Court Opinion

ID: 9650092
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:24:32.887195+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:18.174616
License: Public Domain

Morse, J.,
dissenting. The Court holds that a divorce is final only when the nisi period is “absolute.” If a party dies before then, the divorce “abates” and is “nullified.” Not only does this sound archaic, the holding undermines the purpose of nisi decrees and is contrary to a recent amendment to the statute governing them. I respectfully dissent.
The only Vermont precedent underpinning the Court’s senseless result is dictum in In re Hanrahan’s Will, 109 Vt. 108, 128, 194 A. 471, 481 (1937) (“well settled that nisi divorce decrees do not dissolve the marriages, and that the death of either party before they become absolute, abates the suit and it has no effect on the marital status”), which reflects a classic misunderstanding about the nisi decree. We should welcome this opportunity to correct it.
The word “nisi” is Latin for “unless.” Black’s Law Dictionary 944 (5th ed. 1979). A “nisi decree” is a judgment that will “stand as valid and operative unless the party affected by it shall appear and show cause against it, or take some other appropriate step to avoid it or procure its revocation.” Id. (emphasis in the original). See, e.g., Silverstein v. Silverstein, 308 N.E.2d 773, 774 (Mass. App. Ct. 1974) (nisi period gives interested party time to challenge decree’s validity).
The nisi decree’s purpose is to discourage divorces. Note, Interlocutory Decrees of Divorce, 56 Colum. L. Rev. 228, 228 (1956). It seeks to do this in two ways. First and foremost, it provides a cooling-off period to encourage reconciliation. See, e.g., Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Evans, 211 F.2d 378, 380 (10th Cir. 1954) (nisi decree encourages “a reunion of the parties — a healing of the breach — a period during which the parties may become reconciled”). But also, the nisi period seeks to prevent immediate remarriage. Interlocutory Decrees, supra, at 228. The desire to remarry is assumed to be a primary motive for divorce. Because a divorced person could easily *278evade one state’s law forbidding remarriage within a certain time period by remarrying in another state, interlocutory, or nisi, divorce decrees were adopted to enforce the policy of delaying remarriage. Id.
Dead litigants do not reconcile or remarry; therefore, no prospective purpose is served by stopping the divorce. On the other hand, policies concerning the finality of judgments and reliance on them require that a divorce judgment become final when one of the parties dies before the nisi period ends. Parties to a divorce should be treated like other litigants. Neither Hanrahan nor the precedents upon which it is based address, in any reasoned way, why a person who has pursued a divorce to judgment and never sought to alter that judgment should not be entitled to rely on it.
Hanrahan rests on the formalistic notion that, because divorce is an action to sever a personal relationship or status, the death of a party “settle[s] the question of separation beyond all controversy and deprive[s] the court of jurisdiction” over, not only the parties, but also the subject matter of the action. Bushnell v. Cooper, 124 N.E. 521, 522 (Ill. 1919). This Court has already departed from this rigid application of divorce provisions. In Poston v. Poston, 160 Vt. 1, 5, 624 A.2d 853, 855 (1993), we recognized the doctrine of “divisible divorce,” where all issues incident to a divorce may be severed from the decision on marital status. Even if, as the older cases suggest, death terminates the marriage status and makes divorce unnecessary, there is no rationale for upsetting the remainder of the divorce judgment disposing of the parties’ property.
Apart from my basic disagreement with case law interpreting the effect of death during the nisi period, in 1990 the Legislature amended the statute governing the nisi decree. 15 V.S.A. § 554(b) (effective June 4, 1990). In my view, the amendment overruled In re Hanrahan’s Will. Section 554(b) now provides:
Either party may file any post-trial motions under the Vermont Rules of Civil Procedure. The time within which any such motion shall be filed shall run from the date of entry of the decree of divorce and not from the date the nisi period expires. The court shall retain jurisdiction to hear and decide the motion after expiration of the nisi period. A *279decree of divorce shall constitute a civil judgment under the Vermont Rules of Civil Procedure.
Before this amendment, a divorce judgment could be reopened, abated, or changed in any respect during the nisi period. Consequently, the judgment could not become final. See Richwagen v. Richwagen, 149 Vt. 72, 75, 539 A.2d 540, 542 (1987) (court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction to decide timely motion to amend under V.R.C.P. 52(b) after nisi period expires). The Richwagen anomaly was fixed by the 1990 amendment. The amendment reflects the Legislature’s dissatisfaction with this lack of finality and, as a remedy, directs that a divorce judgment be treated like any civil judgment. At the time of this amendment, the Legislature considered dispensing with the nisi period altogether but eventually decided to retain it. See 1989, No. 227 (Adj. Sess.), § 1; Sen. J. 145 (Feb. 14, 1990, Vt., Adj. Sess.); House J. 985 (Apr. 27,1990, Vt., Adj. Sess.). Vermont is one of only a small minority of jurisdictions that now require a nisi period. 2 H. Clark, The Law of Domestic Relations in the United States § 15.8, at 108 (2d ed. 1987). The most reasonable explanation for keeping the nisi decree is the traditional nisi purpose, leaving open a possibility for reconciliation. To accomplish that purpose, it is neither necessary nor reasonable to nullify the divorce when a party dies during the nisi period.
Consequently, the contract analysis undertaken in today’s opinion to avoid the absurd and obviously inequitable result engendered by not giving effect to the divorce judgment is unnecessary. I presume the Court would indulge in analogous reasoning if the divorce judgment had been judge-made after a contested hearing rather than party-made in an uncontested hearing. After all, regardless of whether the property division results from litigation or stipulation, parties who have submitted themselves to the jurisdiction of the court have agreed to be bound by the final divorce judgment. If I am wrong, then further mischief shall surely be visited upon unsuspecting litigants.
I would affirm the denial of the motion to abate. I am authorized to say that Justice Johnson joins in the dissent.