Opinion ID: 1983706
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Order In The Rutherford Case

Text: As previously mentioned, the defendant Rutherford makes a third argument that the trial court erred in finding him in contempt for failing to comply with a court order at a time when the order did not exist. Incarceration for contempt to enforce a child support provision of a separation agreement is permissible once the contractual provision is incorporated into a court decree. Cf., Brown v. Brown, 287 Md. 273, 275, 282, 412 A.2d 396 (1980). Contempt proceedings, therefore, are now an appropriate means for enforcing the support payments, after the agreement has been approved by a decree, Eigenbrode v. Eigenbrode, 36 Md. App. 557, 560, 373 A.2d 1306 (1977) (emphasis supplied). The contempt is the refusal to comply with the court order, and not merely the breach of the prior support agreement. Brown v. Brown, supra, 287 Md. at 286-287. The circuit court in the Rutherford case clearly based its contempt finding upon the defendant's failure to make support payments in February and early March 1982. Although the separation agreement was in effect at this time, the first court order requiring support payments was the divorce decree of March 23, 1982. Mr. Rutherford's breach of the separation agreement in February and early March could not properly constitute contempt of the court's March 23rd order. Judgments of the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County reversed. Appellees to pay costs. Murphy, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part: I fully agree with Part II A of the Court's opinion that in these civil contempt cases incarceration of the contemnors was patently illegal under Elzey v. Elzey, 291 Md. 369, 435 A.2d 445 (1981), since the evidence plainly disclosed that the defendants lacked the present financial ability to comply with the support orders. As the majority opinion states, Elzey is wholly dispositive of both cases and mandates that the orders of the trial courts directing the confinement of the defendants must be reversed. Because it is completely unnecessary to go beyond Elzey in disposing of these cases, I dissent from Part II B of the Court's opinion which advances an alternative constitutional ground for reversal of the trial courts' orders, namely, that under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Article 24 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, an indigent defendant in a civil contempt proceeding cannot be incarcerated unless he has been afforded the right to appointed counsel. While I have no quarrel with a policy that would require the appointment of counsel for an indigent as a prerequisite to actual incarceration for violation of a support order, it is by no means clear-cut that the State and Federal Constitutions compel that result in all such cases, regardless of the circumstances. The due process right of indigents to appointed counsel in civil cases involving an actual loss of liberty is not absolute but depends upon a balancing of interests, i.e., the private interests at stake, the government's interest, and the risk that the procedures used will lead to an erroneous decision. See Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, 452 U.S. 18, 101 S.Ct. 2153, 68 L.Ed.2d 640 (1981); Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976). In other words, since due process is a flexible concept, a case-by-case evaluation is necessary to determine whether fundamental fairness requires the appointment of counsel in a case where an indigent contemnor is incarcerated for failure to satisfy a support order. Some courts have so held. See, e.g., Duval v. Duval, 114 N.H. 422, 322 A.2d 1 (1974); State ex rel. Dept. of Human Services v. Rael, 642 P.2d 1099 (N.M. 1982). In a similar vein, the Supreme Court has held that there is no inflexible constitutional rule granting an absolute right to counsel in cases involving indigents in parole and probation revocation hearings where incarceration actually resulted. See Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778, 93 S.Ct. 1756, 36 L.Ed.2d 656 (1973). A number of the cases relied upon by the majority in support of its unnecessary constitutional analysis involve contempt of court orders, other than civil nonsupport orders, where legal issues of some complexity were involved in defending against the contempt citation. Unlike those cases, the only issue in cases of civil contempt of a nonsupport order is whether the respondent has the present financial ability to make the required payment; if not, Elzey flatly prohibits incarceration, a legal principle now well grounded in the law of this State. In any event, that counsel would be required in all such cases to satisfy the demands of due process under the Lassiter and Eldridge balancing of interests tests is, to me at least, far from clear. It is, therefore, inexplicable to me that the majority would in this case violate the Court's established policy of not deciding constitutional questions unless necessary. Town of Forest Heights v. Frank, 291 Md. 331, 336, 435 A.2d 425, 428 (1981). Cases in support of this time-honored and fundamental proposition are, of course, legion. See, e.g., Avara v. Baltimore News American, 292 Md. 543, 554 n. 7, 440 A.2d 368, 373 n. 7 (1982); Employ. Sec. v. Balto. Lutheran H.S., 291 Md. 750, 754 n. 2, 436 A.2d 481, 484 n. 2 (1981); Temoney v. State, 290 Md. 251, 259 n. 6, 429 A.2d 1018, 1022 n. 6 (1981); Scott v. State, 289 Md. 647, 651, 426 A.2d 923, 926 (1981); Simms v. State, 288 Md. 712, 725, 421 A.2d 957, 964 (1980); Kent v. State, 287 Md. 389, 393, 412 A.2d 1236, 1238 (1980); Hillard v. State, 286 Md. 145, 150 n. 1, 406 A.2d 415, 418 n. 1 (1979); State v. Raithel, 285 Md. 478, 484, 404 A.2d 264, 267 (1979); State v. Friedman, 283 Md. 701, 708 n. 5, 393 A.2d 1356, 1360 n. 5 (1978); Comm'r of Labor & Ind. v. Fitzwater, 280 Md. 14, 19, 371 A.2d 137, 140 (1977); Caplan Bros. v. Village of Cross Keys, 277 Md. 41, 45-46, 353 A.2d 237, 240 (1976); Prince George's Co. v. Laurel, 262 Md. 171, 187, 277 A.2d 262, 270 (1971); Tyler v. State, 93 Md. 309, 314, 48 A. 840, 842 (1901); State v. Insley, 64 Md. 28, 30, 20 A. 1031 (1885). As I would rest the reversal in these cases exclusively on the Elzey nonconstitutional ground, I do not join in Part II B of the majority opinion.