Court Opinion

ID: 9674933
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:37:33.330987+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:30.308520
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
In her motion for rehearing, Nancy Jo Ames, appellee, concedes that the trial court’s division of community property contains terms and provisions that are not found in the settlement agreement. Nancy now agrees with our conclusion that the court’s judgment should have embodied the exact terms of the settlement agreement, said agreement being the only evidence before the court. However, Nancy contends that we erred in reversing the judgment of the trial court and remanding the cause to the trial court. In Nancy’s view, we should have modified the trial court’s judgment and then affirmed the judgment as modified. For the reasons expressed below, we disagree.
In support of her argument, Nancy cites the recent case of McLendon v. McLendon, 847 S.W.2d 601 (Tex.App.—Dallas 1992, writ denied). In McLendon, the trial court issued a written decree of divorce based on a couple’s oral settlement agreement dictated on the record in open court. The terms of the settlement agreement were presented to the court through the sworn testimony of both spouses. The court orally granted the di*594voree, approved the stipulations read into the record, and adopted the stipulations as the court’s rendition of judgment. Approximately six months later, the court signed a final decree of divorce. On appeal, the husband contended that the trial court had erred in signing its decree of divorce because the decree contained additional and different terms supplied by the court to which the parties had not agreed.
The Dallas Court of Appeals found no error. Rather, the court found a “clerical variance” between the judgment announced in open court and the judgment eventually signed by the trial judge. Id. at 610. The discrepancies between the written judgment and the oral judgment were nothing more than clerical errors that were subject to modification. Id. Accordingly, the appellate court modified the trial court’s written decree of divorce to reflect the true agreement of the parties reached in open court.
On the strength of McLendon, Nancy would have us modify the decree of divorce in this case to reflect only those provisions found in the settlement agreement. This we cannot do. Unlike McLen-don, this is not a case in which there exists a clerical variance between an oral judgment and the reduction of that judgment to writing. Rather, we are confronted with a decree of divorce that contains terms and provisions that were never agreed to by the parties. A trial court has no power to supply such terms and conditions. Matthews v. Looney, 132 Tex. 813, 317, 123 S.W.2d 871, 872 (1939). A final judgment founded upon a settlement agreement must be in strict compliance with the agreement. Vickrey v. American Youth Camps, Inc., 532 S.W.2d 292, 292 (Tex.1976).
Therefore, the motion for rehearing is overruled.