Court Opinion

ID: 9896023
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-09 15:07:11.171885+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:21.173709
License: Public Domain

RENDERED: NOVEMBER 9, 2023; 10:00 A.M.
                       NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

                Commonwealth of Kentucky
                          Court of Appeals

                              NO. 2022-CA-0304-MR

ARTHUR MEYERS                                                         APPELLANT

                  APPEAL FROM MEADE CIRCUIT COURT
v.                HONORABLE BRUCE T. BUTLER, JUDGE
                        ACTION NO. 14-CI-00388

JOY MEYERS                                                              APPELLEE

                                    OPINION
                                   AFFIRMING

                                  ** ** ** ** **

BEFORE: ACREE, DIXON, AND JONES, JUDGES.

ACREE, JUDGE: Appellant, Arthur Meyers, appeals the Meade Circuit Court’s

February 17, 2022 Order adopting domestic relations commissioner (DRC)

Heather Paynter’s findings of facts and conclusions of law. We affirm.

             The parties married on March 9, 1991, and divorced on December 14,

2016. For twenty-three years of their twenty-five-year marriage, Appellant served

in the military, becoming disabled after eighteen years of service. Appellant is
now a retired combat veteran who is considered 100% disabled by the federal

Department of Veteran Affairs (VA). Because of his status as a disabled veteran,

Appellant received a Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC) award of

$1,254.00 per month.1

              Prior to their divorce, the parties voluntarily entered into a settlement

agreement, dated June 26, 2015, and the circuit court incorporated its terms into

the decree. Appellant agreed to pay Appellee, Joy Meyers, $1,500.00 per month as

permanent monthly maintenance. Appellant failed to make a single post-decree

maintenance payment.

              Despite this, from the time of their divorce until December 2020,

Appellee received the $1,254.00 from Appellant’s CRSC award. Appellee never

demanded the full $1,500.00 and was not entitled to Appellant’s CRSC award.

Appellant stopped sending his CRSC awards to Appellee at the end of 2020.

              On March 9, 2021, Appellee filed a motion with the Meade Circuit

Court requesting full payment of maintenance arrearages, with interest. In

response, Appellant asked the court to reduce his maintenance payments.

              The DRC concluded Appellant owed Appellee $45,402.14, with 6%

interest, through December 2021. It appears the DRC counted the CRSC award

1
  Appellant may have voluntarily or involuntarily stopped receiving the CRSC award. The
record is unclear on this fact.

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payments toward Appellant’s maintenance obligation. Additionally, per the

settlement agreement, Appellant must continue to make permanent monthly

maintenance payments.

             The DRC also concluded Appellee’s monthly income totaled

$1,946.00, and Appellant’s income increased since the time of divorce because

Appellant started receiving $1,550.00 in monthly social security payments.

             Appellant objected to the DRC’s report, arguing Appellee waived

maintenance payments and the principles of estoppel should prohibit Appellee

from enforcing the maintenance payments after five years. The court rejected

Appellant’s argument. This appeal follows.

             When appellate courts review a circuit court’s decision to decline

modifying monthly maintenance payments, we review for abuse of discretion.

Tudor v. Tudor, 399 S.W.3d 791, 793 (Ky. App. 2013) (citing Block v. Block, 252

S.W.3d 156, 160 (Ky. App. 2008)). “The test for abuse of discretion is whether the

trial judge’s decision was arbitrary, unreasonable, unfair, or unsupported by sound

legal principles.” Commonwealth v. English, 993 S.W.2d 941, 945 (Ky. 1999).

Accordingly, “[w]e may only disturb the court’s conclusion if it ‘abused its

discretion or based its decision on findings of fact that are clearly erroneous.’”

Tudor, 399 S.W.3d at 793 (quoting Powell v. Powell, 107 S.W.3d 222, 224 (Ky.

2003)).

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            On appeal, Appellant argues the circuit court erred because Appellee

waived her right to monthly maintenance payments and should be estopped from

arguing otherwise. Appellant also claims Appellee is no longer entitled to monthly

maintenance payments, nor is she entitled to backpay or interest thereon.

            Generally, the doctrine of equitable estoppel, or estoppel by

acquiescence, applies “to transactions in which it would be unconscionable to

permit a person to maintain a position which is inconsistent with one in which he

has acquiesced.” Sparks v. Trustguard Ins. Co., 389 S.W.3d 121, 126-27 (Ky.

App. 2012) (quoting Bruestle v. S & M Motors, Inc., 914 S.W.2d 353, 355 (Ky.

App. 1996)). The circuit court did not err when it overruled Appellant’s objection

on this ground because Appellee is not maintaining a position inconsistent with

one with which she previously held. To support his argument, Appellant cites

Brannock v. Brannock, 598 S.W.3d 91 (Ky. App. 2019), but our reasoning in

Brannock does little to support Appellant’s argument.

            In Brannock, the party’s settlement agreement required a husband to

pay child support to his former wife. Brannock, 598 S.W.3d at 93. The parties

cohabitated under the settlement agreement’s terms for six years until the divorce

was finalized. Id. During this time, the husband paid no child support, but paid

the mortgage on a new house and other debt incurred during this time. Id. The

wife expressly agreed to this payment instead of child support payments. Id. at

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101. After the parties’ divorce, the wife alleged the husband owed her $70,000 in

child support payments. Id. at 93-94. We determined equitable estoppel would

prevent the wife from collecting on the child support payments because she agreed

to Appellant’s other economic benefits in lieu of child support. Id. at 101.

             Here, there is no evidence Appellee agreed to receive the CRSC

award in lieu of monthly maintenance payments. This is unlike the parties in

Brannock, who expressly agreed to other economic benefit to wife in place of child

support. Id. at 101. Further, in Brannock, had the circuit court awarded the wife

the child support backpay, she would have received a windfall. Here, Appellee did

not receive a windfall; rather, she received less than what Appellant agreed to pay

in the settlement agreement. The DRC’s calculations of Appellant’s delinquent

obligation appear to take into consideration the amount paid from the CRSC award

– which was lower than the promised monthly payments.

             Regardless of the money’s source, Appellee received it because,

consistent with the parties’ agreement, the divorce decree awarded it to her. Even

if Appellee had agreed to a lower maintenance payment, or to only receive the

CRSC award, Appellant eventually stopped sending her the CRSC award.

Appellant stated at the hearing before the DRC that he did not read the settlement

agreement prior to signing it. Unfortunately for Appellant, it is well settled in

Kentucky that failing to read the terms of a contract is not a valid defense to

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enforcement of its terms. Simmerman v. Fort Hartford Coal Co., 221 S.W.2d 442,

447 (Ky. 1949). “It will not do for a man to enter into a contract, and . . . to say

that he did not read it when he signed it, or did not know what it contained. If this

were permitted, contracts would not be worth the paper on which they are written.”

J.I. Case Threshing Mach. Co. v. Mattingly, 134 S.W. 1131, 1133 (Ky. 1911)

(quoting Upton v. Tribilcock, 91 U.S. 45, 50 (1875)).

                Accordingly, the circuit court did not err when it determined equitable

estoppel had no application here. As such, the court did not err in requiring

Appellant to pay what he promised in the settlement agreement, including

arrearages and interest.

                Additionally, the circuit court did not abuse its discretion when it

refused to modify Appellant’s monthly maintenance payments. Pursuant to KRS2

403.250, a circuit court may modify monthly maintenance payments “only upon a

showing of changed circumstances so substantial and continuing as to make the

terms unconscionable.” KRS 403.250(1). Maintenance is unconscionable only

when the payments are “[m]anifestly unfair or inequitable.” Combs v. Combs, 787

S.W.2d 260, 261 (Ky. 1990). “To determine whether the circumstances have

changed, we compare the parties’ current circumstances to those at the time the

court’s separation decree was entered.” Block, 252 S.W.3d at 160.

2
    Kentucky Revised Statutes.

                                            -6-
               The circuit court determined the only changes in circumstance were

favorable to Appellant and not Appellees. The record shows Appellee’s monthly

income totals only $1,946.00, while Appellant’s income has increased since the

parties’ divorce. Appellant now receives $1,550.00 per month from social

security, and the DRC determined Appellant receives $6,550.00 per month in tax-

free income.

               Appellant argues Appellee does not need $1,500 in monthly

maintenance payments. According to Appellant’s brief, at the time of divorce,

Appellee’s income consisted of $2,745.00 in pre-tax wages, $3,882.00 in VA

caregiver benefits, and $1,254.00 from Appellant’s CRSC award. As of today,

Appellee’s only income is her wages. She no longer has VA caregiver benefits,

and Appellant no longer sends her his CRSC award. Her income is significantly

lower than when the parties were married, and when she received the CRSC award

from Appellant. We do not, however, find error in the DRC’s categorization of the

CRSC award payments as incomplete maintenance payments, which it appears the

DRC did when determining what Appellee was owed.

               Nothing in the record reveals it would be unconscionable for

Appellant to make the maintenance payments he agreed to make in the settlement

agreement. Thus, the circuit court did not abuse its discretion when it denied

Appellant’s motion to reduce his monthly maintenance payments.

                                          -7-
           Accordingly, we affirm.

           ALL CONCUR.

BRIEFS FOR APPELLANT:                 BRIEF FOR APPELLEE:

Douglas E. Miller                     Phyllis K. Lonneman
Radcliff, Kentucky                    Elizabethtown, Kentucky

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