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Turner v. Turner9/30/2002
ember 19, 2000, continuing the contempt proceedings and ordering discovery.
Appellant filed another contempt petition on January 16, 2001, in relation to discovery. Thereafter, a judgment was entered against appellee on February 9, 2001, for $350,588, representing the balance of the monetary award due and owing to appellant. On May 9, 2001, approximately ten months after the judgment of divorce was docketed, and about seven months after appellant noted her appeal, Mr. Turner satisfied his obligations as to the monetary award by payment of $361,249.72.
We shall include additional facts in our discussion.
DISCUSSION
I. MOTION TO DISMISS
Appellees have moved to dismiss the entire appeal, claiming that appellant is barred from challenging any aspect of the judgment. They contend that, before and after filing her appeal, Ms. Turner "judicially" sought to enforce the divorce decree by filing three contempt petitions. Because appellant "pursued" and "collected by judicial enforcement" a monetary award in excess of $500,000, appellees argue that appellant "cannot now attack any element of the judgment." Relying on Chimes v. Michael, 131 Md. App. 271, cert. denied, 359 Md. 334 (2000), they argue that appellant "is estopped from seeking to question the validity of the Court's judgment as to all issues...." Interestingly, appellees did not contend that appellant did not need the monetary award for support.
In her opposition, appellant observes that Mr. Turner did not cross-appeal. Thus, she asserts that "the right to the marital award benefit received is conceded by the Appellee...." Ms. Turner also argues that she is not barred from pursuing her appeal because she needed to accept the money from the marital award for "necessary support."
At the time of the divorce decree, appellant was unemployed. Indeed, at that point, the court had just ruled that she was employable, but she had not yet secured employment. She also explains that the court reduced her alimony from $2000 a week to $2000 a month because it believed the marital award would generate sufficient income for her support. Based on Mr. Turner's refusal to pay the monetary award when due, however, appellant maintains that she had "little or no income generated." Indeed, she claims that she was "forced to invade her principal from the marital award to supplement" the court's reduction in her alimony, adding: "The monetary award monies had to be paid in order to provide the bare minimum necessary support monthly to Ms. Turner until the final adjudication by the Appeals Court."
In her brief, Ms. Turner argues:
The Court's ruling on alimony clearly notes that in determining to award alimony of only $2,000.00 per month,...the Court was particularly considering the amount of the monetary award and the estimates provided [as to] the income stream that those assets would generate for Mrs. Turner.... Income from investments to Mrs. Turner of between $68,000.00 and $82,000.00 were necessary to meet the standard of living that the parties had worked so hard to achieve and had jointly maintained during their marriage.
Accordingly, the receipt of the marital award funds and the income hopefully produced by those funds was therefore necessary for Mrs. Turner to apply towards her day-to-day living expenses....
To extend the acquiescence doctrine as Mr. Turner has requested in this Motion where Mrs. Turner needed income from the investments to meet her living expenses would be a travesty of justice.... The monetary award monies had to be paid in order to provide the bare minimum necessary support monthly to Mrs. Turner until the final ad
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