Court Opinion

ID: 9532191
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:19:00.475203+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:42.114718
License: Public Domain

DUFRESNE, Active Retired Justice,
with whom WATHEN, Justice, joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur with the Court’s opinion, except, however, that I disagree with that portion of the opinion identified as part II wherein the Court rejects the defendant’s argument that the Superior Court lacked authority to award interest on unpaid alimony installments from the time said installments became due under the terms of the divorce judgment. It appears to me that the Court is falling into error in deciding, as did the Superior Court, that the plaintiff wife is entitled to interest on the alimony arrear-ages which have been fully paid by the husband and accepted by the wife. For the reasons now to be discussed, I must respectfully dissent from the Court’s opinion in respect to the plaintiff’s claim of interest.
It is conceded that the parties in this case were divorced in January, 1980, in the Superior Court, Androscoggin County, by divorce judgment which provided among other things for the payment of $1,150 per month as alimony toward the support of Constance L. Raymond, the plaintiff wife. Upon the wife’s remarriage, the defendant husband, on the authority of Bubar v. Plant, 141 Me. 407, 44 A.2d 732 (1945), discontinued the monthly alimony payments on the ground that, as stated in Bubar, the remarriage of a divorced wife makes out a prima facie case for the termination of alimony rights, absent proof of some extraordinary circumstance justifying *727its continuance. At the same time, the defendant sought court approval of his noncompliance with the divorce decree by motion in the Superior Court to suspend the divorce decree respecting the payment of alimony on account of his former wife’s remarriage; On appeal from an adverse decision thereon, this Court ruled in Raymond v. Raymond, 447 A.2d 70 (Me.1982), that the “extraordinary circumstance” justifying the continuance of alimony referred to in Bubar had been met in this case, where the trial court had found the separation agreement of the parties, providing, as it did, for the payment of alimony for a stated period of five years without express limitation in the duration of the payments upon remarriage of the wife, to be just under all the circumstances surrounding the agreement, this Court pointing out, in support of its position, the great change in public policy from the time of Bubar in 1945 to the present day with the advent of no fault divorce, the effective recognition of equality of the sexes, and the recent federal income tax regulations respecting alimony as they affect the payer and the receiver. There is no evidence in this record that the defendant husband acted in any manner other than in good faith in relying on Bubar and not perceiving the extent of the change in public policy since 1945 and the consequences thereof. Shortly after this Court’s mandate in Raymond received in the Superior Court on July 21, 1982, the defendant husband paid and the plaintiff wife accepted the outstanding alimony arrearage which had accumulated pending this Court’s decision of the issue whether the remarriage of the plaintiff wife terminated the right to alimony under the divorce decree. We note at this time that the divorce decree itself did not expressly provide for interest on delayed payments of alimony installments, and that both the Superior Court and the intended opinion of this Court justify the allowance of interest on the respective overdue installments from the time each became due under the divorce decree upon 14 M.R.S.A. § 1602. In this, there is error.1
1. Interest
Interest is the compensation fixed by agreement, or allowed by law, for the use or detention of money. Orono-Veazie Water District v. Penobscot County Water Co., 348 A.2d 249, 257 (Me.1975). Absent an express contract to pay interest, the rationale underlying such awards of interest for failure to pay a legitimate debt at a particular time stems from the principle that it is only just for a defaulting debtor that he be penalized for withholding the payment of a just debt through the exaction of damages, in addition to damages for the debt itself, equal to the value of the moneys retained, which is the legal interest thereon. Id. at 257-258. By ancient common law, it was not only unlawful, but criminal, to take any kind of interest. Inhabitants of Town of Norridgewock v. Inhabitants of Town of Hebron, 152 Me. 280, 283, 128 A.2d 215, 217 (1957). Hence, the allowance of interest in circumstances other than where agreements to pay the same were involved have depended in Maine upon enabling statutory provisions. See Kendall v. Lewiston Water Power Co., 36 Me. 19 (1853); Cary v. Whitney, 50 Me. 337 (1863); Hervey v. Bangs, 53 Me. 514 (1866); Batchelder v. Tweedie, 294 A.2d 443, 444 (Me.1972). Interest on judgments, and the period for computation of such interest, recoverable in actions for damages to person or property is not of the substance of the right of action but exclusively an incident attached thereto by legislative fiat after such right has been adjudicated. See Foster v. Quigley, 94 R.I. 217, 179 A.2d 494, 495 (1962). There are a few *728exceptions, such as the recovery of interest prior to statute specifically legislating thereon in the case of legacies remaining unpaid at the expiration of one year from the death of the testator, to be computed from that anniversary date (an import from the civil law); see Nickels v. Nichols, 118 Me. 21, 23, 105 A. 386 (1919); also, the recovery of interest on awards of damages in eminent domain proceedings from the time of the taking in order to carry out the constitutional guarantees of “just compensation.” Orono-Veazie Water District, supra, at 258.
2. Statutory history
Thus, at the very beginning of statehood, recovery of interest in the courts of Maine was strictly controlled by statutory law in all civil actions for debt or damage. By the Laws of 1821, ch. 59, § 36 (Smith’s Laws of Maine, Vol. 1), lawful interest could be recovered upon judgments “for debt, damages or costs” rendered and recorded by courts of record of this State, of any sister state or of the United States, as well as of any Justice of the Peace of this State in an action of debt for the unpaid amount of the judgment. By Public Laws, 1836, ch. 250, collection of lawful interest on all executions issued on judgments in civil actions from the time of rendition of judgment was authorized.
Prejudgment interest on damages given in all civil actions was severely limited at first. Lawful interest was allowable only from the time the verdict was returned to the time the judgment thereon was rendered. P.L.1823, ch. 219, § 4 (see R.S.1840, ch. 96, § 20). This statute was later amended to apply in cases where the damages arose from a referee’s award instead of a jury verdict. See R.S.1857, ch. 77, § 29. The law was further amended in the case of referee awards to allow interest “from the time of the making of the referee’s report” instead of “from the time of its acceptance by the court.” After the enactment of the 1873 amendment (P.L.1873, ch. 138), the statute read as follows:
Interest is to be allowed on verdicts and amounts reported by referees to be due, from the time of finding such verdicts or making such reports, to the time of judgments.
Subsequent revisions carried the same terminology and appeared in the 1964 revision in title 14, section 1602. It was only in 1969 that the prejudgment interest provision was enlarged to allow interest “from the date on which the complaint is filed in court,” as the Legislature repealed the existing section 1602 and replaced it by the following new section 1602 (P.L.1969, ch. 397, § 1):2
In all civil actions, except those actions involving a contract or note which contract or note contains a provision relating to interest, interest shall be assessed from the date on which the complaint is filed in court, provided that if the prevailing party at any time requests and obtains a continuance for a period in excess of 30 days and the losing party at no time requests and obtains a continuance, interest will be assessed from the time of entry of judgment.
Section 1602 was again amended by P.L. 1977, ch. 147, and, if pertinent, would be the one applicable to the instant case; it reads in full as follows:
In all civil actions, except those actions involving a contract or note which contract or note contains a provision relating to interest, interest shall be assessed from the date on which the complaint is filed in court, provided that if the prevailing party at any time requests and obtains a continuance for a period in excess of 30 days, interest will be suspended for the duration of the continuance. From and after the date of entry of an order for judgment, including the period of the pendency of an appeal, interest shall be allowed at the rate of 10% per year.

*729
3.Section 1602 a procedural device

After recognizing that at common law interest on awards of damages recoverable in civil actions was not, as such, an element of damages to be added to the basic recoverable award, this Court in Batchelder v. Tweedie, 294 A.2d 443 (Me.1972) viewed the 1969 amendment (the 1977 amendment would compel a similar construction) as a procedural device to control the parties’ conduct of trials. It held that, under this statute, the right to interest was not absolute but was subject to enlargement or loss, depending on the diligence with which the parties conducted the litigation. This legislation, so this Court ruled, was not intended as a grant to litigants of substantive rights to prejudgment interest as a matter of damages. Section 1602, by its very language, would seem to exclude interest on unpaid alimony installments from the time they respectively became payable and due, since it provides that interest shall be assessed from the date on which the complaint is filed in court, and it is obvious that at the time the complaint for divorce was filed, there were no alimony installments due and payable. The Alimony and Support Enforcement Act, 19 M.R.S.A. § 771-776, as will be seen later, does not justify the allowance of such interest in this case.

4.Date of absolute duty to pay alimony installments

In the case of Inhabitants of Town of Norridgewock v. Inhabitants of Town of Hebron, supra, where reimbursement of the value of pauper supplies furnished in good faith to one Thomas E. Noyes by the Town of Norridgewock was resisted by the defendant Town of Hebron, this Court ruled that it was error to allow interest on the award of damages from the date of the writ to the date of the referee’s award, holding that it could not be said that the defendant town was in default for nonpayment of the pauper supplies until the issue of Mr. Noyes’ pauper settlement had been determined by the finding of the referee. “The important practical inquiry, in each case, in which interest is in question [said the Court], is, what is the date at which this legal duty to pay, as an absolute present duty, arose. This date does not always coincide with that at which the demand is legally due and suable.” Here, the defendant husband litigated in good faith before the Superior Court and the Law Court the issue, whether the remarriage of his former wife terminated the right to alimony payments under the divorce decree. Under the Town of Norridgewock case, it would seem that the earliest date from which interest, if allowable, should be computed would be the date of this Court’s decision on the issue, when the defendant husband’s absolute present duty to pay was finalized. It could not be from the time each alimony installment fell due.

5.Applicability vel non of Section 1602

The question at issue is, whether section 1602 of title 14 by its use of the terminology — in all civil actions — as a result of the amendment of the statute in 1969, brought divorce proceedings within its orbit. Absent any specific legislative history supporting such an intendment, applicable rules of statutory construction dispel any such legislative purpose.
Initially it may be noted that the Legislature limited recovery of prejudgment interest in civil actions to cases involving a jury verdict or a referee’s award of damages for over a century before condensation of the legislative language to “all civil actions” in 1969. Throughout all these years and since the 1969 amendment, no reported case has been discovered where anyone has claimed entitlement, or litigated the issue of the right, to interest on delayed payments of alimony or support post-judgment in divorce. Judicial notice may be taken that arrearages in support payments are not isolated matters of rare occurrence. The absence of any such claim, while not conclusive, is strong evidence against any such right and a persuasive indication that the Legislature in its use of the terminology “in all civil actions” in 14 M.R.S.A. § 1602 had no intention to bring within its *730reach, and that only by implication, divorce proceedings which for obvious practical reasons had always been excluded from the statute on interest through so many years. See Verreault v. City of Lewiston, 150 Me. 67, 70, 104 A.2d 538, 540 (1954); Bean and Land Co. v. Power Co., 133 Me. 9, 24, 173 A. 498 (1934).
It is undisputed that the plaintiff had a vested interest in the overdue alimony installments, once this Court decided that the Bubar rationale had no application and the wife’s remarriage in this case did not terminate the husband’s obligation to continue the payment of alimony. The divorce court in such circumstances had no power to order retroactive cancellation of the accumulated alimony arrearage. Cf. Wood v. Wood, 407 A.2d 282 (Me.1979) (child support payments). But, the plaintiff’s entitlement to vested alimony installments, from the time each became due and payable, cannot be viewed, pursuant to proper procedural judicial concept, as tantamount to an existing money “judgment” in any particular amount prior to an adjudication, upon notice and hearing, respecting the exact actual amount due under the previous divorce judgment, which determination is to be made in a separate proceeding to enforce the terms of the divorce judgment with the opportunity given to the alimony debtor to set up the defense of payment or any other defense which he may be entitled to make. And, any right to interest thereon must depend as in any other case, on statutory authority.
It is evident from the historical background of the statute leading to the present section 1602 of title 14 that interest on damage awards was only allowable in civil actions at law in which, as expressly stated, a verdict had been rendered or a referee’s report had been made. It would appear that the 1969 amendment which provided in pertinent part that “in all civil actions ... interest shall be assessed from the date on which the complaint is filed in court,” ... was merely intended to bring the statute in line, although belatedly, with the rules of civil procedure adopted December 1, 1959 to govern the procedure in all suits of a civil nature whether cognizable as cases at law or in equity. The rules of civil procedure themselves recognize the “sui generis” nature of divorce and annulment proceedings by providing expressly that “[tjhese Rules of Civil Procedure shall apply to actions for divorce, except as otherwise provided in this rule.” Rule 80(a).
Where the issue is solely whether a divorce proceeding is a civil action in the sense used in the statute regarding interest on judgments (14 M.R.S.A. § 1602) so as to allow the assessment of interest on overdue alimony installments from the date each installment became due, the absence of any specific provision to that effect in the divorce statute itself is strong evidence that the Legislature did not intend to include divorce judgments within the terms— civil actions — in the reference section. This is consistent with the rulings of this Court to the effect that, although the labels “civil suit,” “civil action,” “civil case,” may be loosely used as referring to a divorce proceeding in contradistinction from a criminal suit, action or case, (see Sullivan v. Sullivan, 92 Me. 84, 42 A. 230 (1898); Harmon v. Harmon, 131 Me. 171, 159 A. 856 (1932)), the term “civil action” in Maine has not been perceived as including a divorce proceeding.
While proceedings in divorce are civil in their nature as distinguished from criminal, yet they are ecclesiastical in their origin, are regulated entirely by statute, and cannot be classed as civil actions or cases.
Preston v. Reed, 141 Me. 386, 44 A.2d 685 (1945); Simpson v. Simpson, 119 Me. 14, 109 A. 254 (1920); Lucas v. Lucas, 3 Gray 136, 138-139 (Mass.1854).
As stated in Harmon v. Emerson, 425 A.2d 978, 983 (Me.1981), the power of the court to act in matters of divorce or incidental relief in relation thereto is wholly dependent for its existence upon the statute conferring jurisdiction upon the court over divorce proceedings. See also Baril *731v. Baril, 354 A.2d 392, 395 (Me.1976). Our statutory law regulating divorce carries no specific provision for the award of interest on overdue alimony installments from the time said installments are payable under the divorce judgment. This Court must not travel beyond the purpose and intent of the statute. Poulson v. Poulson, 145 Me. 15, 20, 70 A.2d 868, 871 (1950).
It is true that in other jurisdictions some courts have construed general statutes providing interest on money judgments to apply to arrearages in alimony payments from the time they become due. But those decisions rest upon the provisions of their several statutes respecting divorce and interest awards, which are very much different from ours. Also, in some of those jurisdictions, divorce suits are proceedings in equity, thus partaking of the characteristics of civil actions, contrary to the unbroken rule in Maine that a divorce suit never was, and is not now, either a proceeding at law or in equity. See Mitchell v. Mitchell, 136 Me. 406, 424, 11 A.2d 898, 907-908 (1940).
The only interest recoverable on overdue alimony installments is post-judgment legal interest on money found to be due from the time of judgment on motion to enforce a decree of alimony pursuant to our Alimony and Support Enforcement Act, 19 M.R.S.A. §§ 771-776. It is to be noted that this Act, in providing several methods of enforcement of alimony and support orders, does refer to some sections of our Enforcement of Money Judgments Act, 14 M.R.S.A. §§ 3122-3137, but nowhere does it make any reference to our Interest on Judgments statute, 14 M.R.S.A. § 1602, something our Legislature would have done if it desired to incorporate that section within the Alimony and Support Enforcement Act.
Section 774 of title 19 provides that
[ o]n a motion to enforce a decree of alimony, support or costs, after notice and an opportunity for hearing, the court may make a finding of money due, render judgment for that amount, and order:
5) Execution as provided under Title 14, chapter 509 (chapter 509 takes in sections 4651 to 5005).
Section 4655 of Title 14 states that
[ o]n executions issued on judgments interest shall be collected from the time of judgment.
The time of judgment as used in this provision of the Alimony and Support Enforcement Act must necessarily refer to the time of the judgment rendered for the amount of money found due after notice and hearing on the motion to enforce the decree of alimony. It cannot refer to the time of any implied judgment automatically popping up, without notice, hearing or court decree, at the time alimony installments become overdue under the divorce judgment.
In conclusion, the Legislature should not be presumed to have modified the strict rule of the common law respecting the allowance of interest on money awards except upon clear language, which cannot be found so far as alimony and support payments in divorce are concerned. See Palmer v. Inhabitants of Town of Sumner, 133 Me. 337, 340, 177 A. 711, 712-13 (1935).
I would remand the case to the Superior Court with direction to delete from the judgment below the sum of $1,750.00 as interest, and to enter judgment as modified for the plaintiff.

. Even though the defendant husband claims that the court had no authority to award interest against him on the overdue alimony installments accumulated during the pendency of the appeal to the Law Court, he did agree with the plaintiff wife by way of stipulation in the Superior Court that, if she was legally entitled to interest on the arrearage, the amount thereof should be $1,750.00. The parties have not disclosed what rate of interest was applied, whether post-judgment or prejudgment rate.

. The statute was further amended by Laws of Maine, 1971, ch. 228, which added the provision: “From and after the date of judgment interest shall be allowed at the rate of 10% per year."