Court Opinion

ID: 9949331
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-11 14:11:22.200488+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:25:43.879954
License: Public Domain

Opinion issued March 7, 2024

                                      In The

                               Court of Appeals
                                      For The

                          First District of Texas
                             ————————————
                               NO. 01-22-00611-CV
                            ———————————
                            SHAWN FRY, Appellant
                                         V.
                             SHANII FRY, Appellee

                    On Appeal from the 387th District Court
                           Fort Bend County, Texas
                     Trial Court Case No. 18-DCV-255052

                          MEMORANDUM OPINION

      A few years after Shawn and Shanii Fry divorced, the trial court rendered an

order that purported to clarify and implement the agreed property division in their

final divorce decree. On appeal, Shawn contends the trial court abused its discretion

by modifying the property division in the clarification order and giving the
clarification order a retroactive effect prohibited by the Family Code.1 Because we

conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in either respect, we affirm.

                                     Background

      Shawn and Shanii Fry divorced in 2018, after more than 15 years of marriage.

The agreed divorce decree contained several provisions related to a “privately held

compan[y]”—Axcension, Inc.—that employed both Shawn and Shanii. In dividing

the parties’ estate, the decree awarded “any and all ownership interest” in Axcension

to Shawn as his separate property, along with:

      • the “intellectual property created by Shawn . . . used in connection with
        the ownership of” Axcension, and

      • beginning November 1, 2018, “any and all sums of cash” in two bank
        accounts in Axcension’s name.

The two bank accounts were included in a list of accounts described in the decree as

giving Shawn the “sole right to withdraw funds” or “subject to [his] sole control[.]”2

      As for Shanii and Axcension, the decree stated that she would:

      receive a sum of $3,000.00 twice a month from Axcension, Inc. directed
      by [Shawn] in his control as salary, in accordance with payroll
      directives of Axcension, Inc starting on November 1, 2018 until
      November 1, 2022. Shawn . . . will be personally liable for an unpaid
      amount in the event that Axcension is unable to fulfill the total amount

1
      Shanii did not file a brief or otherwise respond to Shawn’s contentions on appeal.
2
      The decree also awarded Shawn an account in the name of Axcension Billing
      Solutions as his separate property. The record does not reveal the relationship, if
      any, between Axcension and Axcension Billing Solutions.
                                           2
      of any payment and will guarantee that payment will be sent no later
      than 14 days.
Related to this payment, in the section addressing Shawn’s debts and obligations,

the decree instructed that Shawn “shall pay, as part of the division of the estate of

the parties,” “any unpaid amount of payments that Axcension, Inc. is liable to

[Shanii] per directive of $3,000.00 twice a month from November 1, 2018 until

November 1, 2022 as salary.”

      Three years after the divorce, Shanii petitioned for clarification and

enforcement of Shawn’s Axcension-related obligations under the divorce decree.

She alleged that she had not received any payments from Axcension or Shawn for

more than a year and that Shawn was personally liable for the past-due amounts. She

also asked for clarification of the decree if the trial court found the decree was “not

specific enough to be enforced by contempt.”

      At the hearing on Shanii’s petition, Shanii argued that the divorce decree’s

property division had awarded her the Axcension payments instead of a percentage

of any ownership in the business. The trial court admitted into evidence Shanii’s

bank records showing that she initially received payments from Axcension twice a

month, but the payments stopped after December 31, 2019. Shanii testified that

neither Axcension nor Shawn had made any payments from January 2020 onward

and that the missed payments added up to $75,000.

                                          3
      At the close of Shanii’s evidence, Shawn moved for an instructed verdict. He

argued that the divorce decree obligated Axcension—not him—to pay Shanii. But

that obligation was not enforceable because Axcension was not a party to the divorce

proceeding and thus was a stranger to the decree. And because Axcension was not

liable under the decree, neither was he. According to Shawn, any obligation on his

part turned on Axcension’s liability.

      After considering the parties’ arguments, the trial court stated on the record:

      So I am going to grant the directed verdict because the enforcement
      order does say that it’s Axcension who is ordered to pay. I believe the
      language is not clear. What I am going to do though – and you guys
      aren’t going to like me for this because I want to think. I need to decide
      if there is a way to fix it to clarify the order because you did ask it to be
      clarified. If there is a way to clarify the order without changing the
      substance of the order which I am not allowed to do.

                                          ...

      I think the decree was poorly written. That part of the decree was poorly
      written. So I’m going to – I’m going to grant the instructed verdict.
      Before the trial court issued any written order, however, it held a second

hearing. Shawn reasserted his contention that any clarification that made him

responsible for the missed payments to Shanii would impermissibly alter the divorce

decree’s property division. Shanii responded that Shawn could direct the payments

because the decree awarded him ownership of Axcension and established his

personal liability for any missed payments.

                                           4
       The trial court later signed a clarification order. The order recites the trial

court’s finding that “certain terms of the [divorce] decree” were not specific enough

to enforce by contempt and thus must be modified. The trial court ordered two

clarifications. First, it ordered that:

       [Shanii] shall receive a sum of $3000.00 on the first and fifteenth days
       of each month from Axcension, Inc. as directed by [Shawn] in his
       control as salary beginning on November 1, 2018 and continuing each
       month with the last payment due on November 15, 2022 and it is so
       ORDERED. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Shawn . . . shall be
       personally liable for any unpaid amounts in the event that Axcension is
       unable or has not paid the total amount of any payment due on the 1st
       or the 15th days of each month and will guarantee that payment will be
       sent no later than 14 days after the payment is due.

       Second, it ordered that Shawn’s debt included: “[a]ny unpaid amount of

payments in #9 above that Axcension, Inc. is liable to pay to [Shanii] per the

directive of $3000 due on the first and fifteenth day of each month from November

1, 2018 until November 15, 2022 as salary.”3

       Finally, the clarification order stated that the trial court would not hold Shawn

in contempt per its instructed verdict, but it ordered him to pay $75,000 to Shanii for

the “unpaid sums through and including the payment due January 1, 2021.”

3
       The “#9” is an apparent reference to the provision requiring payments from
       Axcension to Shanii in the divorce decree, as it is the ninth paragraph in that part of
       the divorce decree awarding Shanii certain property.
                                              5
                              The Clarification Order

      Shawn contends the trial court’s clarification order is an improper

modification of the divorce decree property division that has a prohibited retroactive

effect. We disagree.

A.    Standard of review and applicable law

      Courts interpret divorce decree language as we do other judgments. Hagen v.

Hagen, 282 S.W.3d 899, 901 (Tex. 2009). We construe the decree as a whole to

harmonize and give effect to the entire decree. Id. If the decree is unambiguous, we

must adhere to its literal language. Id. But if the decree is ambiguous, we interpret it

by reviewing both the decree as a whole and the record. Id. Whether a divorce decree

is ambiguous is a question of law. Id. at 901–02.

      “As with other final, unappealed judgments which are regular on their face,

divorce decrees and judgments are not vulnerable to collateral attack.” Id. at 902.

But the Family Code authorizes a trial court that renders a divorce decree to enter

orders to enforce or specify more precisely the decree’s property division. See TEX.

FAM. CODE § 9.006(a) (“[T]he court may render further orders to enforce the

division of property made or approved in the decree . . . to assist in the

implementation of or to clarify the prior order” and “may specify more precisely the

manner of effecting the property division previously made if the substantive division

of property is not altered or changed.”); Hagen, 282 S.W.3d at 902. If the trial court

                                           6
finds that the original form of the property division is not specific enough to be

enforceable by contempt, it “may render a clarifying order setting forth specific

terms to enforce compliance with the original division of property.” TEX. FAM. CODE

§ 9.008. But the trial court may not “amend, modify, or change the division of

property” originally set out in the decree. Id. § 9.007(a). “Attempting to obtain an

order that alters or modifies a divorce decree’s property division is an impermissible

collateral attack.” Hagen, 282 S.W.3d at 902.

      We review the trial court’s order clarifying the divorce decree for an abuse of

discretion. Worford v. Stamper, 801 S.W.2d 108, 109 (Tex. 1990); Gainous v.

Gainous, 219 S.W.3d 97, 103 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2006, pet. denied).

A trial court abuses its discretion when it acts unreasonably, arbitrarily, or without

reference to any guiding rules or principles, or it erroneously exercises its power by

making a choice outside the range of choices permitted by law. See Downer v.

Aquamarine Operators, Inc., 701 S.W.2d 238, 241–42 (Tex. 1985); Green v. Green,

No. 01-20-00663-CV, 2022 WL 3031346, at *4 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.]

Aug. 2, 2022, no pet.) (mem. op.).

B.    The clarification does not modify the property division

      Shawn contends that the clarification order impermissibly modified the

divorce decree’s property division and attendant obligations by making him directly

liable for the semimonthly payments to Shanii. Relying on the decree language

                                          7
instructing that Shanii “will receive a sum of $3,000 twice a month from Axcension”

and ordering him to pay “any unpaid amount of payments that Axension [] is liable

to Shanii,” Shawn asserts that his obligation to pay Shanii under the decree turned

on Axcension’s liability. (Emphasis added.) He argues that Axcension could not be

compelled to make payments under the decree because it was not a party to the

divorce proceeding, and there was no proof or claim that Axcension had any

agreement or other obligation itself to pay Shanii a salary as called for in the decree.

Thus, Axcension was not liable to Shanii for any missed payments. And if

Axcension was not liable to Shanii for the missed payments, then neither was Shawn.

According to Shawn, the trial court’s clarification order “overlooks this required

liability of Axcension to Shanii as the premise” for his liability and “simply imposes

direct liability on [him] regardless [of] whether Axcension would have been liable

to Shanii.” We disagree.

      Shawn’s interpretation making him a mere guarantor of Axcension’s liability

ignores the decree’s other provisions awarding him ownership of Axcension and the

money in its accounts. See Hagen, 282 S.W.3d at 901 (divorce decree must be

construed as a whole). The decree recognizes the effect of Shawn’s ownership of

Axcension in its provision for the semimonthly payments to Shanii by stating that

she will receive those payments from Axcension “directed by [Shawn] in his control

as salary.” (Emphasis added.) Whether the decree is enforceable against Axcension

                                           8
itself as a non-party is of no consequence. Considered as a whole, the decree can

only be construed one way—as imposing on Shawn the obligation to direct the salary

payments from Axcension to Shanii as part of the property division and, if he did

not, making him personally responsible for the unpaid amounts. Cf. Green, 2022 WL

3031346, at *4 (“A decree is unambiguous where it can be given a certain or definite

legal meaning or interpretation.”). Because the divorce decree was unambiguous in

this regard, we conclude the trial court’s order was a proper clarification of, and not

an impermissible modification of, the decree.4 See TEX. FAM. CODE § 9.006(a). And

we hold the trial court did not abuse its discretion by entering the clarification order.

C.    The clarification order does not have an impermissible retroactive effect

      Shawn also argues that the clarification order’s requirement that he pay Shanii

the past-due amount had a retroactive effect prohibited by Section 9.008(c) of the

Family Code. While Section 9.008(c) states that “[t]he court may not give retroactive

effect to a clarifying order,” Shawn’s attempt to avoid paying the past-due amounts

is not what that section guards against. See TEX. FAM. CODE § 9.008(c); Zeolla v.

Zeolla, 15 S.W.3d 239, 242–43 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2000, pet.

4
      Because we hold that the decree is unambiguous, we do not reach Shawn’s
      complaint that the trial court failed to obtain extrinsic evidence of the parties’ intent.
      See Reiss v. Reiss, 118 S.W.3d 439, 441–42 (Tex. 2003) (observing that when
      decree is plain and unambiguous, there is no room left for interpretation, and the
      effect of the decree is a question of law for the court to decide considering the literal
      meaning of the language used); cf. In re R.F.G., 282 S.W.3d 722, 728 (Tex. App.—
      Dallas 2009, no pet.) (trial court erred in looking to other, extrinsic evidence to
      determine parties’ intended definition of a plain, unambiguous term).
                                              9
denied) (holding trial court did not give clarification order retroactive effect when it

ordered payment of benefits already accrued under the agreement by the parties).

Section 9.008 deals with clarification in aid of contempt enforcement, and all its

other subsections specifically speak in terms of contempt. See TEX. FAM. CODE

§ 9.008(a)–(b), (d). Read in this context, Section 9.008(c) prohibits a court from

giving retroactive effect to a clarifying order “in such a way as to subject a party

immediately to contempt,” not from ordering payment of past-due benefits

consistent with the divorce decree. Zeolla, 15 S.W.3d at 242 (noting that any other

interpretation would make court powerless to order payment of past due obligations

and would conflict with case law and Family Code); accord Watret v. Watret, 623

S.W.3d 555, 563 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2021, no pet.).

      Here, the trial court’s clarification order was consistent with the payment

obligations that had accrued under the divorce decree. Zeolla, 15 S.W.3d at 243. The

clarification order “attached no new legal consequences to prior events, nor did it

impair vested rights.” See id. Had the trial court allowed Shawn to avoid his already

accrued obligations, it would have altered Shanii’s substantive rights under the

decree to receive the payments. We thus conclude that the clarification order does

not violate Section 9.008(c). And we hold that the trial court did not abuse its

discretion by requiring Shawn to pay Shanii the past-due amount.

                                          10
                                     Conclusion

      We affirm the trial court’s clarification order.

                                               Sarah Beth Landau
                                               Justice

Panel consists of Chief Justice Adams and Justices Landau and Rivas-Molloy.

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