comply with a civil contempt order was recently summarized by us in Elzey v. Elzey, supra, 291 Md. at 374-375, as follows: In all civil contempt proceedings, any order imposing a penalty upon the defendant must contain a purging provision with which the defendant has the ability to comply. State v. Roll and Scholl, supra, 267 Md. at 728; McDaniel v. McDaniel, supra, 256 Md. at 689-690, 692; Johnson v. Johnson, 241 Md. 416, 419-420, 216 A.2d 914 (1966). The `choice' must be the defendant's `as to whether [he can] comply.' Williams and Fulwood v. Director, supra, 276 Md. at 313. Consequently, with regard to civil contempt proceedings based upon the defendant's failure to comply with a decree ordering support payments, `imprisonment may be avoided by showing that one has neither the money nor the ability to pay.' Soldano v. Soldano, 258 Md. 145, 146, 265 A.2d 263 (1970). Moreover, the issue is not the ability to pay at the time the payments were originally ordered; instead, the issue is his present ability to pay. As stated in Johnson v. Johnson, supra, 241 Md. at 419-420: `If the father was unable to meet his obligation because he had neither a sufficient estate nor the then ability to pay, as the record seems to indicate, the court was not justified in incarcerating him.'    See McDaniel v. McDaniel, supra, 256 Md. at 692-693; Speckler v. Speckler, 256 Md. 635, 637, 261 A.2d 466 (1970); Schwartzman v. Schwartzman, 204 Md. 125, 135, 102 A.2d 810 (1954); Oles Envelope Corp. v. Oles, 193 Md. 79, 92, 65 A.2d 899 (1949); Dickey v. Dickey, 154 Md. 675, 681, 141 A. 387, 58 A.L.R. 634 (1928). See also Chase v. Chase, 287 Md. 472, 474, 484-486, 413 A.2d 208, 209, 214-215 (1980) (dissenting opinion). We further emphasized in Elzey that a defendant's failure to comply with a support order at some time in the past when he had the ability to comply, even if such previous noncompliance was in bad faith, does not justify incarceration for civil contempt if there is a present financial inability to comply. 291 Md. at 375-376. The Elzey opinion, and the prior Maryland cases there cited, are dispositive here. In both the Katzenberger case and the Rutherford case the trial judges found that the defendants lacked a present ability to comply with the support orders. These findings were compelled by the uncontradicted evidence. Moreover in Katzenberger, where the purging provision did not require that the defendant pay the entire arrearage at once (although it did require that he make the full current payments plus weekly payments toward the arrearage), no finding was made that the defendant had the present ability to comply with the purging provision. In addition, the evidence would not have supported such a finding if it had been made. Consequently, both contempt orders were inconsistent with the principles set forth in Elzey and other cases.