Marriage of Keating v. Keating

444 N.W.2d 605, 1989 Minn. App. LEXIS 948, 1989 WL 98678
CourtCourt of Appeals of Minnesota
DecidedAugust 29, 1989
DocketC6-89-399
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 444 N.W.2d 605 (Marriage of Keating v. Keating) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Marriage of Keating v. Keating, 444 N.W.2d 605, 1989 Minn. App. LEXIS 948, 1989 WL 98678 (Mich. Ct. App. 1989).

Opinions

OPINION

HUSPENI, Judge.

The parties entered into a stipulation defining the amount and term of maintenance payments owed to wife. Prior to the end of the term, wife’s motion for modification of the maintenance award was granted. Husband brought a motion to reconsider in light of Karon v. Karon, 435 N.W.2d 501 (Minn.1989). The trial court denied husband’s motion and he appeals therefrom. We affirm.

[606]*606FACTS

Appellant Edward Keating and respondent Donna Keating were married on November 7, 1953, and the decree of dissolution was entered on July 2, 1981. The parties were 56 and 53 years old respectively in 1981 when they stipulated that respondent would receive maintenance as follows: $1,200.00 per month for 24 months; $1,000.00 per month for the next 24 months; and $500 per month for 48 months, with payments terminating in August 1989.

The critical provisions of the 1981 decree read as follows:

Upon fulfilling the obligation of spousal maintenance as set forth hereinabove, each of the parties waives any claim to additional spousal maintenance from the other, which waiver shall be complete and final as of the times referred to herein and in all other respects.

The decree further read:

That each party hereto has released the other of and from any and all claims, demands, actions, causes of action, or obligations of any and every nature whatsoever, past, present or future, growing out of or arising from the marital relationship between the parties, except such claims, demands, actions, causes of action, or obligations which are provided for herein or may arise hereunder.

On August 16, 1988, respondent brought a motion seeking to extend the duration of the maintenance payments and to increase the amount. The trial court granted respondent’s motion and ordered permanent monthly maintenance payments of $1,200.00, retroactive to May 11, 1988, the date of service of respondent’s motion upon appellant. An amended decree was filed December 6, 1988.

Appellant’s motion to reconsider the maintenance modification in light of the supreme court’s January 30, 1989 release of Karon v. Karon, 435 N.W.2d 501 (Minn.1989) was denied and he appeals from the amended decree.

ISSUES

1. Did the trial court have jurisdiction to alter appellant’s maintenance payments?

2. If the trial court had jurisdiction, was it permitted only to increase the amount of temporary maintenance payments and not to extend the payments by granting permanent maintenance?

3. Did the trial court err in awarding monthly maintenance of $1,200?

ANALYSIS

1. Respondent’s motion to modify the maintenance award was brought pursuant to Minn.Stat. § 518.64, subd. 1 (1988) which reads in pertinent part:

After an order for maintenance or support money, temporary or permanent, * * * the court may from time to time, * * * modify the order respecting the amount of maintenance or support money, and the payment of it, * * * and may make an order respecting these matters which it might have made in the original proceeding, except as herein otherwise provided.

Section 518.64 gives the trial court continuing jurisdiction over dissolution proceedings and enables it to modify prior orders. However, appellant claims that Minn.Stat. § 518.64 notwithstanding, the waiver language of the parties’ stipulation prevented the trial court from exercising continuing jurisdiction over the maintenance issue. We cannot agree and find appellant’s reliance upon Karon v. Karon, 435 N.W.2d 501 (Minn.1989) to be misplaced.

In Karon the parties stipulated that husband would make periodically decreasing maintenance payments for ten years. Within the Karons’ stipulated decree was the following language:

Except for the aforesaid maintenance, each party waives and is forever barred from receiving any spousal maintenance whatsoever from one another, and this court is divested from having any jurisdiction whatsoever to award temporary or permanent spousal maintenance to either of the parties.

Karon, 435 N.W.2d at 502.

In Karon, respondent’s motion to increase maintenance and to make it perma[607]*607nent was brought within the temporary maintenance period. The motion was granted by the trial court. The supreme court reversed, holding that the terms of the original decree denied the trial court any further jurisdiction over the matter.

The Karon court defined the issue as: whether one of the. adult parties to a stipulation in a dissolution matter made in 1981, which was approved by the trial court and which settled all issues, including maintenance, and which further provided that the parties expressly waived any right to maintenance except as provided in the original agreement, may now re-open the issue of maintenance to seek an increase therein.

Karon at 503. The supreme court continued:

Phrased in other words, we must decide whether the district court properly divested itself of jurisdiction over the issue in 1981. We hold that it did.

Id. (emphasis added).

In the present case, appellant argues that, as in Karon, the parties’ waiver was sufficient to divest the trial court of jurisdiction.' He further contends that in 1981 the Minnesota Supreme Court had already precluded modification of a maintenance award after the maintenance term expired. See Eckert v. Eckert, 299 Minn. 120, 126-27, 216 N.W.2d 837, 841 (1974), and therefore the parties’ stipulation must have been intended to do more than merely waive the right to maintenance after August 1989. We cannot agree with either position set forth by appellant.

In Karon the stipulation contained both an immediate waiver of maintenance and specific language stating that the court was divested of jurisdiction. This court recently applied Karon and upheld a stipulated waiver of maintenance modification which had been incorporated into the dissolution decree. In Berens v. Berens, 443 N.W.2d 558, 563 (Minn.Ct.App.1989), the decree provided:

[Joanne ] expressly waives all rights to modification of the maintenance ordered herein including but not limited to her rights under Minnesota Statutes § 518.64 for modifications of orders and decrees.

(Emphasis added in Berens.) On appeal from the trial court’s denial of Joanne Ber-ens’ motion to modify maintenance, this court stated:

Under Karon, either a binding contractual waiver or express language of divestment, when entered by a trial court, leads to a final judgment preventing the court from hearing future modification motions. Karon, 435 N.W.2d at 503. Here, the trial court entered Joanne’s express waiver as part of its findings and decree.

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Marriage of Keating v. Keating
444 N.W.2d 605 (Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 1989)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
444 N.W.2d 605, 1989 Minn. App. LEXIS 948, 1989 WL 98678, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/marriage-of-keating-v-keating-minnctapp-1989.