Court Opinion

ID: 9550480
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:35:48.334759+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:36.805506
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I concur in the conclusion reached in the majority opinion annulling the orders which adjudge petitioner in contempt of court for his failure to pay amounts provided for in an integrated property settlement agreement. It will be recalled that when this case was previously before this court (Plumer v. Plumer, 48 Cal.2d 820 [313 P.2d 549]) *638I pointed out in my dissenting opinion (p. 826 et seq.) that the agreement in question was clearly an integrated property settlement agreement and not subject to modification except as provided in said agreement and that since the only condition upon which said agreement could be modified had not occurred, the trial court was justified in dismissing defendant’s application for modification of said agreement. It seems to me to be clearly inconsistent for this court to hold, as it did in its prior decision (48 Cal.2d 820) that a property settlement agreement is subject to modification with respect to payments to the wife, and yet the trial court has no power to enforce such modified payments in a contempt proceeding. This is the effect of the two decisions of this court involving the property settlement agreement which is the subject of this action. In other words, it was held by the majority in its former decision (48 Cal.2d 820) that the property settlement agreement here involved was subject to modification upon a showing of changed conditions. Such holding led to the inevitable conclusion that the payments constituted payments for support and maintenance which the trial court had the power to exact from the husband and likewise had the power to force him to make such payments by resort to the extraordinary power of contempt. To now hold that the payments were subject to modification and that the court has no power to enforce the same by a contempt proceeding, is, in my opinion, in direct conflict with the former holding of this court (48 Cal.2d 820). If, however, the payments constituted an integral part of an integrated property settlement agreement, they clearly fell within the rule announced by this court in Bradley v. Superior Court, 48 Cal.2d 509 [310 P.2d 634], and could not be enforced by a contempt proceeding. There seems to be no end to the intricacies which have emerged from the unsound pronouncements of this court during the past four years since the majority of this court has undertaken the extrajudicial function of rewriting property settlement agreements (Dexter v. Dexter, 42 Cal.2d 36 [265 P.2d 873]; Fox v. Fox, 42 Cal.2d 49 [265 P.2d 881] ; Flynn v. Flynn, 42 Cal.2d 55 [265 P.2d 865]; Messenger v. Messenger, 46 Cal.2d 619 [297 P.2d 988]; Anderson v. Mart, 47 Cal.2d 274 [303 P.2d 539] ; Herda v. Herda, 48 Cal.2d 228 [308 P.2d 705] ; Plumer v. Plumer, 48 Cal.2d 820 [313 P.2d 549]).