Court Opinion

ID: 9802731
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 14:49:02.8666+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:01:49.177352
License: Public Domain

Reiber, C.J.,
¶ 15. dissenting. In holding that separation agreements incorporated into a final order are binding as a matter of law on subsequent divorce proceedings, the majority overlooks the plain statutory language conferring on the court the duty to evaluate the fairness and equity of the property distribution and spousal maintenance at the time of divorce. 15 V.S.A. §§ 751, 752. The majority’s decision confuses the statutory scheme surrounding separation and divorce, and contradicts the public policy that equity is the lodestar for divorce proceedings and controls prior agreements in anticipation of divorce. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.
¶ 16. This matter concerns property distribution and spousal maintenance in a pending divorce proceeding. The majority does not recite the language of the relevant divorce statutes, 15 V.S.A. §§ 751 and 752, but it is necessary to the analysis. State v. Fletcher, 2010 VT 27, ¶ 10, 187 Vt. 682, 996 A.2d 213 (mem.) (stating that in determining Legislature’s intent, we begin with statute’s plain language). The plain language regarding property division, § 751(a), states that “the court shall settle the rights of the parties to their property by including in its judgment provisions which equitably divide and assign the property. All property owned by either or both of the parties, however and whenever acquired, shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the court.” Section 751(b) provides factors for the court to consider in equitably *311distributing the property, including the length of the marriage, the age and health of the parties, occupation and income of the parties, and the parties’ respective property and how it was acquired. Similarly, § 752 requires the trial court to evaluate the surrounding circumstances at the time of divorce in awarding spousal maintenance.
¶ 17. This statutory language makes clear that the Legislature intended to give discretion to the family courts to divide property in an equitable and just manner based on the circumstances at the time of divorce. The majority’s interpretation that a separation agreement is binding at divorce is contrary to this plain meaning. Simply put, had the Legislature intended for a prior separation agreement to be binding on the court at divorce, it could have said so. Instead, it stated, “[a]ll property . . . however and whenever acquired, shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the court.” Id. § 751(a). See Comm, to Save the Bishop’s House, Inc. v. Med. Ctr. Hosp. of Vt., Inc., 137 Vt. 142, 153, 400 A.2d 1015, 1021 (1979) (“This court must presume that all language in a statute was drafted advisedly, and that the plain ordinary meaning of the language used was intended.” (citation omitted)). That the Legislature knows how to make legal separation agreements binding on divorce but chose not to do so is especially clear when Vermont’s statute is contrasted with the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act, which specifically provides a procedure for conversion of a legal separation decree to a divorce decree. Unif. Marriage & Divorce Act § 314(b) (“No earlier than 6 months after entry of a decree of legal separation, the court on motion of either party shall convert the decree to a decree of dissolution of marriage.”). This Court has refused to read language into a statute where our law departed from a Uniform Act explicitly providing such language, noting that “[t]he Vermont Legislature has not included such language in Vermont’s . . . law, and we presume it drafted the . . . statute advisedly.” Columbia v. Lawton, 2013 VT 2, ¶ 18, 193 Vt. 165, 71 A.3d 1218.
¶ 18. Further, the majority’s interpretation renders parts of § 751 and § 752 incomprehensible. Many — if not all — of the factors listed in § 751(b) and § 752 are context-dependent and cannot be determined until a divorce action is actually filed. A court cannot simultaneously fulfill its statutory duty to distribute assets and award spousal maintenance based on the length of the marriage, age and health of the parties, their assets, occupation *312and income, and other factors and also be bound by the terms of a prior separation agreement. See Franks v. Town of Essex, 2018 VT 84, ¶ 9, 194 Vt. 595, 87 A.3d 418 (explaining that this Court seeks to avoid absurd or irrational results when interpreting statutes). Considering that this Court has emphasized that there is no common law divorce in Vermont and “[t]he right to grant divorce is only as specifically allowed to the courts of this state by the legislature,” Gerdel v. Gerdel, 132 Vt. 58, 61, 313 A.2d 8, 10 (1973), the majority’s decision is certain to put trial courts in a bind in situations where the separation agreement is at odds with statutory mandates.
¶ 19. The majority’s response is to focus on the fact that the separation agreement here was incorporated into a final judgment, presumably evaluated for equity and fairness by the trial court that granted it. Ante, ¶¶ 8, 11. The majority asserts that “[w]ere we to hold that the terms of an agreement that have been incorporated into a final separation order were not subject to the same rules as a final judgment upon a subsequent divorce, we would be robbing separation under [15 V.S.A.] § 555 of virtually any legal significance.” Ante, ¶ 10. Yet in according the same level of finality to a final separation order as to a final divorce order, it is the majority that deprives the statutes governing these procedures of their meaning.
¶ 20. “We construe all parts of the statutory scheme together, where possible, as a harmonious whole, and we will avoid a construction that would render the legislation ineffective or irrational.” Ran-Mar, Inc. v. Town of Berlin, 2006 VT 117, ¶ 5, 181 Vt. 26, 912 A.2d 984 (citation and quotation omitted). Legal .separation and divorce are separate causes of action under Vermont’s statutory scheme, governed by separate statutory provisions. Compare 15 V.S.A. § 551 (stating grounds for divorce) with id. § 555 (providing for legal separation). The majority rightly recognizes that separation is not necessarily a permanent status, ante, ¶ 10, as it can last “forever or for a limited time,” 15 V.S.A. § 555. Legal separation must afford sufficient flexibility to last forever for some and provide a temporary solution to others. Divorce, by contrast, is intended to permanently settle the rights and obligations of the parties and accord finality to the marriage’s dissolution. See Youngbluth v. Youngbluth, 2010 VT 40, ¶ 10, 188 Vt. 53, 6 A.3d 677 (stating that Vermont law “places great emphasis on the finality of property divisions” in divorce decrees); Pouech v. Pouech, 2006 VT *31340, ¶20, 180 Vt. 1, 904 A.2d 70 (explaining that “[o]nce a stipulation is incorporated into a final [divorce] order, concerns regarding finality require that the stipulation be susceptible to attack only on grounds sufficient to overturn a judgment”).
¶ 21. That divorce confers a level of finality that separation does not is confirmed by the relative procedures and consequences of the two statutes. There are no statutory prerequisites to legal separation, 15 V.S.A. § 555, while the divorce statute provides a nisi period before the divorce decree can become absolute, id. § 554. Moreover, divorce has collateral legal effects that separation does not. Most pertinent to this case, as wife points out, legal separation does not affect legal rights in an estate held by spouses in tenancies by the entirety, whereas divorce automatically converts the estate into two tenancies in common. Stewart v. Bleau’s Estate, 102 Vt. 273, 276-77, 147 A. 692, 693 (1929). The majority’s decision will unduly complicate situations where third parties rely on the parties’ legal title during the legal separation period. In holding that a separation agreement incorporated into a final order is binding as a matter of law on the parties’ subsequent divorce, the majority deprives the legal separation statute of its transitory nature and conflates the effects of legal separation and divorce so that there is no longer any meaningful difference between them.
¶22. Beyond matters of statutory interpretation, the majority diminishes the public policy choice, emphasized in the statutes and our case law, that places concerns of equity first and foremost in divorce proceedings. In Pouech, we explained:
[T]he simple truth [is] that an agreement in anticipation of divorce is not the same as any ordinary contract. Public policy favors parties settling their own disputes in a divorce, but . . . the family court has a statutorily authorized role to play in divorce proceedings to assure a fair and equitable dissolution of the state-sanctioned institution of marriage.
2006 VT 40, ¶ 24.
¶ 23. Based on the principle that the court must maintain an equitable role in divorce proceedings, we held in Pouech that the trial court could reject the parties’ divorce stipulations prior to a final divorce order “even if the challenging party fails to demonstrate grounds sufficient to overturn a contract.” Id. ¶ 22; see also *314Gerdel, 132 Vt. at 61, 313 A.2d at 10 (“Divorce courts are specifically not bound by stipulations or agreements entered into by the parties.”). For similar reasons, we have held that assets acquired after legal separation are subject to equitable distribution under § 751 on the basis that “[ajssets are normally valued for distribution as of the day of the final divorce hearing, regardless of whether they were acquired during or after the parties separated” — emphasizing the statutory duty for the court to evaluate the equities at the time of divorce. Golden v. Cooper-Ellis, 2007 VT 15, ¶ 10, 181 Vt. 359, 924 A.2d 19; see also Nuse v. Nuse, 158 Vt. 637, 638, 601 A.2d 985, 986 (1991) (mem.) (holding that § 751 is broad enough to encompass property acquired after the parties’ separation).
¶ 24. The majority’s reasoning that attention to the equities at the time of legal separation trumps reconsideration in subsequent divorce is unpersuasive. Supplementing the property division to account for property acquired after separation or to changed circumstances is a piecemeal approach. See ante, ¶ 12 (endorsing such an approach). We rejected such a piecemeal approach to the equities in Pouech, where the wife requested that the court consider an award of spousal maintenance during a divorce even though the parties’ stipulation did not provide for it. The trial court “recognized the impossibility” of “considering] her maintenance request without disturbing the stipulation,” and denied the wife’s request because she had not demonstrated sufficient grounds to overturn the stipulation. 2006 VT 40, ¶ 19. This Court reversed, holding that the trial court erred in refusing to consider the wife’s maintenance request and that the parties should have had “an opportunity to present evidence on the fairness of their stipulation.” Id. We emphasized that “[i]n determining whether to reject the stipulation, the family court should consider all of the circumstances surrounding execution of the stipulation. . . . [T]he question is one of fairness and equity viewed from the perspective of the standards and factors set forth in our divorce statutes.” Id. ¶ 23. As in Pouech, the court here cannot consider all of the circumstances surrounding the execution of a divorce decree if it is inexorably tethered to a prior legal separation agreement that defines the rights of the parties as to some of the property of the marital estate.
¶ 25. None of this is to say that the trial court cannot consider the legal separation agreement’s terms in evaluating fairness and *315equity; indeed, the agreement should receive due weight in the court’s decision. White v. White, 141 Vt. 499, 502, 450 A.2d 1108, 1110 (1982) (“In the case of property division and alimony the resulting contract between [the parties] is a presumptively fair, formal, and binding promise to perform, which our courts will not lightly overturn since the parties may have bargained away rights or positions of advantage in exchange for other consideration.”). The majority’s reasoning would hold more sway were it to confine its holding to the particular facts before us — where the parties expressly stipulated that their separation agreement would be binding in the event of divorce, and that stipulation was incorporated into a final judgment by the court. But the majority appears to go much further, holding that once reduced to final judgment, legal separation agreements are binding on future divorce proceedings as a matter of law — regardless of whether the separation agreement contemplates a later divorce. Ante, ¶ 8. While it is true that finality is of paramount importance, our statutes, case law, and public policy make equally clear that the trial court must perform an independent evaluation of the equities at the time of divorce before entering a decree. For these reasons, I cannot agree with the majority that a legal separation agreement is binding in a divorce as a matter of law.
¶26. I am authorized to state that Justice Dooley joins this dissent.