Tracey v. Tracey

MURPHY, Chief Judge. This case involves an award of indefinite alimony and presents the primary question of whether, in computing the award, the trial court erred in disregarding a spouse’s wages from a part-time job in addition to her income from regular, full-time work. I Robert Lester Tracey and Ruth Marie Tracey sought to end their marriage of twenty-six years. On December 17, 1990, the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County (Wolff, J.) granted the parties an absolute divorce based on a voluntary separation which had continued uninterrupted for more than the twelve months required by statute.

Maryland Code (1984, 1991 Repl.Vol.) § 7-103(3) of the Family Law Article. The Traceys had previously agreed to an equal division of their marital assets, including the value of their home, life insurance policies, automobiles and other personal property, a mutual fund, and Robert’s company savings plan. The sole dispute as to financial matters concerned an alimony award to Ruth. The hearing before Judge Wolff revealed that Robert, then forty-eight years old, was a supervisor of technical training for the Baltimore Gas & Electric Company, where he had worked since 1960.

In 1989 he earned, with overtime, $57,973.25 in wages. His ³⁸³ 1990 income, including anticipated stock dividends, projected to roughly $61,000. The trial court fixed the husband’s expenses at $2010 each month, relative to his net monthly income of $3360. In 1989, Ruth, who was then forty-six years old, earned $15,381.88 as a full-time civilian payroll technician for the federal government; she had entered government service in 1987.

The 1990 projected wages from this employment reached $16,849. Ruth supplemented her income with a part-time job at a McDonald’s fast food restaurant, where she had begun working soon after the parties’ final separation in the spring of 1989. She worked at the restaurant between twenty and twenty-five hours each week, earning $4.90 per hour. This part-time work brought in approximately $4,800 annually, thereby producing a total income for Ruth in 1990 of about $21,649.

Judge Wolff determined that Ruth’s basic monthly expenses for food, shelter, clothing, transportation, medical care and other sundries approximated $1730. Her debt service obligations added some $385, resulting in total expenditures of about $2115 per month. The court established Ruth’s net monthly income at roughly $1400; this figure represented her net government salary, projected interest income from her share of the marital assets other than the house, and a $200 contribution toward expenses from an adult son living with her. The trial court awarded Ruth indefinite alimony of $300 per month.

In making its calculations, the court expressly excluded Ruth’s income from her second job at the McDonald’s restaurant. Said Judge Wolff: “I believe that one is not required to work two jobs. Neither of them during their lifetimes[s] had two jobs of employment. They each had one job____ And one does not have to work all the hours she does____ “If she stops work [at McDonald’s], that’s one thing, and I’ve figured it based that she says she does not want to continue.

If she goes back to work, then it will be a ³⁸⁴ change of circumstances. But no one has to work all the time just to survive where the husband is not doing that____ [I]t was a temporary job that she said [she took] to survive and that’s all it was meant to be. She is not required to work two jobs.” The trial court then addressed the issue of alimony: “The wife [is] working, and I don’t think she can get any better job than she has now. She is not able to support herself; the husband is. “There was the question of rehabilitative alimony, and that’s certainly out of the question.

The wife has not done well in school. Even going back to pick up a couple of courses, they’re not going to open up any doors to her____[S]he is at a level, probably the best that’s she going to obtain____ “I think she is entitled to,indefinite alimony because of her needs and the disparity between their relative incomes.” The trial court made the alimony contingent upon Ruth not resuming her second, part-time job. It stated that a return to part-time work in addition to her full-time employment would constitute a change in the parties’ circumstances sufficient to justify a modification of the award. The final judgment of divorce incorporated this condition.

Robert appealed the award of indefinite alimony in the amount of $300 per month; Ruth did not file a cross-appeal. 1 The Court of Special Appeals affirmed. Tracey v. Tracey, 89 Md.App. 701 , 599 A.2d 856 (1991). His petition for certiorari having been granted, Robert now challenges the result below on three grounds: (1) that the trial court improperly refused to consider Ruth’s income from her part-time employment; (2) that it exceeded its statutory discretion in making an award of indefinite alimony; and (3) ³⁸⁵ that it erred in making an alimony award that was conditioned upon Ruth giving up her part-time work. II An alimony award will not be disturbed upon appellate review unless the trial judge’s discretion was arbitrarily used or the judgment below was clearly wrong.

Brodak v. Brodak, 294 Md. 10, 28-29 , 447 A.2d 847 (1982). This standard implies that appellate courts will accord great deference to the findings and judgments of trial judges, sitting in their equitable capacity, when conducting divorce proceedings. See Rock v. Rock, 86 Md.App. 598, 611-612 , 587 A.2d 1133 (1991) (providing an excellent synopsis of prior cases). Maryland’s present alimony statute was originally enacted by ch. 575 of the Acts of 1980, now codified as §§ 11-101 through 11-111 of the Family Law Article.

It was proposed to the legislature by the Governor’s Commission on Domestic Relations Laws. See McAlear v. McAlear, 298 Md. 320, 345-346 , 469 A.2d 1256 (1984). The legislature adopted the principal substance of the Commission’s proposals. Aside from variations in arrangement and phrasing, the substantive provisions of the 1980 Act pertinent here remain unchanged in their current form: “(a) Court to make determination. — (1) The court shall determine the amount of and the period for an award of alimony. ****** (b) Required considerations. — In making the determination, the court shall consider all the factors necessary for a fair and equitable award, including: (1) the ability of the party seeking alimony to be wholly or partly self-supporting; (2) the time necessary for the party seeking alimony to gain sufficient education or training to enable that party to find suitable employment; ³⁸⁶ (3) the standard of living that the parties established during their marriage; (4) the duration of the marriage; (5) the contributions, monetary and nonmonetary, of each party to the well-being of the family; (6) the circumstances that contributed to the estrangement of the parties; (7) the age of each party; (8) the physical and mental condition of each party; (9) the ability of the party from whom alimony is sought to meet that party’s needs while meeting the needs of the party seeking alimony; (10) any agreement between the parties; and (11) the financial needs and financial resources of each party, including: (i) all income and assets, including property that does not produce income; (ii) any award made under §§ 8-205 and 8-208 of the article; (iii) the nature and amount of the financial obligations of each party; and (iv) the right of each party to receive retirement benefits.

(c) Award for indefinite period. — The court may award alimony for an indefinite period, if the court finds that: (1) due to age, illness, infirmity, or disability, the party seeking alimony cannot reasonably be expected to make substantial progress toward becoming self-supporting; or (2) even after the party seeking alimony will have made as much progress toward becoming self-supporting as can reasonably be expected, the respective standards of living of the parties will be unconscionably disparate.” § 11-106 of the Family Law Article. Maryland’s precise formulation of its alimony statute, especially the portions governing an award of indefinite alimony,is unique among the 50 states. See Mary Jane Connell, Note, Property ³⁸⁷ Division and Alimony Awards: A Survey of Statutory Limitations on Judicial Discretion, 50 Fordham L.Rev. 415, 427-432 (1981). Ill Robert urges upon us the narrowest, most literal interpretation of the requirement, expressed in § 11-106(b)(11)(i), that a court consider “all income” of a party in determining an alimony award.

He argues that the trial court committed reversible error by excluding the $400 monthly that Ruth earned in part-time work at McDonald’s. He asserts further that the $400 extra income, when added to her regular wages as a government clerk, enabled Ruth reasonably to support herself, thereby obviating the need for alimony of any kind. We do not agree. Neither the statute itself nor the 1980 Governor's Commission Report (hereafter the 1980 Report) that spawned it addresses the distinction between income earned from one’s principal and full-time position and a temporary, part-time employment.

We therefore undertake to divine the legislative intent. While the language of the statute is the primary source for determining legislative intention, the plain meaning rule of construction is not absolute; rather, the statute must be construed reasonably with reference to the purpose, aim, or policy of the enacting body. Baltimore Cty. C.A.U.T. v. Baltimore Cty., 321 Md. 184, 203 , 582 A.2d 510 (1990); Taxiera v. Malkus, 320 Md. 471, 480 , 578 A.2d 761 (1990); Rucker v. Comptroller of the Treasury, 315 Md. 559, 565 , 555 A.2d 1060 (1989); Kaczorowski v. City of Baltimore, 309 Md. 505, 513 , 525 A.2d 628 (1987).

The Court will look at the larger context, including the legislative purpose, within which statutory language appears. Morris v. Prince George’s County, 319 Md. 597, 604 , 573 A.2d 1346 (1990); Baltimore Cty. C.A.U.T., supra, 321 Md. at 204 , 582 A.2d 510 ; Kaczorowski, supra, 309 Md. at 516 , 525 A.2d 628 . Construction of a statute which is unreasonable, illogical, unjust, or inconsistent with common sense should be avoided.

D & Y, Inc. v. Winston, 320 Md. ³⁸⁸ 534, 538, 578 A.2d 1177 (1990); Kindley v. Governor of Maryland, 289 Md. 620, 625 , 426 A.2d 908 (1981). Considering the statute as a whole, and within the context of its larger purpose, we do not interpret § 11-106(b)(ll)(i) as requiring a blanket inclusion of wages earned from temporary, part-time work. We have previously defined the purpose of the statute as providing for an appropriate degree of spousal support in the form of alimony after the dissolution of a marriage. Turrisi v. Sanzaro, 308 Md. 515, 527 , 520 A.2d 1080 (1987) (quoting McAlear, supra, 298 Md. at 348 , 469 A.2d 1256 ).

In regard to the appropriateness of such support, the statute itself requires that the trial court weigh all factors relevant to “a fair and equitable award.” Section 11-106(b). The statute elsewhere invokes the equitable concept of unconscionably disparate standards of living. Section 11-106(c)(2). Its sister provision governing the extension of an alimony period permits the court to act to avoid “a harsh and inequitable result.” Section 11-107(a)(1). 2 We conclude from these provisions that the paramount goal of the legislature was to create a statutory mechanism leading to equitably sound alimony determinations by judges.

These provisions temper the statute’s contemplated meaning of “all income” in § ll-106(b)(ll)(i), which, if interpreted literally, would otherwise defeat the objectives of equity by distorting an assessment of the divorcing parties’ real financial condition. An undiscriminating inclusion of all income from part-time work held in addition to primary employment may well exaggerate the means avail ³⁸⁹ able to one spouse, or the other, over the long term. Part-time work is often tenuous in prospect and short in duration. To include such income as a matter of course may ultimately result in a false picture of a party’s economic self-sufficiency or security.

The alimony statute in its entirety renounces an approach based on rote or formula. Cf. Guardian Life Ins. v. Ins. Comm’r, 293 Md. 629, 643 , 446 A.2d 1140 (1982) (where a particular provision of a statute is part of a single statutory scheme the legislative intention must be gathered from the entire statute rather than from only one part) and Howard Co. Ass’n, Retard.

Cit. v. Walls, 288 Md. 526, 530 ,