Burkart v. Burkart

945 N.E.2d 557, 191 Ohio App. 3d 169
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedNovember 4, 2010
DocketNo. 10AP-314
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 945 N.E.2d 557 (Burkart v. Burkart) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Burkart v. Burkart, 945 N.E.2d 557, 191 Ohio App. 3d 169 (Ohio Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

Klatt, Judge.

{¶ 1} Defendant-appellant, James I. Burkart, appeals from a judgment of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, Division of Domestic Relations, that modified the amount of monthly spousal support that he owes to plaintiffappellee, Gail P. Burkart. Gail cross-appeals from the same judgment, and she also appeals the judgment denying her March 9, 2009 motion to compel. Because the trial court lacked jurisdiction to decide James’s motion for modification, we vacate the judgment granting that motion. We reverse the judgment denying Gail’s motion to compel.

{¶ 2} The trial court granted the parties a divorce in an agreed judgment entry decree of divorce filed January 3, 2002. The divorce decree stated:

Commencing January 1, 2002, [James] shall pay, as and for spousal support, the sum of $5,300.00 per month * * *. The Court shall retain jurisdiction to modify this spousal support provision.

(Emphasis sic.) Within ten months of the entry of the divorce decree, James moved for a modification of his spousal-support obligation. James asked the trial court to reduce the amount that he owed in spousal support because the income he received through his landscape architectural business had “substantially declined given the nature of the economy, especially after September 11, 2001.”

{¶ 3} A magistrate conducted an evidentiary hearing on James’s motion on June 22, 2004. Over a year later, the magistrate issued her decision. First, the [172]*172magistrate found that James’s income had dropped significantly since the parties’ divorce. According to the magistrate, James had earned approximately $190,000 in 2001, but in 2003 he had earned only $80,263. Second, the magistrate found that Gail had not presented sufficient evidence to prove that James’s decline in income was contemplated at the time of the divorce. Third, after considering the R.C. 3105.18(C)(1) factors, the magistrate concluded that a decrease in the amount of spousal support to $2,239 per month was reasonable and appropriate.

{¶ 4} Gail objected to the magistrate’s decision. In an October 24, 2006 judgment entry, the trial court sustained some of Gail’s objections and overruled others. The trial court held that the magistrate had erred in calculating James’s 2003 income. The trial court found that in 2003, James had taken a $33,000 shareholder’s draw from James Burkart Associates, Inc. (“JBA”), the S corporation through which James operated his landscape architectural business. The trial court characterized the $33,000 withdrawal as gross income, and it added that amount to the wages and benefits that James received from JBA to arrive at James’s 2003 income. Combining James’s gross wages, estimated yearly benefits, profit from JBA, and the $33,000 withdrawal from JBA, the trial court concluded that James’s 2003 income totaled $131,565.64.

{¶ 5} Although the trial court’s calculation of James’s 2003 income exceeded the magistrate’s calculation, the trial court concurred with the magistrate’s determination that James had suffered a substantial decline in income. Additionally, the trial court deemed credible James’s testimony that he did not foresee the decline in income at the time of the divorce. Finally, after considering the amount of each party’s income and the parties’ relative earning abilities, the trial court modified the spousal-support award to $3,530 per month.

{¶ 6} James appealed the trial court’s judgment to this court, and he argued that the trial court erred in attributing the $33,000 withdrawal to him as income. Burkart v. Burkart, 173 Ohio App.3d 252, 2007-Ohio-3992, 878 N.E.2d 41. James contended that the $33,000 withdrawal was not income but a partial repayment of a loan that James had previously extended to JBA. We concluded that the trial court abused its discretion when it assumed that the $33,000 withdrawal came from JBA’s gross receipts via proceeds JBA had received from customers. Id. at ¶ 24-25. Because conjecture is an improper basis on which to compute a party’s income, we remanded the matter “to ensure that the trial court [was] not awarding [Gail] more spousal support than it would have awarded in the absence of conjecture concerning the $33,000 draw.” Id. at ¶ 25.

{¶ 7} Upon remand, Gail filed a motion for contempt, asserting that James was in contempt of court for failing to pay her the full amount of spousal support set in the divorce decree. As Gail pointed out in this March 9, 2009 motion, James had admitted to unilaterally reducing the amount of the spousal-support pay[173]*173ments to approximately $2,000 per month beginning in January 2003.1 Gail requested that the trial court find James in contempt for underpaying; she also asked the court to set the amount of the arrearage that James owed. Additionally, Gail sought interest on the arrearage and an award of her costs and expenses in defending against the motion for modification.

{¶ 8} On September 1, 2009, the trial court conducted a hearing on the issues raised by the remand and Gail’s motion for contempt. Both James and Gail presented evidence during that hearing. On March 9, 2010, the trial court issued a judgment that reconsidered Gail’s objections to the magistrate’s decision and ruled on Gail’s contempt motion. In deciding the objections, the trial court relied on evidence of the parties’ incomes in 2006, 2007, and 2008, instead of the 2001, 2002, and 2003 income figures that formed the basis of the October 24, 2006 judgment. Using the more recent yearly incomes, the trial court set James’s spousal-support obligation at $3,120.38 per month.

{¶ 9} With regard to Gail’s motion in contempt, the trial court concluded that it lacked a valid basis on which to find James in contempt of court. Thus, the trial court denied the motion. The trial court did not address the existence or amount of any arrearage, and it did not rule on Gail’s request for costs and expenses.

{¶ 10} Both James and Gail now appeal from the trial court’s March 9, 2010 judgment. James assigns the following errors:

[ 1] The trial court erred in setting the level of spousal support effective November 1, 2002 based upon the court’s averaging determination of defendant’s income for the years 2006, 2007, and 2008.
[ 2] The trial court erred in setting the level of spousal support by applying the percentage of the original support order as representing the defendant’s 2003 income without considering or addressing the criteria mandated in Ohio Revised Code § 3105.18(C)(1).

{¶ 11} On cross-appeal, Gail assigns the following errors:

1. The trial court erred by not ruling on whether it had jurisdiction to consider cross appellee’s motion to modify spousal support. The trial court had no such jurisdiction. Mandelbaum v. Mandelbaum (2009), 121 Ohio St.3d 433, 2009-Ohio-1222, 905 N.E.2d 172.
[174]*1742. The trial court erred by failing to specifically determine cross appellee’s 2003 income and make specific findings as to how the court arrived at said determination especially with respect to a $33,000.00 payment cross appellee received in that year.
3.

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Bluebook (online)
945 N.E.2d 557, 191 Ohio App. 3d 169, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/burkart-v-burkart-ohioctapp-2010.