Court Opinion

ID: 9685648
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:55:06.989165+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:08.950125
License: Public Domain

Robert W. Hansen, J.
(concurring). Here the husband was summarily found to be in contempt of court for failing to pay a contribution to his wife’s attorneys’ fees as ordered in a judgment of legal separation. He was sentenced to serve six months in jail, subject to payment of a purge.
Anything wrong with that? Yes, answers the majority opinion, reversing and requiring both notice and hearing as prerequisites to a finding of contempt and imposition *544of sentence. Anything still wrong? What remains wrong, in this writer’s opinion, is that sending this husband to jail for contempt under the circumstances of this case would constitute imprisonment for debt, constitutionally banned.
Art. I, sec. 16, of the Wisconsin Constitution provides:
“Imprisonment for debt. Section 16. No person shall be imprisoned for debt arising out of or founded on a contract, expressed or implied.”
Here the wife retained attorneys to represent her in an action brought by her for legal separation. She thus assumed a debt arising out of and founded on contract. If she failed to pay what she agreed to pay to her attorneys, could she be put in jail for not paying such debt? Clearly not. If the trial court had included in the judgment of legal separation an order that she pay her own attorneys for their services in the case, could she be put in jail for not complying with such court order? I would think not.
Here both husband and wife stipulated and agreed that the husband was to pay $2,000 of the total fee owed to the wife’s attorneys under her contract with them. The trial court approved the stipulation of the parties “in its entirety,” and, as requested by both parties, provided in the judgment that the husband “. . . shall contribute on account of plaintiff’s attorney fees for the use and benefit of Barrock & Barrock, plaintiff’s attorneys, the sum of $2,000. . . .” 1 This contribution by the husband was to be paid by November 23, 1965. It was not paid.
On the basis of the husband’s agreement with his wife that he would pay $2,000 on the fee owed by her to her attorneys, could he be put in jail for not paying that por*545tion of her debt? Clearly not. When the trial court included in its judgment of legal separation an order that the husband pay what he has agreed to pay, can he subsequently be put in jail for not complying with such order? I would think not. Such order clearly relates to and concerns only a debt, arising out of and founded on a contract. It creates a duty — but only a duty to pay a debt.
In separating duty from debt, the majority opinion locates a “. . . duty of the husband to contribute to the wife’s costs of maintaining or defending a divorce action, including attorney’s fees, . . .” It is true that when the needs of the wife require and the ability to pay of the husband permit, the family court may order such contribution.2 Here the court-ordered contribution by the husband did not arise from a finding of need and ability to pay. It arose out of the agreement or stipulation of both parties as to how the amount owed to the wife’s attorneys was to be paid or shared between them. The foundation for such stipulation and subsequent court order has to be the contract between the wife and her attorneys, for without a contract, express or implied, there would be no debt or obligation to be shared or contributed to. Ordering the husband to pay a part of the wife’s debt to her attorneys does not change the basic nature of the obligation involved any more than ordering him to pay a bill or debt for the wife’s purchase of a coat or car would change the debt-founded nature of the obligation arising out of her contract of purchase. The court order shifts the liability for payment, but does not change the origin or nature of the obligation involved. The majority opinion concedes that “It may be his wife’s debt,” but states, “. . . it is not his or does it become his debt.” The writer would hold the ban on imprisonment for debt to include debts incurred by the wife for which the husband is or subsequently (by court order or judg*546ment) becomes obligated to pay, in whole or part. The duty on the part of the husband is founded upon the debt incurred by his wife which arose out of a contract. The contract need not be one that he signed or agreed to. It is enough that it is a contract which he, initially or subsequently, is held to be obligated to pay, in whole or part.
Seeking authority for the concept that, where duty enters, the element of debt vanishes, the majority cites an 1883 case.3 However, in that early case, this court cited with approval: “ ‘. . . And the contempt does not consist in the relator’s neglect or refusal to pay the debt, but in his disobedience of the order directing him to hand over certain property to the receiver. . . .’ ” 4 The distinction between paying a debt and handing property over to a receiver is on the microscopic side, but the distinction was made and relied upon in finding imprisonment for debt not to be involved.
More recently, a contempt sentence was appealed to this court, the appellant claiming the sentence constituted imprisonment for debt because it was based “. . . on a failure to make payments to the pension and welfare funds as required by the collective-bargaining .agreement, ...” 5 Noting that the contempt findings also involved noncompliance with a court order for the discharge of a certain person and the turning over of certain records, this court held that: “. . . Even if appellant could not be imprisoned for refusing to contribute to the two funds, he could be for not turning over the records.” 6 The spelling out of a constitutionally anti*547septic basis for affirmance would not have been necessary if, indeed, imprisonment for failing to make the court-ordered payment or contribution on a debt arising out of and founded on contract was considered constitutionally permissible.
While the majority opinion does not assert or claim an identical twinship between contributions to attorney’s fees and alimony, the differences between the two merit comment. The contribution to the wife’s attorney’s fees relates solely to a debt owed by her to her attorney. An order for wife or child maintenance rests solely upon marital status and the statutory obligation of marital support. As one court has put it:
“. . . Payments which fall into the category of law-imposed alimony or separate maintenance are based upon the statutory obligation of marital support, may be modified by the court upon a proper showing, ordinarily terminate with the death of either party, and may properly be held not to constitute a ‘debt’ within the meaning of the constitutional provision. ...” 7 (Emphasis supplied.)
The italicized portion in the California opinion correctly stresses the element of modifiability by the court in the light of changed future circumstances as identifying an order based on status, rather than one based on debt. Where an order is based on status, not debt, a change in status warrants, may require, a change in the order. Where the order is based on a debt, arising out of contract, it has no similar inbuilt adaptability to any future changes in status or conditions. Here, as to the contribution to attorney’s fees, the order was fixed and final. The trial was over. The services to be performed under the contract of attorney-client had been performed. At the time of the entering of the judgment for legal separation, nothing remained except to determine who *548was to pay the contractual obligation to the wife’s attorneys. Future conditions or circumstances would and could not change what was owed to the attorneys, how it was to he paid and by whom. All that was before the court at the time of judgment was who was to pay such debt, clearly a debt arising out of and founded upon a contract. Because the debt involved so arose and was so founded, imprisonment via contempt for even a court-ordered payment of it is imprisonment for debt within the meaning of art. I, sec. 16, Wisconsin Constitution. So the writer concludes that the portion of the judgment ordering the husband to contribute $2,000 “for the use and benefit of plaintiff’s counsel” was not enforceable, in the event of default, by contempt and imprisonment.
There remains the issue of whether the portion of the judgment ordering the husband to pay, as he had agreed, $2,000 to the wife’s attorneys could, on application of the attorneys to whom the money was to be paid, be converted into a judgment in favor of such attorneys against the husband in the amount of the balance established to be unpaid. This is what the wife’s attorneys sought, but did not get. What is here involved is a question of statutory interpretation. The Wisconsin legislature has enacted sub. (3) of sec. 247.23, Stats., providing that, if an action affecting marriage is dismissed or a judgment therefore vacated, “. . . the court shall prior to or in its order render and grant separate judgment in favor of any attorney who has appeared for a party to such action . . . for the amount of fees and disbursements to which such attorney ... is, in the court’s judgment, entitled. . . .” The majority reads the subsection as authorizing a judgment in favor of an attorney for fees and disbursements only when the action is dismissed or the judgment vacated. The writer would read it as authorizing a judgment for fees even when the action is dismissed by the parties or a judgment vacated *549and set aside, thus not barring a judgment where the decree remains in force. Appellant concedes that an attorney to whom money is to be paid under an order contained in a judgment of divorce or legal separation can commence a separate action and secure exactly a judgment based on such order. That is an available alternative, but the writer sees no reason for requiring a separate lawsuit to be started to convert the order into a supplementary judgment in favor of the beneficiary of such order. The only conceivable issue that could be raised at a separate trial would be the amount of the unpaid balance. This hardly requires a new action or different forum. Neither the parties nor the attorney involved are served by requiring a new lawsuit with the inescapable additional investment of time and moneys involved in its being started and processed. Where the validity of the order for contribution is beyond appeal or question, it is most economically and practically reduced to judgment by the court that entered it. Obviously, the right to convert an order into a judgment would be clearer if the trial court here had specifically reserved the right to enter such judgment on proper application in the event of default. For the purpose of this concurring opinion, it is enough to state the writer’s conclusion that the wife’s attorneys were on the right course when they sought to have the order for fee payment by the husband converted into a judgment. So the writer would exactly reverse the majority’s holdings. Where the majority says Yes to the use of contempt, the writer says No. Where the majority says No to entering a judgment, the writer would say Yes. Reversal being required, the shared answer as to that is Yes.

 Additionally, a $250 contribution, previously ordered by the family court commissioner, was to be paid by the husband, in the language of the modified, judgment . . to George Barrock, plaintiff’s attorney, . . .” Disbursements of $350 were also provided.

 Dees v. Dees (1969), 41 Wis. 2d 435, 164 N. W. 2d 282.

 In re Milburn (1883), 59 Wis. 24, 17 N. W. 965, citing State ex rel. Warfield v. Becht, 23 Minn. 411. See also: Wisconsin Employment Relations Board v. Mews (1965), 29 Wis. 2d 44, 50, 138 N. W. 2d 147.

 In re Milburn, supra, at page 33.

 Wisconsin Employment Relations Board v. Mews, supra, at page 49.

 Id., at page 49.

 Bradley v. Superior Court (1957), 48 Cal. 2d 509, 522, 310 Pac. 2d 634, 642.