Court Opinion

ID: 9539589
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:06:22.711925+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:00.373330
License: Public Domain

URBIGKIT, Justice,
dissenting, with whom ROONEY, Justice, joins.
I dissent from the majority decision which has the effect of awarding a judgment to an ex-wife for a cost which she neither incurred nor paid on an obligation derived from a property-settlement agreement incorporated in a divorce decree.
Increasingly, a dichotomy is being effectuated in the law whereby an agreement in contemplation of divorce assumes a transitory status afforded by no other type of agreement. Care should be taken, or we will have extended the modification attributes of alimony and child support as afforded by statute and case law to property settlement agreements with the resulting effect that no permanency or finality in any regard will exist. Bjugan v. Bjugan, *772Wyo., 710 P.2d 213 (1985); Pavlica v. Pavlica, Wyo., 587 P.2d 639 (1978); Finkbiner v, Finkbiner, 340 F.2d 878 (10th Cir.1965); Compton v. Compton, 101 Idaho 328, 612 P.2d 1175 (1980); Messersmith v. Messersmith, 68 Wash.2d 735, 415 P.2d 82 (1966).
I cannot differentiate logically as to the essence of this agreement, whether it is enforceable by contempt or only attenuated with the normal attributes for contract enforcement by entry of a money judgment to be followed by execution. The essential difference is determined by the status of the contract provision as to whether it is alimony or property settlement and not the inclusion in the divorce result by separation agreement and merger into the decree. Schaffer v. Schaffer, 57 Or.App. 43, 643 P.2d 1300 (1982).
An agreement should not be changed in substantive terms by ancillary enforcement status.
“ * * * The situation is not altered by incorporation of the agreement into a decree of court or by the merger resulting therefrom. [Citations.] The court looks through the decree to the agreement and determines the rights of the parties in this respect just as if there were no merger.” Kelley v. Kelley, 151 Cal.App.2d 228, 311 P.2d 90, 92 (1957).
At issue in this case is the simple question: Did the husband, by property settlement agreement, undertake to pay not just cost but also for value added in the building-construction provision? Our quest is for the intention of the parties in making the agreement. 27B C.J.S. Divorce § 301(3), p. 415.
The two provisions of the agreement as are in haec verba also included in the decree are:
“ * * * pay for the remodeling of the house * * * at a cost not to exceed the sum of $10,000 * *
and
“ * * * pay for the completion of the construction of a shop and storage building * * * ”
I would not find the legal issues of either collateral source or windfall to be involved. Reliance on those theories in this case is misplaced. At issue is only the within intention of the parties as derived from a contractual dispute. There is, however, a differentiation to be found between cost and value. I would interpret the agreement to contemplate that the husband undertook to pay for the cost and by contrast the trial court determined and now this court would assess liability under the agreement based upon value added.
At the trial, counsel talked about appraisal and “economic benefit” that should have been provided, and the court talked about what the labor was worth. Cost is what you have to pay; value is what you get. Cf. Horseshoe Estates v. 2M Company, Inc. Wyo., 713 P.2d 776 (1986).
The majority create an agreement that did not exist under the guise of a show-cause enforcement proceeding after the court had adopted the property settlement agreement in its entry of the original divorce decree.1
“ ‘ * * * It must be construed and en- ' forced according to the terms employed, and a court has no right to interpret the agreement as meaning something different from what the parties intended as expressed by the language they saw fit to employ.’ ” *773Thompson v. Thompson, 170 Mon. 447, 554 P.2d 1111, 1114 (1976), quoting from 17 Am.Jur.2d Contracts, § 242, p. 627.
“That these agreements should be construed and interpreted as other contracts is no longer open to question. Bergman v. Bergman, 145 Fla. 10, 199 So. 920.” Underwood v. Underwood, Fla., 64 So.2d 281, 287-288 (1953).
See also Wilson v. Teacher Retirement System of Texas, Tex.Civ.App., 617 S.W.2d 329 (1981); McCray v. McCray, Tex., 584 S.W.2d 279 (1979).
Whatever the ethics or morality concerns that may exist by virtue of the advantage to the ex-husband when Mrs. Nelson, in economic necessity, was given donated labor by her church, the majority is actually rewriting the agreement and the decree by providing for the payment of a nonexistent and a nonincurred cost. Do we determine liability in this case by the ascertainment of for whom the volunteer -effort was afforded? Suppose that Mr. Hurd was a member of the Latter Day Saints Church and Mrs. Nelson was not, or that a couple of friends of Hurd had volunteered and with him the work was done: would the result then be different?
“As the English philosopher, Thomas Hobbs, said: ‘The definition of injustice is no other than the not performance of covenant.’ ” Brannon v. Adkins, 7 Ohio Misc. 18, 216 N.E.2d 71, 73 (1966).
I would be more comfortable in this dissent if the words “cost of” had been included in the agreement provision “pay for the [cost of] completion,” but that attribute is more suitably thereby defined as the intention of the parties than by rephrasing to state “pay for the [value of] completion,” as is the premise of the wife’s claim, first in the trial court and now resubmitted here. There is a difference between what is owed and what is enough in payment demand.
The particular concern raised by the majority encompasses a new legal theory that a contract which may be additionally enforceable by contempt has a character as to its intrinsic terms which is different than if inclusion in the decree had never occurred. Differing from both parties and the majority of this court, I would find that this is not a divorce “discretion” decision at this time on the appealed question. A contract principle is involved, and it should be a contract decision, without rewriting the contract to be something that it never was.
“Questions relating to the construction and effect of separation agreements between a husband and wife are ordinarily determined by the same rules which govern the interpretation of contracts generally. Whenever a court is called upon to interpret a contract its primary purpose is to ascertain the intention of the parties at the moment of its execution. Bowles v. Bowles, 237 N.C. 462, 75 S.E.2d 413 (1953); 24 Am.Jur.2d Divorce and Separation § 904 (1966); 27 B C.J.S. Divorce § 301(3) (1959).” Lane v. Scarborough, 284 N.C. 407, 200 S.E.2d 622, 624 (1973).
See also Wine v. Wine, 14 Ariz.App. 103, 480 P.2d 1020 (1971); Cochrum v. Cochrum, 162 Cal.App.2d 825, 328 P.2d 1000 (1958); McNeill v. McNeill, Fla.App., 135 So.2d 785 (1962); Vinci v. Vinci, 131 Ill.App.2d 496, 266 N.E.2d 379 (1970); Shultz v. Peters, 223 Ia. 626, 273 N.W. 134 (1937); Weeks v. Weeks, Miss., 403 So.2d 148 (1981); Wilson v. Woolf, Texas Civ.App., 274 S.W.2d 154 (1954); Kennedy v. Kennedy, Texas Civ.App., 267 S.W.2d 245 (1954).
I would modify the judgment rendered in appellee’s favor by reducing the judgment by $8,000, and would find the appellant liable to the appellee only in the amount of $4,500 on the contractual responsibilities which he assumed by property settlement agreement.
The judgment should be affirmed in all other respects.

. Evidence of cost of labor, except as it was derived from an appraisal and deduction of materials cost, was the following:
"Q. What do you figure that’s worth [labor for shop cost]?
"A. [MRS. NELSON] I would guess in the range of 10, $12,000.”
Later testimony:
“[MR. HURD] A professional contractor could probably do the job in a day and a half for the sum of, probably, 2500 to $3,000.”
Finally, at hearing conclusion:
“[THE COURT] * * * [T]he sum of $8,000 for labor is reasonable.”
This is the entire record upon which the decision was made and now comes to this court for consideration. Fortunately, we are not additionally required to consider the sufficiency of evidence for the determination of the amount of the judgment as that issue was not raised by appellant in this appeal.