Opinion
No. CV03 0284784-S
November 19, 2004
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR CONTEMPT POST JUDGMENT
The court heard two post-judgment motions in this matter on November 15, 2004. The first, plaintiff's motion for an order to compel, was continued by agreement of the parties until January 10, 2005. The second motion was the plaintiff's motion for contempt, post judgment. During oral argument, counsel for the defendant argued that the court had no jurisdiction to hear the plaintiff's motion. The court denies the plaintiff's motion for contempt.
The dispute underlying the plaintiff's motion for contempt concerns the repayment of a loan in the amount of $12,000, made by the plaintiff to the defendant. The court (Frazzini, J.) ordered the defendant to repay the loan, pendente lite. The plaintiff claims that $788 of this debt remains unpaid. The defendant disputes this claim, as well as the jurisdiction of this court.
The defendant's counsel argues that the subject of the contempt motion in this case involves a pendente lite order and, as such, is no longer within the court's jurisdiction. She further argues that final orders were issued at the time of dissolution, and that these orders did not include the repayment of this particular debt. She therefore argues that the pendente lite orders were merged into the final judgment, and that any such debt was extinguished as a matter of law. Her position is that if such a debt existed and was excluded from the final judgment, it may only be reasserted by way of an alternative procedure such as a motion to reopen.
In support of his position, the defendant cites the case of Milbauer v. Milbauer, 54 Conn.App. 304, 733 A.2d 907 (1999), in which the court stated that "[p]endente lite orders necessarily cease to exist once a final judgment in the dispute has been rendered because the purpose is extinguished at that time . . . [Generally] [p]endente lite orders do not survive the entry or rendition of judgment." (Citations omitted; emphasis in original; internal quotation marks omitted.) Id. at 309.
The Appellate Court, in the subsequent decision of Papa v. Papa, 55 Conn.App. 47, 737 A.2d 953 (1999), found that certain debts incurred, pendente lite, survive the final orders for the dissolution of a marriage. There, the court observed that "[t]he defendant claims that when the judgment of dissolution was rendered, the pendente lite order merged into the dissolution decree, thereby terminating his obligation to make the mortgage payments pursuant to the pendente lite order . . . [L]ike unpaid installments of an alimony award entered at the time of dissolution, accrued and unpaid installments of alimony pendente lite are, in effect, debts which have become vested rights of property which the court cannot take away . . . We conclude that the unpaid mortgage obligations were, in effect, debt payments that could not be taken away from the plaintiff when the final dissolution decree was rendered." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Papa v. Papa, supra, 55 Conn.App. 53.
However, in Papa the arrearage owed, pursuant to a pendente lite order, was subsequently ordered as a part of the final judgment in that case. In the present case, the alleged debt of $788 was not incorporated in the final judgment. Thus Papa is not applicable here.
The question presented in this case hinges upon whether the court may consider a post-judgment motion for contempt arising out of a party's non-compliance with a pendente lite order. Our Supreme Court has addressed this issue, and has consistently disallowed such post-judgment motions for contempt. Reflecting upon these longstanding cases, the Appellate Court in the Papa case stated that "our Supreme Court held that a trial court cannot make a finding of contempt for a party's failure to comply with a pendente lite order once the trial court renders a final dissolution decree because the pendente lite order merges into the dissolution decree. The reasoning behind the court's holdings in those cases is that pendente lite orders are interlocutory and, thus, become inoperative upon rendition of the final judgment." Papa v. Papa, supra, 55 Conn.App. 56.
See Saunders v. Saunders, 140 Conn. 140 146-47, 98 A.2d 815 (1953), wherein the Supreme Court stated in relevant part, as follows: "An order for alimony pendente lite is interlocutory and terminates with the judgment which follows it . . . In other words, the judgment of . . . was final unless set aside by this court, and it disposed with finality of all interlocutory orders . . . It necessarily follows that the defendant should not have been adjudged in contempt for failure to comply with an order which had become inoperative." (Citations omitted.) See also Tobey v. Tobey, 165 Conn. 742, 745-46, 345 A.2d 21 (1974) wherein the Supreme Court also stated in relevant part that "where a final decree of divorce has been rendered, any orders regarding pendente lite alimony are merged in the final decree and thereafter, no independent action for contempt based on the temporary alimony order can be properly brought. Review may be made, however, of that part of a final order which fails to cite a defendant for contempt or which fails to incorporate an accumulated arrearage of pendente lite alimony."
Therefore, since the debt claimed in this case was not included in the final judgment, the plaintiff's motion for contempt is denied.
BY THE COURT
Mark H. Taylor, Judge