Opinion ID: 2419412
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Second Contempt Order

Text: The divorce decree, signed November 15, 1990, requires Mary Ann to make insurance payments as follows: Mary Ann Acker is ordered and decreed to pay $50.00 per month as her cost of insuring the child to Sherman Lloyd Acker beginning on the 1st day of June and $50.00 per month on the 1st day of each and every month thereafter. While the decree specifies June 1 as the beginning date, it does not specify a year. The trial court found Mary Ann in contempt for failing to make the monthly payment in December 1990 (the month following entry of the decree) and in each month thereafter. The court imposed a 180-day sentence as one punishment for these multiple acts of contempt. Mary Ann contends, however, that because the decree does not specify the year that the payment obligation begins, it is too ambiguous to enforce by contempt. To be enforceable by contempt, a decree must set forth the terms of compliance in clear, specific and unambiguous terms so that the person charged with obeying the decree will readily know exactly what duties and obligations are imposed upon him. Ex parte Chambers, 898 S.W.2d 257, 260 (Tex. 1995). Sherman, relying on Ex parte Malone, 788 S.W.2d 411 (Tex.App.Houston [1st Dist.] 1990, orig. proceeding), argues that, where no year is specified, the court should construe the obligation as arising immediately. In Malone , the divorce decree provided that child support payments were to commence on November 9 without stating the year. The court held that this order was sufficiently clear to enforce by contempt, concluding that the normal meaning of this language is that the payments were to start immediately. Id. at 411. Regardless of whether Malone was correctly decided, an issue we do not decide, it is distinguishable on its facts. Unlike in this case, the date specified for the child support payments to start in Malone November 9was the precise date that the decree was signed, lending support to the trial court's conclusion that the payments were to start immediately. Sherman does not explain why the divorce decree, signed in November 1990, recites June as the beginning date for the health-insurance payments. When the decree was drafted, the June date may have been intended to refer to June 1990, as the trial court heard the case in May of that year. Notably, the decree provides that the regular child support obligation begins on June 1, 1990. [1] This may explain why the trial court punished relator for missing insurance payments beginning in December 1990, the first month after the decree was signed. However, while one may infer that the June commencement date for the insurance payments was intended to be June 1990, interpretation of the decree should not rest upon implication or conjecture. Ex parte Blasingame, 748 S.W.2d 444, 446 (Tex. 1988). Rather, the decree must set forth the obligation in clear, specific and unambiguous terms. Chambers, 898 S.W.2d at 260. Here, there is simply no way to determine with sufficient certainty what year the insurance obligation began. For example, the court rendering the decree could have concluded, based on its overall allocation of responsibilities between the parents, that Sherman should bear the entire insurance burden for some period of time, with Mary Ann's obligation commencing in June of some future year. While the record does not indicate that such is the case, the point is that it is not beyond the realm of reason and the decree does not preclude that conclusion. Sherman also relies on Ex parte Payne, 598 S.W.2d 312 (Tex.Civ.App.Texarkana 1980, orig. proceeding). The divorce decree in Payne , signed in September 1965, ordered the father to pay the sum of Twenty and No/100 ($20.00) Dollars per week for the support and maintenance of the minor child until such child becomes eighteen years of age. Id. at 314. The father defaulted after making these payments for four years, and was held in contempt. In seeking relief by habeas corpus, the father argued that the decree was ambiguous because it did not provide a beginning date for the child support obligation. The court rejected this argument, relying on the fact that relator had made the child support payments for four years before defaulting. This circumstance distinguishes Payne from our present case, in which Mary Ann never made any of the insurance payments. For the foregoing reasons, we hold that the insurance obligation is too vague to enforce by contempt. The Court orders relator discharged.