Moore v. Moore

917 So. 2d 1126, 2005 WL 3445562
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedNovember 2, 2005
Docket05-0290
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 917 So. 2d 1126 (Moore v. Moore) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Moore v. Moore, 917 So. 2d 1126, 2005 WL 3445562 (La. Ct. App. 2005).

Opinion

917 So.2d 1126 (2005)

Donna C. MOORE
v.
Charles L. MOORE, Jr.

No. 05-0290.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Third Circuit.

November 2, 2005.

*1128 C. Kerry Anderson, Anderson & Anderson, DeRidder, Counsel for Plaintiff/ Appellee: Donna C. Moore.

Kathleen Kay, Attorney at Law, Lake Charles, Counsel for Defendant/Appellant: Charles L. Moore, Jr.

Court composed of JOHN D. SAUNDERS, JIMMIE C. PETERS, and BILLY H. EZELL, Judges.

PETERS, J.

This appeal arises from a judgment partitioning the community property formerly existing between Charles L. Moore, Jr., and Donna C. Moore. Mr. Moore has appealed certain aspects of the judgment, and Mrs. Moore has answered the appeal. For the following reasons, we affirm.

DISCUSSION OF THE RECORD

Charles L. Moore, Jr., and Donna C. Moore were married on April 23, 1978. On June 22, 1999, Mrs. Moore filed a petition for divorce, and the parties were divorced by judgment rendered on February 7, 2000, and signed on March 27, 2000. On December 4, 2000, Mrs. Moore filed a petition to partition the community property formerly existing between the parties, and on February 18, 2004, a partition trial was held. On September 16, 2004, the trial court rendered and signed a partition judgment in which it allocated the assets and liabilities between the parties and ordered Mr. Moore to pay Mrs. Moore an equalizing payment of $19,498.34 plus legal interest from February 18, 2004.

Mr. Moore has appealed the judgment, asserting that the trial court erred (1) in its recognition of certain alleged community liabilities assigned to Mrs. Moore and (2) in its award of certain reimbursements to Mrs. Moore. Mrs. Moore has answered the appeal, asserting that the trial court erred (1) in finding that she was not entitled to certain reimbursements and (2) in finding that she was not entitled to prejudgment interest on certain reimbursements awarded to her.

OPINION

MR. MOORE'S APPEAL

On appeal, Mr. Moore challenges the trial court's allocation to Mrs. Moore of certain alleged community liabilities. Specifically, the trial court allocated community liabilities to Mrs. Moore totaling $115,845.31 and to Mr. Moore totaling $29,711.99. The allocation to Mrs. Moore included $108,845.31 in community liabilities to which the trial court determined that the parties had stipulated. Mr. Moore contends that the record does not contain such a stipulation and that Mrs. Moore failed to produce evidence to indicate *1129 that $28,406.57 of the $108,845.31 in community indebtedness even existed. Further, of the community liabilities to which the parties did not allegedly stipulate, the trial court allocated to Mrs. Moore a $7,000.00 debt owed by the Moores to Mrs. Moore's father, Don Wagner. Mr. Moore contends that the $7,000.00 debt had prescribed such that the trial court erred in assigning any value to it.

At the beginning of trial, before the witnesses testified, Mrs. Moore's attorney recited a lengthy stipulation in open court, stating the following, in relevant part, on the record in the presence of the court and Mr. Moore's attorney:

At this time I would offer jointly a document entitled, "Second Amended Unified List of Assets and Debts" in the form of a stipulation between the parties, to help focus the direction of this hearing and reduce the disputed issues.
....
The next page regarding the liabilities, there is a dispute as to Items No. 4 and No. 5, the Bell South bill and the loan owed to Mr. Don Wagner. Otherwise, it is stipulated that the value of the debts assumed by Ms. Moore is $108,845.31. It is agreed that the debts assumed by Mr. Moore are those as listed with a total of $29,711.99.

The trial court acknowledged on the record "a joint stipulation" by the parties, and Mr. Moore's attorney, who the record indicates was present, did not object or otherwise express disapproval of the purported stipulation. The record contains a copy of the "Second Amended Unified List of Assets/Debts" that is file stamped by the deputy clerk of court with the date of the trial, although the document does not contain an exhibit number. In its reasons for judgment as well as the judgment itself, the trial court referred to and relied upon the stipulation.

Nevertheless, Mr. Moore contends that there was no stipulation because the "Second Amended Unified List of Assets/Debts" was unsigned, the document was never offered or accepted into evidence, and the transcript fails to reveal that he or his attorney expressly assented to the stipulation. In support of his position, Mr. Moore cites La.Civ.Code art. 3071, which provides:

A transaction or compromise is an agreement between two or more persons, who, for preventing or putting an end to a lawsuit, adjust their differences by mutual consent, in the manner which they agree on, and which every one of them prefers to the hope of gaining, balanced by the danger of losing.
This contract must be either reduced into writing or recited in open court and capable of being transcribed from the record of the proceeding. The agreement recited in open court confers upon each of them the right of judicially enforcing its performance, although its substance may thereafter be written in a more convenient form.

Mr. Moore also directs this court's attention to Lavan v. Nowell, 98-284 (La.4/24/98), 708 So.2d 1052, for the proposition that a writing may not be transformed into an enforceable compromise by the trial court's admitting that writing into evidence.

Mr. Moore's argument is specious. In Lavan, the supreme court addressed the specific issue of whether a verbal out-of-court agreement between attorneys to settle a personal injury claim, followed by a letter by one attorney outlining the settlement agreed upon, constituted a valid compromise where the opposing attorney, at a hearing to enforce the compromise, admitted that the letter accurately described the *1130 verbal out-of-court agreement. In concluding that the parties had not confected a valid compromise, the court found that there was never any recitation of the verbal agreement in open court and that the letter outlining the agreement was never agreed to in writing by opposing counsel. In that context, the court stated: "A writing that does not satisfy Article 3071 because it is not signed by both parties cannot be transformed into an enforceable compromise simply by the judge's admitting that writing into evidence and then having the parties admit that the writing basically sets forth the settlement verbally agreed to by the parties." Id. at 1053.

Lavan is readily distinguishable from the facts of the instant case. Importantly, unlike the facts in Lavan, the facts of the instant case do not involve merely a verbal agreement reached out of court; rather, the instant case involves a stipulation recited in open court on the record. Moreover, in open court, opposing counsel in Lavan refused to consent to the terms of the out-of-court verbal agreement, whereas in the instant case Mr. Moore's attorney allowed the stipulation to be entered on the record without objection and allowed the stipulation to be accepted by the court. Thus, it is abundantly clear that Mr. Moore, through his attorney, acquiesced in the stipulation. The writing, though not signed, merely evidenced in written form the oral recitation in open court.

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Bluebook (online)
917 So. 2d 1126, 2005 WL 3445562, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/moore-v-moore-lactapp-2005.