Court Opinion

ID: 9731663
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:53:51.208671+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:20.287167
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
To the extent that the majority of this Court implicitly recognizes that parties to a settlement agreement which has *89been incorporated but not merged into a divorce decree have recourse to the family courts which may exercise full powers of attachment and contempt to enforce their agreements, I join in that part of the majority opinion. I disagree, however, that such a settlement agreement may be modified downward by the court that enters a support order on the basis of the agreement.
This issue was exhaustively, but in my view, incorrectly addressed by the Superior Court in Sonder v. Sonder, 378 Pa.Super. 474, 549 A.2d 155 (1988). I find the reasoning of the Honorable Phyllis W. Beck in that opinion to be persuasive, and, to the extent that it applies to the facts and circumstances herein, I adopt it in its entirety. Id. (Beck, J., concurring and dissenting). In pertinent part, Judge Beck stated:
[B]y specifically eschewing merger, [the parties] attempted to ensure that their agreements ... would survive their divorce and would continue as separately enforceable obligations. In so doing, [the parties] attempted to ensure that their contractual obligations survived and that those contractual obligations, with limited exceptions could not be modified by action of the court.
... By agreeing that the agreement was to be incorporated in the decree, and then consenting to the entry of a decree that provided for such incorporation, the parties intended that in the event of a default under the agreement, remedies like contempt and attachment of wages would be available.
Sonder, 378 Pa.Super. at 537-38, 549 A.2d at 187.
The parties herein agreed to incorporate but not to merge their settlement agreement into the divorce decree. Thus, the parties clearly expressed their intention that the provision for child support was not to be modified downward, and that the agreement could be enforced by the remedies of contempt and attachment of wages. The contractual obligation which establishes a minimum level of child support survives, and appellant, Marlene Knorr, will be able to bring a contract action on the settlement agreement should *90the trial court, on remand, revise its support order downward. The effect of the majority opinion is to compel duplication of judicial proceedings.
Accordingly, I would reverse the order of the Superior Court, and I would reinstate the order of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County vacating its order setting a hearing date on appellee, Michael Knorr’s Petition for Modification Downward.