Court Opinion

ID: 9650558
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:43:34.658627+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:23.837229
License: Public Domain

SCHWELB, Associate Judge,
concurring in the result as to Part II and concurring as to Part III:
With some hesitation, I concur in the result reached by my colleagues. I write *893separately because I find the principal question presented to be a good deal more difficult than the majority opinion appears to suggest.
In determining whether Mrs. Tydings was properly awarded a counsel fee, we are confronted with a question of statutory construction. We might therefore do well to begin by focusing on the language of the statute. As we recently reiterated in Parreco v. District of Columbia Rental Hous. Comm’n, 567 A.2d 43, 45-46 (D.C.1989), the intent of the legislature is generally to be discerned from the language which it has used, and the words of the statute should be construed according to their ordinary sense and with the meaning commonly attributed to them.
D.C.Code § 16-911(a) (1989), on which the award in this case was based, provides in pertinent part as follows:
During the pendency of an action for divorce ..., the court may:
(1) require the husband or wife to pay alimony to the other spouse for the maintenance of himself or herself and their minor children committed to such other spouse’s care, and suit money, including counsel fees to enable such other spouse to conduct the case,....
I have italicized suit money and enable, because the proper interpretation of the statute appears to me to turn on what the drafters intended to convey by using these particular words in a sentence dealing with the maintenance of the requesting spouse and minor children.
I am aware of no District of Columbia precedent construing the phrase “suit money.” In our neighboring jurisdiction of Maryland, however, the Court of Appeals has held that
[i]t is settled law in this state that in a divorce action the wife, when she is without independent means of her own, has the right to require her husband to defray the expenses incurred by her in the suit.
The reasonable and necessary expenses or “suit money” to which a wife is entitled, is generally defined as the money necessary to enable her to carry on or defend a matrimonial action, that is, the necessary expenses relating to bringing and carrying on or defending the action.
Rubin v. Rubin, 233 Md. 118, 123-127, 195 A.2d 696, 699-700 (1963) (citation omitted); see also McCurley v. McCurley, 60 Md. 185, 188-89 (1883).1 Similarly, in Scanlon v. Scanlon, 154 So.2d 899, 904 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1963), the court construed a Florida statute which provided for an award of suit money as rendering the husband liable for counsel fees “when two factors exist: (1) necessities of the wife and (2) the husband’s ability to supply such necessities.” The use of the words “necessary” and “necessities” surely imports the notion of need.
According to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1966 ed.), cited by the majority, enable means
la: to render able; give power strength or competency ...
lb: to make possible, practical or easy.
Other dictionaries contain other definitions, but I think it is fair to say that the primary meaning of the word is to make it possible for someone to do something; the idea of making that thing easy to do is secondary. As Chief Judge Reilly put it in his concurring opinion in Rachal v. Rachal, 489 A.2d 476, 481 (D.C.1985), in focusing on the word enable,
*894at the time of [the] enactment of [the statute], Congress undoubtedly felt that wives without independent income or other resources were at a disadvantage in divorce proceedings unless provided enough financial assistance to enable them to retain a lawyer.... In short, the words “to enable her to conduct her case” clearly implied that a husband should be charged only with such portion of the fee incurred by the wife as was needed to provide her with legal representation.[2]
It is not easy for me to conclude that the award to Mrs. Tydings in this case qualifies as “suit money” or was necessary to “enable” her to maintain the action.3
Moreover, there are principles of statutory construction applicable to this case which merit some consideration. Under the “American” rule, absent bad faith or its equivalent, parties to litigation are ordinarily required to pay their own counsel fees. Steadman v. Steadman, 514 A.2d 1196, 1200 n. 4 (D.C.1986), citing Alyeska Pipeline Serv. Co. v. Wilderness Soc’y, 421 U.S. 240, 95 S.Ct. 1612, 44 L.Ed.2d 141 (1975). “No statute is to be construed as altering the common law, farther than its words import.” Shaw v. Railroad Co., 101 U.S. 557, 565, 25 L.Ed. 892 (1880). As Judge (later Chief Justice) Vinson said for the court in Scharfeld v. Richardson, 76 U.S.App.D.C. 378, 379, 133 F.2d 340, 341 (1942): Is the construction of the words “suit money” and “enable” as supporting the award here at issue truly a “necessary” and “unavoidable” one? The point seems to me, at best, doubtful.
The courts have consistently held legislation derogative of the common law accountable to an exactness of expression, and have not allowed the effects of such legislation to be extended beyond the necessary and unavoidable meaning of its terms. The presumption runs against such innovation.
According to my colleagues, Mr. Tyd-ings’ contention that only a need far more pressing than Mrs. Tydings has demonstrated suffices to permit a fee award “is inconsistent with our prior decisions.” They cite Rachal and Steadman, supra. I agree with them to the extent that the test articulated in these cases does not presuppose a showing of need. It is less clear to me, however, that our precedents require a decision in favor of Mrs. Tydings.
In Rachal, to be sure, the majority stated that, in assessing the propriety of an award of counsel fees, the trial court may properly consider the “respective earning capacities of the parties.” 489 A.2d at 478. It made no allusion to any requirement that the requesting party demonstrate-indigen-cy or need. The principal issue in that case, however, was whether the court gave inappropriate consideration to the motivations of the parties. The majority opinion contains no discussion of the meaning of “suit money” or “enable,” or of the question whether counsel fees may properly be awarded to wealthy litigants. In Stead-man, the issues were likewise quite different from those in the present case. The court there reiterated much of what was said in Rachal about motivation, but likewise eschewed any discussion of the issue here presented, except to allude without comment to Judge Reilly’s concurring opinion in Rachal. 514 A.2d at 1200 n. 4.
In neither of the cases relied on by the majority did the court come directly to grips with the contention which is here being so cogently presented by Mr. Tyd-ings. As the Supreme Court stated in *895Webster v. Fall, 266 U.S. 507, 511, 45 S.Ct. 148, 149, 69 L.Ed. 411 (1925),
The most that can be said is that the point was in the cases if anyone had seen fit to raise it. Questions which merely lurk in the record, neither brought to the attention of the court nor ruled upon, are not to be considered as having been so decided as to constitute precedents.
See also Thompson v. United States, 546 A.2d 414, 423 (D.C.1988). “It is well to remember that significance is given to broad and general statements of the law only by comparing the facts from which they arise with those facts to which they supposedly apply.” Kraft v. Kraft, 155 A.2d 910, 913 (D.C.1959).4 We take Rachal and Steadman to their limits and perhaps beyond when we insist that they compel us to sustain an award of more than $150,000 to a woman who has become a millionaire on the theory that it constitutes “suit money” which “enables” her to litigate her ease.
Courts of other states which have addressed this issue have taken a variety of approaches; the result often turns on the phrasing of a particular statute. Some decisions require a greater showing of need than was made here. In Blauner v. Blauner, 60 A.D.2d 215, 218, 400 N.Y.S.2d 335, 337 (1st Dept.1977), app. denied, 44 N.Y.2d 648, 408 N.Y.S.2d 1023, 380 N.E.2d 336 (1978), the court stated that
it should be emphasized that counsel fees are awarded in a matrimonial action in order to insure that an indigent wife has legal representation. If she is able to pay her own counsel, no award may be made.
Accord Handwerger v. Handwerger, 61 A.D.2d 966, 403 N.Y.S.2d 266 (1st Dept. 1978).5 In Bitner v. Bitner, 228 Ind. 259, 263, 91 N.E.2d 169 (1950), the court made the limitation even more plain:
It is also the law that in a divorce proceeding if the wife has either funds or credit sufficient for the purposes of her defense and her present support it is improper for the court to require the husband to furnish money for such purposes pending the litigation.
Accord Becker v. Becker, 141 Ind.App. 562, 568, 216 N.E.2d 849, 852 (1966); see also Cooper v. Cooper, 513 S.W.2d 229, 234 (Tex.Civ.App.1974) (“where both parties to a divorce action have substantial estates in their own right and in addition there is community property, there is ordinarily no justification for charging the wife’s attorney’s fees against the husband’s estate”); In re Marriage of Westcott, 163 Ill.App.3d 168, 516 N.E.2d 566, 573 (1987) (counsel fees may be awarded only if one party has the ability to pay them and the other does not).
Other courts have taken a less restrictive approach, and have focused on the comparative financial positions of the spouses. As the court stated in Peak v. Peak, 411 So.2d 325, 328 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1982), for example,
Where the parties to a dissolution proceeding are equally able to pay attorney’s fees, it is an abuse of the court’s discretion to require one spouse to pay the other’s attorney’s fees. Cummings v. Cummings, 330 So.2d 134 (Fla.1976). However, the purpose of section 61.16, Fla.Stat. (1979), permitting the trial court to award attorney’s fees in a dissolution proceeding, is to insure that both parties will have the same opportunity to secure counsel. Patterson v. Patterson, 399 So.2d 73 (Fla. 5th DCA 1981). Where one spouse has a superior financial ability to secure counsel, it is not necessary *896that the other spouse be completely unable to pay attorney’s fees.
See also Weiman v. Weiman, 188 Conn. 232, 236, 449 A.2d 151, 154 (1982) (“that a party has sufficient funds to pay the attorney does not preclude an award for counsel fees”); Lavene v. Lavene, 148 N.J.Super. 267, 277, 372 A.2d 629, 633-34 (1977) (disparity of assets and income suggests that wife was entitled to some counsel fees, since she had the right to litigate effectively the equitable distribution issue).
My colleagues rely on some rather persuasive reasons of policy to support affirmance here. See supra, pp. 9-11. I agree with that discussion in its entirety, and I especially share the majority’s concern that the rule for which Mr. Tydings contends might result in arrangements resembling contingent fees, which should not be encouraged in domestic relations cases. I note, however, that legislatures, not courts, make policy. We are not authorized, as judges, to substitute our own notions of the public good for the views of our elected representatives. Although it is true of statutes, as of contracts, that when they are
susceptible to two constructions — the one working injustice and the other consistent with the right of the case — that one should be favored which standeth with the right,
Noonan v. Bradley, 76 U.S. (9 Wall.) 394, 407, 19 L.Ed. 757 (1869), I think we can reach the point where we make such a choice only after a fair consideration of the statutory language persuades us that the “just” interpretation is a reasonable one. My colleagues have passed rather lightly over the question whether this necessary precondition has been met.
For the reasons described above, I am uncomfortable not so much with the result which this court has reached — it is probably a fair one — as with the route which it has taken to get there. The answer to the central question presented here is derived from cases which focused on other issues, and in which the language now deemed to govern the dispute before us was used without anyone apparently having pressed the point here urged by Mr. Tydings. Although we might infer from the existence of Chief Judge Reilly's separate opinion in Rachal that his colleagues’ failure to join it implied disagreement with it, the majority never really said so. The court’s subsequent citation, in the footnote in Stead-man, of Chief Judge Reilly’s concurrence in Rachal may well have been an approving one; there is certainly nothing to suggest the contrary.
Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that, at least since Rachal, and probably earlier, see Darling v. Darling, 444 A.2d 20, 23 (D.C.1982) and authorities there cited, the courts in this jurisdiction have operated on the assumption that an award of the type here made by Judge Huhn is a permissible one. So far as I can discern, Mr. Tydings is the first litigant to challenge that assumption. Although this court has never squarely decided the issue, what it has said is more favorable to Mrs. Tydings’ position than to that of her former husband. I think it most improbable, though not impossible, that this court would hold in favor of Mr. Tydings’ position en banc. Accordingly, in spite of the misgivings which I have articulated, and in order to avoid conflict with assumptions justifiably based on prior opinions of this court, I am constrained to cast my vote in favor of affirmance.6

. As the court stated in In re Parnell’s Estate, 275 F.Supp. 609, 610 (D.D.C.1967):
[Sjince the District of Columbia derives its common law from Maryland, decisions of the Court of Appeals of Maryland which have not been determined by the Court of Appeals for this Circuit are of great weight, and perhaps of greater weight than decisions of the courts of other states.
The award of a counsel fee in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in Rosenberg v. Rosenberg, 64 Md.App. 487, 505, 497 A.2d 485, 510 (1985), cited by the majority at 9 n. 3, was made under a statute which, unlike D.C.Code § 16-911(a), separately authorizes both suit money and counsel fees. Md. Family Law Code Ann. §§ 11-110(a)(3)(l) and (11). I question whether the same result would be reached under a statute solely authorizing an award of suit money, including counsel fees, to enable a spouse to conduct her case.

. In suggesting that Judge Reilly meant only that the husband should not be required to pay the wife's counsel fee in its entirety, my colleagues fail to consider a good deal of what he wrote.

. I have no quarrel with the decisions of Judges Kennedy and Burgess awarding certain sums pendente lite so that Mrs. Tydings, whose resources were then quite limited, could litigate a complex case. Judge Kennedy viewed the identical award as an "advancement” which the trial court could take into account after trial. Judge Huhn’s decision, however, authorizes Mrs. Tyd-ings to receive $104,872 over and above the $50,000 originally advanced to her, and she is to receive this sum at a time when the equitable distribution ordered by the court has assured that she is now a very wealthy woman.

. As the Supreme Court stated in Armour & Co. v. Wantock, 323 U.S. 126, 132-33, 65 S.Ct. 165, 168, 89 L.Ed. 118 (1944),
It is timely again to remind counsel that words of our opinions are to be read in the light of the facts of the order under discussion. To keep opinions within reasonable bounds precludes writing into them every limitation or variation which might be sug-
gested by the circumstances of cases not before the Court. General expressions transposed to other facts are often misleading.

. But see Borakove v. Borakove, 116 A.D.2d 683, 684, 498 N.Y.S.2d 5, 6 (2d Dept. 1986) ("the sufficiency of one spouse's financial means will not, standing alone, preclude an award of counsel fees").

. I readily join in part III of the majority opinion.