Marriage of Tajmirriahi

• Court: Colorado Court of Appeals
• Decided: September 25, 2025
• Docket: 24CA2224
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

24CA2224 Marriage of Tajmirriahi 09-25-2025

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 24CA2224 Arapahoe County District Court No. 13DR32 Honorable Christine A. Washburn, Judge

In re the Marriage of

Mehdi Tajmirriahi,

Appellant,

and

Shokooh Shirani,

Appellee.

ORDER AFFIRMED AND CASE REMANDED WITH DIRECTIONS

Division VI Opinion by JUDGE GOMEZ Welling and Sullivan, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced September 25, 2025

Modern Family Law, Sydney D. Kossow, Denver, Colorado, for Appellant

Altitude Family Law, P.C., Daniel Zarnowski, Littleton, Colorado, for Appellee ¶1 Mehdi Tajmirriahi (husband) appeals the district court’s order

overruling his objection to, and entering judgment on, a verified

entry of support judgment filed by Shokooh Shirani (wife). We

affirm the order and remand the case for further proceedings

concerning wife’s request for appellate attorney fees.

I. Background

¶2 The parties’ marriage of approximately ten years was dissolved

in June 2013. In February 2014, the parties’ separation agreement

was adopted as an order of the court. The separation agreement

allocated wife the marital home (Elkhart) plus an additional

property.

¶3 The separation agreement did not award either party

maintenance, but it included a handwritten addition, signed by the

magistrate, stating that “wife reserves the right to request

maintenance once [h]usband and her separate” and that “[t]his

must be requested w/in 60 days of that occurrence.” And indeed,

despite the dissolution of their marriage, the parties continued to

cohabitate at Elkhart until at least 2016.

¶4 In December 2014, the parties jointly executed and filed a

“Stipulated Motion for ap[p]rove this one,” stating: “[W]e are agree to

1 I Mehdi Tajmirriahi give Shookoh the 50% I do have of [Elkhart].

And so give her $1[,]000.00 a month.” The magistrate adopted the

stipulation as an order.

¶5 About nine years later, wife filed the underlying verified entry

of support judgment, seeking the entry of a judgment consisting of

$109,000 in principal and $49,382.81 in interest based on

husband’s failure to make the $1,000 monthly payments. Husband

filed an objection, but after a hearing, the district court overruled

his objection and entered judgment in favor of wife.

II. Jurisdiction

¶6 Husband first contends that the district court lacked

jurisdiction to enter the support judgment in favor of wife because

the court didn’t reserve jurisdiction over maintenance when it

dissolved the parties’ marriage. We disagree.

A. Preservation

¶7 As a preliminary matter, we reject wife’s contention that

husband’s challenge to the district court’s jurisdiction, which we

interpret to be a challenge to the court’s subject matter jurisdiction,

is unpreserved because he failed to previously raise the issue. It is

well established that a challenge to a court’s subject matter

2 jurisdiction may be raised at any stage of the proceedings, and thus

we may consider husband’s contention. See Town of Carbondale v.

GSS Props., LLC, 169 P.3d 675, 681 (Colo. 2007); In re Marriage of

Dunkle, 194 P.3d 462, 466 (Colo. App. 2008).

B. Applicable Version of Section 14-10-114

¶8 In challenging the district court’s jurisdiction, husband cites

both section 14-10-114(2), C.R.S. 2025, governing requests for

maintenance, and section 14-10-114(3)(g), governing the district

court’s reservation of jurisdiction to address maintenance at a later

time. But section 14-10-114(9) provides:

The provisions of this section apply only to actions in which a petition for dissolution of marriage . . . is filed on or after January 1, 2014. Actions filed before January 1, 2014, are determined pursuant to the provisions of this section as it existed at the time of the filing of the action.

¶9 Here, the petition for dissolution was filed in 2013, and so we

apply the statutory provisions of section 14-10-114, C.R.S. 2013.

Accordingly, any later references to section 14-10-114 in this

opinion are to the 2013 version of that section, unless noted

otherwise.

3 C. Subject Matter Jurisdiction

¶ 10 Husband argues that the adoption of the parties’ December

2014 stipulation, requiring him to pay wife $1,000 per month, was

of no effect because the court failed to sufficiently reserve

jurisdiction over maintenance when it adopted the parties’

separation agreement. Thus, according to husband, the district

court lacked jurisdiction to enter a support judgment based on that

stipulation. We disagree because we conclude that the language of

the separation agreement, as adopted by the court, sufficiently

reserved jurisdiction over maintenance.

1. Legal Standards

¶ 11 Subject matter jurisdiction concerns a court’s authority to deal

with the class of cases in which it renders judgment. In re Marriage

of Stroud, 631 P.2d 168, 170 (Colo. 1981); Dunkle, 194 P.3d at 466.

A lack of subject matter jurisdiction means that a court has no

power to hear a case or enter a judgment. Currier v. Sutherland,

218 P.3d 709, 714 (Colo. 2009). “It is the authority to decide a

case, not the correctness of the decision, which makes up

jurisdiction.” Dunkle, 194 P.3d at 466 (quoting Paine, Webber,

Jackson & Curtis, Inc. v. Adams, 718 P.2d 508, 513 (Colo. 1986).

4 We review issues of subject matter jurisdiction de novo. In re

Parental Resps. Concerning C.E.S.K., 2025 COA 51, ¶ 17.

2. Discussion

¶ 12 District courts possess subject matter jurisdiction over all civil

cases, which includes dissolution of marriage actions. Colo. Const.

art. VI, § 9.

¶ 13 District courts also possess certain statutory authority to

make and modify maintenance awards. Specifically, section 14-10-

106(1)(b), C.R.S. 2025, mandates, as pertinent here, that the

district court, “[i]n connection with every decree of dissolution of

marriage . . . and to the extent of its jurisdiction to do so, . . . shall

consider, approve, or allocate . . . the maintenance of either

spouse.” Section 14-10-114(3) provides, in part, that in a

proceeding for dissolution of marriage, the court may enter an

initial maintenance order at the time of permanent orders after

making certain specified findings. And section 14-10-122(1)(a),

C.R.S. 2025, authorizes the court to later modify “the provisions of

any decree respecting maintenance” upon a showing of changed

circumstances so substantial and continuing as to make the terms

of the existing maintenance arrangement unfair.

5 ¶ 14 While section 14-10-114(3)(g), C.R.S. 2025, now governs the

reservation of jurisdiction over initial maintenance determinations,

section 14-10-114, as it existed in 2013, was silent as to the

reservation of jurisdiction over maintenance after the entry of

permanent orders. We nevertheless consider husband’s argument

that the district court did not sufficiently reserve jurisdiction to

establish maintenance under cases predating the current version of

section 14-10-114, such as In re Marriage of Caufman, 829 P.2d

501 (Colo. App. 1992). For purposes of our analysis, we assume,

without deciding, that the word “jurisdiction” as used in Caufman

means subject matter jurisdiction.

¶ 15 In Caufman, 829 P.2d at 504, a division of this court held that

a district court may reserve jurisdiction to establish or modify

maintenance under the standards then laid out in section 14-10-

114 if

(1) at the time of permanent orders, an important contingency exists, the outcome of which may significantly affect the amount or duration of the maintenance award; (2) the contingency is based upon an ascertainable, future event or events; and (3) the contingency can be resolved within a reasonable and specific period of time.

6 See also In re Marriage of Folwell, 910 P.2d 91, 93 (Colo. App. 1995)

(a district court may retain jurisdiction over maintenance under

section 14-10-114 if, among other things, the court explicitly states

its intent to reserve jurisdiction); In re Marriage of Mirise, 673 P.2d

803, 804 (Colo. App. 1983) (a district court may expressly reserve

jurisdiction to review, adjust, or extend maintenance under section

14-10-114 based upon a specified future event).

¶ 16 Caufman further provided that if the district court intends to

reserve jurisdiction over maintenance, the court should

(1) state its intent to do so on the record; (2) briefly outline its reasons for doing so, that is, state the ascertainable future event or events upon which the reservation of maintenance jurisdiction is based; and (3) set forth a reasonably specific future time within which maintenance may be reconsidered under § 14-10-114.

829 P.2d at 504.

¶ 17 Absent the district court reserving jurisdiction over

maintenance in permanent orders, any later review of maintenance

is under the standards for modification of maintenance set forth in

section 14-10-122(1)(a). Caufman, 829 P.2d at 504; Folwell, 910

P.2d at 93.

7 ¶ 18 Here, we conclude that the handwritten addition to the parties’

February 2014 separation agreement, as adopted as an order of the

court, was sufficient to reserve jurisdiction over maintenance.

Specifically, the handwritten addition (1) reserved the determination

of wife’s request for maintenance, if any, for a future date;

(2) identified the parties’ separation as an ascertainable future event

upon which the reservation of jurisdiction over maintenance was

based; and (3) provided a sixty-day window after the parties’

separation as a reasonably specific timeframe to reconsider

maintenance. See Caufman, 829 P.2d at 504.

¶ 19 We reject husband’s assertion that the handwritten addition

was insufficient to reserve jurisdiction over maintenance because it

states that wife as opposed to the court reserves the right to request

maintenance. To start, the parties’ entire separation agreement was

adopted by a magistrate as an order of the court, meaning that the

agreement’s provisions were effectively the court’s own orders.

¶ 20 Moreover, in an earlier contempt proceeding against husband,

a different magistrate found that the handwritten addition was

inserted and signed by the original magistrate when adopting the

parties’ separation agreement as an order. That the original

8 magistrate specifically inserted and signed such language indicates

that, as a condition of adopting the parties’ separation agreement, it

was the intent of that magistrate to reserve jurisdiction over

maintenance consistent with Caufman, 829 P.2d at 504. Cf. Lay v.

Lay, 425 P.2d 704, 707 (Colo. 1967) (the parties may agree for the

court to retain jurisdiction over maintenance or the court, “as a

condition to approval of [a separation] agreement, may reserve such

power to itself”).

¶ 21 At no point did husband seek further review of the finding that

the original magistrate handwrote and signed the addition to the

separation agreement, and because our review of the writing and

signatures in the separation agreement supports that finding, we

decline to disturb it. See In re Marriage of Evans, 2021 COA 141,

¶ 39 (deferring to a lower court’s findings unless they are clearly

erroneous, meaning that they have no support in the record).

¶ 22 Husband also asserts that, even if the court initially reserved

jurisdiction over maintenance, the court nevertheless couldn’t have

adopted the parties’ December 2014 stipulation for husband to pay

wife $1,000 per month because that stipulation occurred two years

before the parties’ 2016 separation. Thus, husband argues that the

9 court’s adoption of that stipulation and later entry of the support

judgment were inconsistent with the terms of the separation

agreement, which required wife to request maintenance once the

parties separated and within sixty days of that separation. We

disagree because the supreme court has indicated that a

reservation of jurisdiction over maintenance may “be modified by

the subsequent agreement of the parties.” Lay, 425 P.2d at 707.

And here, the parties jointly executed and submitted a stipulation

in which husband agreed to pay wife $1,000 per month, even

though they hadn’t yet separated, effectively modifying that

contingency from the separation agreement. See id.

¶ 23 In sum, we are satisfied that the district court reserved

jurisdiction over maintenance under section 14-10-114 via the

original magistrate’s adoption of the separation agreement.

Therefore, the court retained jurisdiction to adopt the December

2014 stipulation requiring husband to pay wife $1,000 per month

and had jurisdiction to enter the subsequent support judgment.

III. Mortgage Payments as Offsetting any Maintenance Arrearage

¶ 24 Husband next argues that the district court erred by refusing

to offset approximately $90,000 in payments that he made towards

10 the mortgage on Elkhart against his maintenance arrearage.

According to husband, the district court should’ve found that his

payment of the Elkhart mortgage from the time of the parties’

divorce through 2020 satisfied his maintenance obligation. We are

not persuaded.

¶ 25 In entering judgment in favor of wife, the district court found

that there was “no credible evidence of an agreement between the

parties that [h]usband would make the mortgage payments in lieu

of paying [w]ife $1,000 directly in support.”

¶ 26 We perceive no error. The parties’ December 2014 stipulation

did not require husband to pay the mortgage but instead required

him to “give [wife] $1[,]000.00 a month.” Therefore, by the

stipulation’s plain language, husband was required to pay wife, as

opposed to some third party, $1,000 per month. See Ad Two, Inc. v.

City & County of Denver, 9 P.3d 373, 376 (Colo. 2000) (requiring us

to construe the terms of an agreement in accordance with their

plain and generally accepted meanings). If the parties had intended

for husband to pay the mortgage in lieu of the $1,000 monthly

payments to wife, the stipulation could’ve stated so, and we may

not otherwise rewrite the terms of the parties’ agreement. See In re

11 Marriage of Stokes, 608 P.2d 824, 829 (Colo. App. 1979) (“Courts

cannot rewrite contracts or add terms thereto.”). Moreover, to the

extent that any parol evidence could have provided a basis for the

court to conclude otherwise, we certainly cannot say that the court

clearly erred in declining to do so based on its assessment of the

evidence it heard. See Evans, ¶ 39.

¶ 27 We also reject husband’s assertion that the entry of the

support judgment was unjust because it effectively enforced a

maintenance term exceeding the guideline maintenance term of four

years and eight months. Because the proceeding was initiated

before January 1, 2014, the maintenance guidelines establishing an

advisory maintenance term based on the length of the parties’

marriage don’t apply here. See § 14-10-114(9), C.R.S. 2025.

¶ 28 And while husband otherwise asserts in a conclusory fashion

that the entry of the support judgment created an unjust result, he

hasn’t provided us with any legal authority suggesting that the

entry of a support judgment may be denied on such grounds. See

Woodbridge Condo. Ass’n, Inc. v. Lo Viento Blanco, LLC, 2020 COA

34, ¶ 44 (declining to consider undeveloped, conclusory contentions

made without supporting argument or authority). Nor has husband

12 directed us to any information in the record concerning the parties’

respective financial circumstances to support his contention that

the entry of a support judgment in wife’s favor created an unfair

result. See Brighton Sch. Dist. 27J v. Transamerica Premier Ins. Co.,

923 P.2d 328, 335 (Colo. App. 1996) (“[I]t is not the duty of the

reviewing court to search the record for evidence to support bald

assertions.”), aff’d, 940 P.2d 348 (Colo. 1997).

¶ 29 We lastly reject as unpreserved husband’s attempt to

characterize the payments in the December 2014 stipulation as

something other than maintenance. In the joint trial management

certificate and at the hearing, despite maintaining that his payment

of the mortgage should satisfy his obligation, husband consistently

characterized the $1,000 per month that he was to pay wife as

maintenance or spousal support. See In re Marriage of Ensminger,

209 P.3d 1163, 1167 (Colo. App. 2008) (“Arguments not presented

at trial cannot be raised for the first time on appeal.”).

IV. Appellate Attorney Fees

¶ 30 Asserting that husband’s appeal is without substantial

justification and is otherwise frivolous, wife requests an award of

her attorney fees incurred on appeal. See § 13-17-102, C.R.S.

13 2025. However, we do not view his appeal as frivolous such that an

award of appellate attorney fees is appropriate. We therefore deny

wife’s request.

¶ 31 Wife also requests an award of her appellate attorney fees

under section 14-10-119, C.R.S. 2025, due to the alleged disparities

between the parties’ respective economic circumstances. Because

the district court is better equipped to determine the factual issues

regarding the parties’ current financial resources, we remand the

case for the district court to address this request. See C.A.R. 39.1;

In re Marriage of Schlundt, 2021 COA 58, ¶ 54.

V. Disposition

¶ 32 The order is affirmed and the case is remanded for further

proceedings concerning wife’s request for appellate attorney fees.

JUDGE WELLING and JUDGE SULLIVAN concur.