Court Opinion

ID: 9718950
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:38:37.693965+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:03.703363
License: Public Domain

Sievers, Judge,
dissenting.
With all due respect, I find I must dissent from the majority’s opinion. Given that the majority’s opinion contains the necessary background, we can get to the point that the key word under discussion is “guests” and the key question is whether that word is ambiguous. The standard, as the majority says, is whether there are two reasonable but conflicting interpretations of the word “guests.” I submit that the majority manufactures an ambiguity by engaging in a discussion about guest status, cohabitation, “one night stands,” and the location where such things occur. But the applicable law requires that we first look to the “four comers of the decree,” Neujahr v. Neujahr, 223 Neb. 722, 728, 393 N.W.2d 47, 51 (1986), and initially focus on the word “guests,” putting aside these other matters. The notion that we first look to see if the word or words in question have a common and ordinarily understood meaning is so prevalent in our law that no citation of authority is needed. This concept has been used in examining the meanings of insurance policies, deeds, contracts, wills, and court decrees. Here, we are examining a court-approved agreement which may properly be viewed as a contract between Michelle and Alan.
Black’s Law Dictionary 714 (7th ed. 1999) defines “guest” as “1. A person who is entertained or to whom hospitality is extended. 2. A person who pays for service at an establishment, especially] a hotel or restaurant. 3. A nonpaying passenger in a motor vehicle.” Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language 628 (1989) defines “guest” as
1. a person who spends some time at another person’s home in some social activity, as a visit, dinner, or party. 2. one who receives the hospitality of a club, a city, or the like. 3. a person who patronizes a hotel, restaurant, etc., for the lodging, food, or entertainment it provides.
*693Obviously, there is a commonly understood definition, given the similarity between the law dictionary and the ordinary dictionary. The hallmarks of a “guest” involve spending a limited time at a location for socialization or hospitality.
The parties agreed that “[n] either parent shall have guests unrelated of the opposite sex stay overnight when the child is present.” (Emphasis supplied.) The majority correctly notes that we should ignore the intentions and thoughts of the parties, as well as those of the trial court which approved the parties’ agreement, unless there is an ambiguity — which, as the majority notes, is not established by the fact that the parties have or suggest opposing interpretations. The majority then unfortunately jumps the track, so to speak, by finding an ambiguity, because it says that there is “no definition of the term ‘guests’ ” in the agreement and that “both parties’ conflicting interpretations or meanings are reasonable.” However, a term with a commonly understood meaning needs no definition, because by its very nature, reasonable people know what it means — unless by agreement the parties write that it means something else. Thus, the two predicates by which the majority finds the term “guests” to be ambiguous are flawed, because under the majority’s premise, every word in an agreement is ambiguous, unless defined. Additionally, the dictionaries show that the parties’ self-serving interpretations are not necessarily reasonable.
The majority then discusses liberal or restrictive readings of the clause, and the majority brings the parties’ self-serving testimony about their intentions into the discussion. Additionally, the majority discusses whether a prohibition against guests also prohibits cohabitation. This is done without looking to whether the term “cohabit” has a common ordinary meaning which in itself distinguishes such arrangement from that of being an overnight “guest.”
Because the majority buys into Michelle’s notion, as well as the trial court’s notion, that the prohibition against overnight “guests” of the opposite sex can be reasonably construed to exclude “cohabitation,” we should at least look to the same two dictionaries for a common and ordinary meaning of the term “cohabitation” and then contrast it with the term “guests.” Black’s Law Dictionary, supra at 254, defines “cohabitation” as *694“[t]he fact or state of living together, especially] as partners in life, usu[ally] with the suggestion of sexual relations.” Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, supra at 287, defines “cohabit” as “to live together as man and wife, usually without legal or religious sanction.” It seems apparent, at least to me, that “guest” and “cohabitation” both have common, accepted, and ordinary definitions which are as different as night and day. Therefore, it follows that the parties’ agreement that “[n]either parent shall have guests unrelated of the opposite sex stay overnight when the child is present” simply does not apply to or restrict Alan’s overnight visitation because of his cohabitation arrangement with his girl friend.
Thus, the district court’s interpretation of the provision to mean that “the child’s not supposed to be present when there’s a member of the opposite sex there overnight” is patently wrong under the applicable law, since it is a completely unwarranted extension and expansion of the parties’ agreement. The parties’ limited agreement prohibited, by its simple and straightforward terms, visitation when there were overnight guests of the opposite sex, but the agreement said nothing about visitation when one of the divorced parents was in a cohabitation relationship.
Even if I could somehow agree that this clause must be construed, I fail to understand why the majority says there is no clear error in the district court’s restrictive construction which clearly runs counter to the pronouncements of this court and the Supreme Court about the matter really at issue — the sexual activities of divorced parents when their children are nearby. Both courts have said, and I summarize generally, that the sex life of divorced parties is not a concern of the courts absent evidence of indiscretion, evidence of inappropriate behavior, or evidence that such is harmful to the children. See Anderson v. Anderson, 5 Neb. App. 22, 554 N.W.2d 177 (1996) (when litigants seek to use custodial parent’s sexual activity as basis for change in custody or custody arrangements, Nebraska Supreme Court has repeatedly found overriding factor to be whether children are directly exposed to sexual activity or whether there is other proof that children are being adversely affected). See, also, Kennedy v. Kennedy, 221 Neb. 724, 380 N.W.2d 300 (1986) (mother’s violation of anti-cohabitation provision of decree was not given much *695weight by Supreme Court absent evidence that cohabitation adversely affected her son); Krohn v. Krohn, 217 Neb. 158, 347 N.W.2d 869 (1984). Surely our view of this matter does not change for visitation cases.
There is no evidence of any such harm in this record. Yet, the majority affirms Michelle’s highly restrictive interpretation of this clause, which runs counter to the public policy of this state with regard to sex after divorce when children are concerned. I return to what this court wrote in Anderson v. Anderson, supra. In many instances, the legal relationship of the man and woman spending time together with the children of one party is not nearly so important as is the behavior of the man and woman in what they model about respect, trust, love, and caring for one another. While I understand that there still exists a societal view that an unmarried man and woman should not live together, the reality is that they frequently do. The simple fact is that if Michelle wanted the agreement to produce the restrictive effect she now advances, the agreement should have said, “If a parent cohabits with a member of the opposite sex, there shall be no overnight visitation by the cohabitating parent when the child of the parent in cohabitation is present.” This language would do the trick and is simple and concise. But it is not in the agreement, and this court should avoid appellate gymnastics to write into the agreement that which was never there.
What the majority has done in this case is manufacture an ambiguity where none exists, examine the “intent” of the parties, and affirm the trial court’s choice of Michelle’s view, which view is counter to the public policy expressed by the appellate courts of this state on the matter of sexual relationships of parents after divorce. In the final analysis, the majority creates a prohibition against overnight visitation if a parent is in a cohabitation relationship, when the agreement never even mentioned any prohibition against overnight visitation by a cohabitating parent. The parties prohibited overnight guests while the children were present, and I, for one, have no trouble understanding what their words meant. Because the word “guests” is unambiguous, the parties’ intention in using that word is simply not relevant. A guest is a guest, and a cohabitant is a cohabitant — and they are remarkably different. A guest is a temporary visitor for social purposes *696(which could include sex), and a cohabitant is one who lives in a semipermanent arrangement (which surely involves sex) that looks like a marriage. I would reverse and vacate the district court’s interpretation of the clause, finding that Alan’s cohabitation with his girl friend does not affect his visitation rights.