Brady ex rel. Brady v. Brady

2014 OK CIV APP 76, 335 P.3d 284, 2014 Okla. Civ. App. LEXIS 51
CourtCourt of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedAugust 29, 2014
DocketNo. 111,498
StatusPublished

This text of 2014 OK CIV APP 76 (Brady ex rel. Brady v. Brady) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brady ex rel. Brady v. Brady, 2014 OK CIV APP 76, 335 P.3d 284, 2014 Okla. Civ. App. LEXIS 51 (Okla. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

BAY MITCHELL, Judge.

{1 Respondent/Appellant Patti W. Brady (Wife) appeals the trial court's order granting the Motion to Correct Decree Nune Pro Tune filed on behalf of Michael H. Brady (Husband). The Decree of Dissolution of Marriage ("Decree") was entered June 27, 2011, and the Agreement Incident to Dissolution of Marriage ("Agreement"), incorporated by reference into the Decree, was signed by Wife and Husband June 24, 2011. The Agreement awarded residential property located at 4700 Doral Court, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma ("Doral Court property") to Wife using the following terms:

PROPERTY AWARDED TO WIFE
Residence and contents of the home located at 4700 Doral Court, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, more particularly described as: [legal description],
subject to any indebtedness thereon which Husband shall assume and exonerate and hold Wife harmless therefrom.

T2 Husband married Lynn Mikawa Brady ("Widow") sometime after the Decree was entered. Husband later died August 19, 2012. Widow served as the Personal Representative of Husband's probate estate and was substituted in place of Husband for purposes of the Motion to Correct Decree Nunc Pro Tunc. 1 The record shows Wife paid the mortgage payments on the Doral Court property for at least sixteen months from the date the Decree was entered before filing a creditor's claim in Husband's pending probate action requesting the balance of the mortgage on the Doral Court property ($149,892.13) be paid by Husband's estate.2 As a result of the creditor's claim filed by Wife, Widow sought to have the Agreement corrected through a mune pro tunc order changing the last phrase in the paragraph discussing the Doral Court property to read as follows: "subject to any indebtedness thereon which Wife shall assume and exonerate and hold Husband harmless therefrom." (Emphasis added.)

T3 Widow claimed this correction reflected the true intention and agreement of Husband and Wife regarding the Doral Court property. To support her contention, Widow referenced the written settlement negotiations between Husband and Wife which were included as exhibits attached to Husband's previously filed Motion to Enforce Settlement Agreement and Widow's Motion to Correct Decree Nune Pro Tunc. Widow argued the written settlement negotiations made clear it was never the parties' intentions for Husband to pay the mortgage on the Doral Court property. Husband opened the settlement negotiations with an offer to Wife that she would "receive the [Doral Court property] free and clear of any claim on the part of [Husband] and subject to any indebtedness relating thereto, which she shall assume, exonerate, and hold [Husband] harmless therefrom." Widow argued, while several written counter-offers were exchanged between Husband and Wife regarding the property settlement, no change was ever made or requested regarding the Doral Court property. Widow contended the last clause of the signed Agreement appeared as written due to a simple error of cutting and pasting language, which occurred throughout the Agreement, without changing which party was responsible for the debt.3 Widow also argued the Agreement itself was ambiguous which required the trial court to con[286]*286strue the offending language. Specifically, Widow argued the last two phrases of the paragraph made it unclear whether Wife was awarded the property "subject to any indebtedness thereon" or whether the subsequent phrase required Husband to assume the debt and hold Wife harmless.

¶ 4 Wife objected to the Motion to Correct Decree Nune Pro Tunc on the grounds the change requested was a "substantive" change not available through a nune pro tunc order. Wife argued switching the locations of "Husband" and "Wife" in the last phrase materially altered the property settlement. Wife maintained the requested change was an improper extra-jurisdictional modification to a property settlement contained in a divorcee decree from which no appeal had been taken. After a hearing in front of the trial court, of which no transcription was made, an Order Granting Correction Nune Pro Tune was entered where the trial court specifically found "clerical errors" caused the Agreement to "incorrectly record[-] the agreement of the parties and failed to accurately reflect the intent of the parties in that it appears to place responsibility for payment of the mortgage on [Wife's] Doral Court home upon [Husband]." The trial court also found the ease of Stork v. Stork, 1995 OK 61, 898 P.2d 732, relied on by Wife, to be factually distinguishable from the case at bar. In response, Wife filed her petition in error, and this appeal commenced. On appeal, Wife argues the trial court's ruling resulted in a "substantive" change in the divorce decree which is an inappropriate use of nune pro tune correction. Wife also argued the trial court erred in its interpretation of Stork.

T 5 At the outset, we recognize the Decree, through the incorporation of the Agreement by reference, purports to be both an Agreement between the parties as to the division of property and the trial court's equitable division of property after "having reviewed the pleadings on file ... having reviewed the agreement of the parties, having heard presentations of counsel, testimony of [Husband] and being otherwise fully advised in the premises."

16 The Oklahoma Supreme Court has previously defined the function of an order nune pro tunc.

The function of a nune pro tunc entry is to amend a judgment to make it speak the truth about what actually transpired or was considered and adjudged. Nunc pro tunc relief is limited to supplying inadvertent clerical omission and correcting facial mistakes in recording judicial acts that actually took place. In short, a nune pro tunc order can and will place of record what was actually decided by the court but was incorrectly recorded. The device may neither be invoked as a vehicle to review a judgment (or to excise legal errors found in it) nor as a means to enter a different judgments [sic ]. Stork v. Stork, 1995 OK 61, ¶ 7, 898 P.2d 732 (footnotes omitted) (emphasis original). .

"[The test is whether the mistake related to something the court did not consider and pass upon, or considered and erroneously decided, in which case the error would be a judicial error and not subject to correction, or whether there was a failure to preserve or correctly report in the record in all respects the actual decision of the court, in which event it would be a clerical error, and subject to correction." Youngblood v. Stephens, 1949 OK 57, ¶ 8, 201 Okla. 301, 205 P.2d 279. Orders nunc pro tune should be granted when the evidence "conclusively" shows the original judgment sought to be corrected did not reflect the true judgment rendered by the court,. Id. at 110; Feagin v. Fife, 1946 OK 324, ¶ 19, 198 Oka. 57, 175 P.2d 81.

17 We find no support for Wife's argument nunc pro tunc orders cannot substantively change a previous ruling. "[The true function of a nune pro tunc order is to make the record speak the truth relative to the judgment or order," Youngblood, 1949 OK 57, ¶ 9, 205 P.2d 279 (internal citations omitted), which could certainly encompass a substantive change.

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Related

Davidson v. Gregory
780 P.2d 679 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1989)
Stork v. Stork
898 P.2d 732 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1995)
Feagin v. Fife
1946 OK 324 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1946)
Youngblood v. Stephens
1949 OK 57 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1949)

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Bluebook (online)
2014 OK CIV APP 76, 335 P.3d 284, 2014 Okla. Civ. App. LEXIS 51, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brady-ex-rel-brady-v-brady-oklacivapp-2014.