Court Opinion

ID: 9573390
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:54:07.271619+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:40:48.212095
License: Public Domain

HUDSON, Judge,
dissenting.
I do not believe the majority opinion fully addresses a number of crucial issues in this case. These issues are: (I) precisely which portions of the trial court’s original order were vacated, and which portions were left standing, by this Court in Friend-Novorska v. Novorska, 131 N.C. App. 867, 509 S.E.2d 460 (1998) (Friend-Novorska I); (II) the trial court’s failure to make a new award of alimony on remand; and (III) the trial court’s renewed failure to explain both the amount of alimony and the duration of the award on remand. For these reasons, I must dissent.
The trial court’s original order, from which plaintiff appealed in Friend-Novorska I, contained only two conclusions of law:
1. Plaintiff is, and was during the marriage and at date of separation, the dependent spouse .... Defendant is and was the supporting spouse at these times ....
*3982. . . . Defendant should pay alimony to Plaintiff of $600 per month for a term of thirty consecutive months.
On appeal from this order in Friend-Novorska /, plaintiff set forth only one assignment of error: “The Order and Judgment for Alimony ordering Defendant to pay Plaintiff $600 per month for thirty consecutive months as being contrary to law and unsupported by evidence, findings of fact and conclusions of law.” In her brief, plaintiff argued as a subsidiary issue that the trial court erred by failing to make adequate findings with regard to marital misconduct. Likewise, defendant, in his brief to this Court, argued only one cross-assignment of error: the trial court’s award of any alimony to plaintiff. Defendant argued as a subsidiary issue that the trial court erred in considering his investment income in determining his monthly income. Neither party, on appeal in Friend-Novorska /, assigned error to any other finding or conclusion in the trial court’s first order.
In response to these two assignments of error, we affirmed (1) the trial court’s first conclusion of law (that plaintiff was a dependent spouse and that defendant was a supporting spouse),, and (2) the trial court’s consideration of defendant’s investment income in calculating defendant’s net monthly income. However, we further held that the trial court had erred in three specific ways. First, we held that the trial court had erred in considering defendant’s desire to purchase a new house and car “[i]n making its decision to award [to plaintiff] a monthly amount of alimony substantially less than her needs.” Id. at 869, 509 S.E.2d at 461. We explained that the trial court had abused its discretion in allowing “a supporting spouse to reduce his net monthly income, and thus his obligation to his dependent spouse, based not on necessity, but instead on his expressed ‘desires’ for a new house and automobile.” Id. Second, we held that the trial court had erred in not making findings regarding the marital misconduct of the parties since the parties had offered evidence on that issue. Third, we held that the trial court had erred in not making findings justifying either the amount or the duration of the award of alimony. In regard to this third error, we specifically cited Payne v. Payne, 49 N.C. App. 132, 137, 270 S.E.2d 546, 549 (1980), for the proposition that “[o]vershadowing the entire matter is the inescapable fact that [when the alimony payments cease,] plaintiff’s right to ‘permanent alimony’ will terminate, along with any semblance of her accustomed standard of living.” Friend-Novorska, 131 N.C. App. at 870, 509 S.E.2d at 462.
*399After our discussion of these three specific errors on the part of the trial court, we stated:
On remand, the trial court must make a new award of alimony and make specific findings justifying that award, both as to amount and duration. Those portions of the order declaring [plaintiff] to be a dependent spouse and [defendant] to be a supporting spouse are affirmed. For the foregoing reasons, the decision of the trial court is Affirmed in part, and vacated and remanded in part.
Id. at 870-71, 509 S.E.2d at 462. Reading this language in context, I believe we vacated only the trial court’s second conclusion of law awarding plaintiff $600.00 per month for thirty months. I further believe we remanded only for (1) a new award of alimony calculated without considering defendant’s desire for a new house and car, (2) additional specific findings to justify the amount and duration of that award, and (3) additional findings as to marital misconduct. The majority states that aside from the two issues which we expressly affirmed (the conclusion that plaintiff was a dependent spouse and the consideration of defendant’s investment income in calculating his monthly income),“the remainder of the trial court’s decision was vacated.” I disagree.
Plaintiff’s single assignment of error from the trial court’s original order in Friend-Novorska I contended only that the trial court’s second conclusion of law, awarding plaintiff $600.00 per month for thirty months, was “contrary to law and unsupported by evidence, findings of fact and conclusions of law.” Plaintiff did not assign error to any of the findings of fact in the trial court’s original order. Likewise, although defendant on appeal in Friend-Novorska I initially assigned error to a few factual findings in the trial court’s original order, these assignments of error were abandoned by defendant on appeal to this Court because in his brief in Friend-Novorska I he argued only one assignment of error, namely that the trial court erred in its legal conclusion that defendant should pay alimony to plaintiff. See N.C.R. App. P. 28(a). Where no error is assigned to findings of fact, such findings of fact “are presumed to be supported by competent evidence and are binding on appeal.” Anderson Chevrolet/Olds v. Higgins, 57 N.C. App. 650, 653, 292 S.E.2d 159, 161 (1982). Because none of the findings of fact from the trial court’s original order were challenged on appeal to this Court in Friend-Novorska /, and because we did not hold in that case that any of the findings were unsupported by the evi*400dence, I believe all of the findings of fact, rather than being vacated by our opinion in Friend-Novorska I, as the majority contends, remained intact.
In Lea Co. v. N.C. Board of Transportation, 323 N.C. 697, 374 S.E.2d 866 (1989), our Supreme Court stated:
A decision of this Court on a prior appeal constitutes the law of the case, both in subsequent proceedings in the trial court and on a subsequent appeal. Transportation, Inc. v. Strick Corp., 286 N.C. 235, 239, 210 S.E.2d 181, 183 (1974). “[O]ur mandate is binding upon [the trial court] and must be strictly followed without variation or departure. No judgment other than that directed or permitted by the appellate court may be entered.” D & W, Inc. v. Charlotte, 268 N.C. 720, 722, 152 S.E.2d 199, 202 (1966). “We have held judgments of Superior [C]ourt which were inconsistent and at variance with, contrary to, and modified, corrected, altered or reversed prior mandates of the Supreme Court ... to be unauthorized and void." Collins v. Simms, 257 N.C. 1, 8, 125 S.E.2d 298, 303 (1962).
Id. at 699, 374 S.E.2d at 868. Here, despite the absence of any instructions from this Court to the trial court in Friend-Novorska I to delete, modify or supplant the findings of fact from its original order, the trial court on remand reconsidered the very same evidence and entered findings of fact which are contrary to those in its original order (which new findings of fact resulted in a greatly reduced calculation of plaintiffs reasonable monthly expenses). I believe the trial court was without authority to take this action, and I would reverse and remand with instructions that the trial court may only supplement the findings of fact from its original order in strict accordance with the directive of this Court in Friend-Novorska I.
I further believe the trial court erred in awarding plaintiff precisely the same alimony as in its original order, rather than making a new award of alimony as it was instructed to do on remand. In Friend-Novorska I, we held that the trial court had abused its discretion in awarding plaintiff alimony in the sum of $600.00 per month for 30 months. We reached this determination based on the following facts set forth in the trial court’s first order: (1) plaintiff had an available net income of $1,745.22 per month from employment, while her reasonable monthly expenses were $3,089.00, resulting in plaintiff needing $1,343.78 per month to meet her monthly living expenses; (2) defendant had approximately $4,887.00 per month (including net *401income from salary and investments) with expenses of only $3,758.00 per month, giving him over $1,000 more than necessary to meet his monthly living expenses; and (3) an alimony award of $600 per month would provide defendant with about $210.00 per month in tax benefits, and would provide plaintiff a net of only $520.00 per month after taxes. In other words, the award of $600 per month would have left plaintiff with $823.78 less than her reasonable monthly expenses of $3,089, while providing defendant with approximately $761 more than his reasonable monthly expenses of $3,758. Thus, we held that the trial court had abused its discretion in awarding plaintiff “substantially less than her needs,” Friend-Novorska, 131 N.C. App. at 869, 509 S.E.2d at 461, and ordered the trial court on remand to “make a new award of alimony,” id. at 871, 509 S.E.2d at 462.
The trial court, however, did not make a new award of alimony. Instead, the trial court made the same award of $600 per month for the same duration of 30 months. Furthermore, the only calculation that has changed in the trial court’s second order as compared to its original order is the calculation of plaintiffs reasonable monthly expenses (based on the very same evidence, the trial court inexplicably reduced plaintiffs reasonable monthly car expenses from $307 to $150, and reduced plaintiffs reasonable monthly expenses for home maintenance from $350 to $100). According to these new calculations, an award of $600 per month would still leave defendant with $761 more than his reasonable monthly expenses of $3,758, while still leaving plaintiff with $419.78 less than her recalculated reasonable monthly expenses of $2,685. As in Payne, where the trial court’s alimony award would have provided plaintiff with $138 less per month than her reasonable monthly living expenses but would have provided defendant with $739 more per month than his reasonable monthly living expenses,“the order challenged by this appeal effectively destroys plaintiff’s ‘accustomed standard of living’ while substantially improving defendant’s.” Payne, 49 N.C. App. at 137, 270 S.E.2d at 549. I believe the trial court’s alimony award of $600 per month in its second order directly contradicts our instructions on remand and constitutes reversible error.
Finally, in Friend-Novorska I, we not only ordered the trial court on remand to make a new award of alimony, but also to “make specific findings justifying that award, both as to amount and duration.” Id. The trial court’s second order states:
The Court concludes that a term of alimony for thirty consecutive months from October, 1997 to April, 2000, in the amount of *402$600.00 per month is reasonable and equitable based on the findings of fact made by this Court in paragraph 4, and its subsections, of the findings of fact.
“Paragraph 4” comprises 14 pages of the order (the entire order is 15 pages), and “its subsections” include paragraphs A through V, and, under paragraph V, sub-paragraphs 1 through 15.1 believe this broad reference to virtually every finding in the order as a basis for concluding that the amount and duration of the alimony award is reasonable is insufficiently specific to satisfy our explicit instructions in Friend-Novorska I.
In sum, I believe the trial court’s second order follows neither the explicit instructions, nor the spirit, of this Court’s opinion in Friend-Novorska I. I believe the findings of fact in the original order were not vacated by our opinion in Friend-Novorska I and that the trial court was without authority to modify or supplant those findings. I also believe the trial court’s failure to make a new award of alimony, and the trial court’s failure to make additional findings justifying the amount and duration of the award, constitute reversible error. Therefore, I must dissent.