Court Opinion

ID: 9790241
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:49:26.752351+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:47:12.731046
License: Public Domain

OPINION
HOWARD, Judge.
Can the trial court award spousal maintenance absent a finding or evidence that the spouse is unable to support herself through appropriate employment? That is the issue on appeal.
The parties had been married approximately 9'/2 years at the time of the divorce and had no children. Appellee, Catherine McDermott, is 30 years of age, an experienced teacher, and has a bachelor’s degree in education and an Arizona teaching certificate. After their marriage in 1970 in Akron, Ohio, the wife completed her bachelor’s degree and worked as a teacher throughout the first six years of the marriage. She quit teaching prior to the divorce because she was “burned out” and was, at the time of trial, employed by the City of Tuscon as an administrative assistant earning approximately $13,800 per year.
From 1971 through 1974, appellant completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He then began working full-time and after almost two years, decided to get his doctorate degree. The parties moved to Tuscon in 1976 for this purpose. At the time of trial, appellant was completing his doctorate degree and making approximately $400 per month gross income.
During the marriage the husband’s cash contribution to the marriage was $56,800 while the wife’s contribution was $64,100. The trial court found that:
“Respondent [the wife] has sufficient earning ability to support herself and is not, based on that alone, entitled to any spousal maintenance.”'
The trial court then found that during the marriage the parties had contemplated and agreed that when appellant finished his formal education, if appellee wanted to further her education, she would be able to do so. It also found that while there was not an express contract that she would financially support him through his educational endeavors and he through hers, it was contemplated by the parties that each would do so. At trial, appellee testified that she *77thought she might like to go to law school or get a master’s degree in public or business administration. .
The trial court then held, as a matter of “equity”, that appellant should pay spousal maintenance to appellee in the sum of $500 monthly if she started school by September 1, 1980, for as long as she remained a full-time student in good standing, not to exceed 33 payments; this obligation to continue even if the husband died. What little personal property parties owned was divided according to their agreement made prior to trial.
A.R.S. Sec. 25-319 determines the issue in this case:
“A. In a proceeding for dissolution of marriage ..., the court may grant a maintenance order for either spouse only if it finds that the spouse seeking maintenance:
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(2) Is unable to support himself or herself through appropriate employment ... or lacks earning ability in the labor market adequate to support himself or herself.” (Emphasis added)
The evidence is clear and the trial court concedes in its findings that appellee did not bring herself within the statute. Its decision is based on “equity”. Whenever the rights of parties are clearly defined and established by statutory provisions, equity follows the law. Sult v. O’Brien, 15 Ariz.App. 384, 488 P.2d 1021 (1971). If appellee is capable of supporting herself through regular employment, she is not entitled to spousal maintenance. Neal v. Neal, 116 Ariz. 590, 570 P.2d 758 (1977). She argues, however, that what she is entitled to is an “equal opportunity”; that appellant had his chance and now she should have hers. This argument cannot stand in the face of the statute. Neither should the courts be the place where the frustrated expectations and fulfillment of the desires of the parties to a marriage are to be remedied.
We note the case of In re Marriage of Angerman, 612 P.2d 1166 (Colo.App.1980). There the wife supported the husband during marriage as a keypunch operator while he pursued his bachelor’s degree and teaching certificate. It was the understanding of the parties that once the husband got his teaching certificate the roles would be reversed and the wife could return to college for graduate work in music looking toward a career in opera or as a teacher. The appellate court upheld the trial court’s award of spousal maintenance under a statute similar to ours, based upon a finding that being a keypunch operator was only intended by the parties to be a temporary pursuit dictated by the financial needs of the parties and because appropriate employment required that the wife obtain an advanced degree.
Without commenting on whether Arizona appellate courts would have come to the same conclusion as the Colorado court did, we find the facts here and the facts in Angerman to be distinguishable. In Anger-man it would appear that the wife was a fine arts major and needed an advance degree in order to make a decent living. That is not the case here. Appellee has an Arizona teaching certificate and she has worked as a teacher in Ohio. She already has the means for “appropriate employment” and the award of spousal maintenance was contrary to law.
The award of spousal maintenance is vacated.
BIRDSALL, J., concurs.