Ohio Case Law Review by Topic: August 1, 2021 through September 30, 2021

Like its state bird, Ohio case law sticks around all year.

Molnar-Satterfield v. Molnar, 2nd Dist. Greene No. 2014-DM-82, 2020-CA-52, 2021-Ohio-2698

Civ. R. 60(B): vacate, timely
Marital Property: ambiguity, retirement benefits (thrift savings plan)
Civ. R. 60(B): fraud

Dated: August 6, 2021
Affirming

As part of their June 2014 dissolution, the parties (both of whom were federal government employees) agreed that, “[t]he Thrift Savings Plan presently in Husband’s name, shall remain in his name and the Wife shall be named as the recipient (beneficiary) thereon.” The parties otherwise agreed that neither would retain any claim on any retirement benefits belonging to the other.

Wife retained new representation in December 2018, and filed a motion to hold Husband in contempt for moving money out of his TSP account, and for not naming her as beneficiary thereof. While the parties are alleged to have reached at an agreement at a subsequent hearing, Wife’s attorney at the time failed to submit an agreed order detailing their terms to the trial court. Wife hired new counsel in October 2019, and was informed that her motion would be dismissed, if an agreed entry was not filed by December 26, 2019. Wife filed a motion for a hearing on contempt, and a Civ. R. 60(B) motion to set aside the decree. The trial court denied the latter, and found against her in the former.

In her first assignment of error, Wife argued that the trial court erred in its denial of her Civ. R. 60(B) motion, and alleged that Husband’s omission of his TSP account in his financial disclosures was a “willful error.”

Civ. R. 60(B) permits a court to relive a party from a final judgment, order, or proceeding for the following reasons:

(1) mistake, inadvertence, surprise or excusable neglect;
(2) newly discovered evidence which by due diligence could not have been discovered in time to move for a new trial under Rule 59(B);
(3) fraud (whether heretofore denominated intrinsic or extrinsic), misrepresentation or other misconduct of an adverse party;
(4) the judgment has been satisfied, released or discharged, or a prior judgment upon which it is based has been reversed or otherwise vacated, or it is no longer equitable that the judgment should have prospective application; or
(5) any other reason justifying relief from the judgment…

To prevail on a Civ.R. 60(B) motion, a party must establish: (1) a meritorious claim or defense to present if the court grants relief; (2) entitlement to relief under one of the grounds stated in Civ.R. 60(B)(1) through (5); and (3) the motion was filed within a reasonable time and, when relying on a ground for relief set forth in Civ.R. 60(B)(1), (2), or (3), it was filed not more than one year after the judgment was entered… If the moving party fails to establish any of these cumulative requirements, the trial court must overrule the motion.

Wife argued she was entitled to relief under Civ. R. 60(B)(5), because Husband’s incomplete financial disclosures constituted ‘fraud upon the court.’ Husband argued, and the Court agreed, that Wife’s claim rightly fell under Civ. R. 60(B)(3) (with its one-year limitation), and not under the more rigid and narrowly defined ‘fraud upon the court.’ The Court noted that the latter “is limited to the more egregious forms of subversion of the legal process,” lest Civ. R. 60(B)(3) would become meaningless.

Citing case law, the Court further noted that ‘fraud upon the court’ may necessarily involve the active participation of an attorney in their role as legal representative of a party, or other officer of the court.

In finding that Wife’s claim was thus barred, the Court further wrote that the facts surrounding it were unlikely to meet the standard for ‘fraud’ under Civ. R. 60(B)(3), even had it been timely made, noting the express provisioning concerning handling of Husband’s TSP account in the parties’ agreement, and Wife’s own financial disclosures. The Court further dismissed Wife’s request for relief under Civ R. 60(B)(4), noting no unforeseen event had made the agreement inequitable, and that Wife’s counsel had simply drafted inadequate language.

In dismissing Wife’s second assignment of error (seeking to hold Husband in contempt), the Court found that he had not been bound under the parties’ agreement to maintain his TSP account, only her status as beneficiary thereof. Noting that Husband had named Wife as beneficiary for his new account, and the ambiguity of the agreement language, the Court found insufficient grounds for contempt, and affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of Wife’s motion.

Reinhold v. Reinhold, 2nd Dist. Miami No. 2010-DR-298, 2020-CA-8, 2021-CA-1, 2021-Ohio-2786

Civ. R. 60(B)
Spousal Support: modification (change in circumstances)
ORC 3105.171(I): prohibition on modification

Dated: August 13, 2021
Affirming

Husband and Wife married in 1984, and enjoyed a high income from Husband’s pediatric practice until he was criminally charged for possession of child pornography in 2007. In their 2011 divorce, Wife was awarded a lump sum amount of spousal support: $27,500. The small award was made necessary by the parties’ greatly diminished income, which had been almost wholly derived from Husband’s now-closed medical practice. Noting that Husband eventually stood to receive a substantial sum from a family trust, the trial court wrote:

[T]he [trial court] retains jurisdiction over the issue of spousal support for an indefinite period of time because [Husband’s] criminal misconduct caused his loss of employment and because he is the beneficiary under a trust where he could receive over $1,000,000.00 during his lifetime.

Upon Husband’s receipt of the trust proceeds, Wife filed a motion to modify the award of spousal support, but Husband successfully argued that the trial court lacked jurisdiction under ORC 3105.18(E), because the decree had awarded a lump sum, and not periodic payments of spousal support. Wife’s subsequent Civ. R. 60(B) motion was overruled, and her appeal followed.

In her first assignment of error, Wife argued the trial court erred in overruling her motion to modify spousal support, noting changes and alleged inconsistencies in the Court’s application of ORC 3105.18(E) in case law over time. Under ORC 3105.18, a trial court does not have jurisdiction to modify periodic payments of spousal support, unless certain conditions are met. In its ruling the Court attempted to parse its varying prior applications of ORC 3105.18, and noted the existence of a continued split among some Ohio appellate courts related to whether jurisdiction may be retained to modify an award of spousal support when no spousal support was initially awarded.

In dismissing Wife’s first assignment of error, the Court wrote that -despite its previous rulings allowing modification of spousal support in matters where no such support had been assigned- its more relevant ruling in Ransdell v. Ransdell, 2nd Dist. Montgomery No. 25831, 2014-Ohio-3001 (in which spousal support had been awarded in a lump sum), held that a trial court could not retain jurisdiction to modify spousal support post-decree when such support had been initially awarded in a lump sum.

Wife argued that Ransdell had changed case law as it existed at the time of her divorce, and did not control in part for lack of citation to previous cases that supported her argument.

While we acknowledge Aylstock’s holding, and the argument about the inconsistency of our jurisprudence, Aylstock and other cases [Wife] cites are unlike Ransdell and the present case in one key respect: no spousal support at all had been previously awarded in Aylstock, either in gross or as a continuing order of periodic payments. Conversely, in Ransdell and this case, a lump-sum amount was awarded as spousal support. Our decision is to follow the latest and more specific case on the subject which is Ransdell, finding no jurisdiction to later consider a spousal support award in periodic payments where in the decree a lump sum award was made but an award in installments was not…

Following arguments in this matter, Wife filed a notice of supplemental authority, citing Ostanek v. Ostanek, which is the subject of several posts on this blog, and relates to trial courts’ continuing jurisdiction over marital property issues, and whether said continuing jurisdiction makes orders void or voidable. Noting the ruling in Ostanek concerned marital property, only, the Court wrote it “did not directly apply,” and overruled Wife’s first assignment of error.

In her second assignment of error, Wife argued that the trial court erred in overruling her Civ. R. 60(B) motion for relief from judgment. The Court overruled her as well, finding that ORC 3105.18 was the only proper venue for modifying spousal support, and that Civ. R. 60(B) could not be used to effect such a change in its stead.

Clemens v. Clemens, 5th Dist. Morgan No. 19DR0133, 21 AP 0001, 2021-Ohio-3094

Marital Property: retirement benefits (ohio deferred compensation)

Dated: September 7, 2021
Affirming in Part, Reversing and Remanding in Part

The parties married in 2014, and began divorce proceedings in 2019. A Guardian Ad Litem was appointed, and Wife was designated the residential parent and legal guardian of two minor children of the marriage. Extensive proceedings followed, much of them concerning disputes over parenting time, Husband’s consumption of alcohol, and some marital property items.

Among other assignments of error, Husband argued the trial court erred when it awarded Wife the entirety of her Ohio Deferred Compensation account as separate property, based in part on its containing pre-marital earnings (and passive appreciation thereon) she had rolled-over from a separate employer-sponsored retirement account. Based on agreement between the parties that $5,561.60 in contributions subsequent to the rollover were marital, the Court remanded to the trial court to determine what portion of Wife’s account was marital property and therefore subject to division.

The Court similarly remanded to the trial court to determine what portion of a life insurance policy that had been awarded to Wife as her separate property (but for which monthly payments had been made during the parties’ marriage) was also marital property, and subject to division.

Crandall v. Crandall, 9th Dist. Medina No. 16 DR 0423, 18CA0044-M, 18CA0046-M, 20CA0013-M, 2021-Ohio-3276

Marital Property: appreciation (house), retirement benefits, separate property, subject matter jurisdiction

Dated: September 20, 2021
Affirming

In a brief and direct ruling, the Court found that the trial court’s judgement entry of divorce was not “not definite enough to be susceptible to further enforcement and… contains conflicting orders that prevent the parties from understanding the outcome of the case,” and that it therefore lacked jurisdiction to consider either Wife’s appeal or Husband’s cross-appeal.

The Court’s ruling addressed only three assignments of error from the appeal and cross-appeal, based on which it determined its lack of jurisdiction, and dismissed said appeal and cross-appeal. These included Wife’s assertions: (1) that the trial court incorrectly treated one of Husband’s retirement accounts as two accounts, and gave conflicting instructions for its division; and (2) that the trial court gave incomplete direction as to the treatment of passive and active appreciation on the parties’ residence. The Court also considered one of Husband’s assignments of error from his cross-appeal, which mirrored in part Wife’s concern that the trial court had provided incomplete or ambiguous instructions regarding the division of his retirement account.

It is not clear from the judgment how the trial court divided Husband’s sole UBS account. The trial court awarded Husband’s UBS account to Husband in one paragraph but awarded Wife one-half of the distributions only a few paragraphs later. Accordingly, we are unable to determine how the parties’ rights and obligations have been fixed by the trial court regarding Husband’s UBS account.

Husband owned the parties’ residence at the time of their marriage, but undertook extensive renovations and repairs during the marriage, using both his separate property (as determined by the trial court) and marital property. The trial court thus awarded Husband passive appreciation on the property, and Wife a share of the active appreciation thereon. It determined the value of the home to be $310,230, and found that Wife was entitled to $10,000 for her share of active appreciation, but otherwise did not instruct the parties or provide a calculation for what portion of appreciation on the home was active, versus passive.

Based on the above, the Court determined it lacked jurisdiction and that the judgment entry of divorce “[was] not a final and appealable order.”

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