Braun v. Braun, 947 N.W.2d 694

Corey and Jennifer Braun divorced by decree in Feb 2013; the marital home was awarded to Corey subject to the existing mortgage and a decree provision required each party to be responsible for debts on property they were awarded and to "hold [the other] harmless" from those debts.
Jennifer quitclaimed her interest in the house but remained on the mortgage note; she did not make payments and testified she had not been required to make mortgage payments since the decree.
Corey repeatedly became delinquent on mortgage payments beginning in 2018; mortgage arrearage was about $4,900 at trial.
Jennifer testified her credit score fell from ~780–800 to ~620–640 and that she was denied credit and could not qualify for a mortgage; she tied the drop solely to Corey's chronic mortgage delinquencies.
Jennifer filed for contempt and modification in Jan 2019; the trial court found Corey willfully violated the hold-harmless clause, ordered a 10-day jail sanction (deferred to Sept 3, 2019) with a purge plan requiring Corey to refinance the mortgage in his name or sell the home by that date; Corey appealed.
The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed: it held the hold-harmless provision covers financial harm (including credit damage), found no clear error in the willfulness finding, and upheld the purge plan as a valid civil-contempt remedy rather than an unauthorized modification of the decree.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Jennifer)	Defendant's Argument (Corey)	Held
Scope of hold-harmless clause	Clause requires protection from financial harm from joint debt, including credit damage	Clause only requires assumption/indemnity for payments and does not mandate refinancing or protection from credit effects	Clause is broad: it requires protecting the other from financial harm (including credit damage) tied to the joint mortgage
Whether contempt proved / willfulness	Chronic delinquencies harmed Jennifer's credit and thus willfully violated decree	No evidence Corey’s actions actually harmed Jennifer; scope unclear so not willful	Trial court’s finding of harm and willfulness not clearly erroneous; contempt affirmed
Purge plan requiring refinance or sale	Purge necessary to stop ongoing harm; enables contemnor to avoid jail by compliance	Order effectively modified the decree without modification proceedings or changed obligations	Purge plan is a permissible civil-contempt coercive/remedial sanction (not a decree modification); affirmed
Whether mortgage company was an indispensable party	(Implicit) mortgage company not required for adjudication of contempt between ex-spouses	Mortgage company’s rights affected, so it should have been joined	Mortgage company not indispensable; its interests were not altered by the contempt adjudication

Long v. McAllister-Long, 221 S.W.3d 1 (Tenn. App. 2006) (hold-harmless clause construed to include protection against credit-damage from delinquent payments)
Eaton v. Grau, 368 N.J. Super. 215 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2004) (discusses limits of hold-harmless language and required proof for modification/remedy for credit harm)
Dennis v. Dennis, 6 Neb. App. 461 (Neb. Ct. App. 1998) (former husband violated hold-harmless by failing to pay joint mortgage; wife suffered financial harm)
Krejci v. Krejci, 304 Neb. 302 (Neb. 2019) (civil contempt principles and remedial relief enforcement)
Sickler v. Sickler, 293 Neb. 521 (Neb. 2016) (civil-contempt sanction must allow contemnor to purge by compliance; "keys in their pocket")
Gomez v. Gomez, 303 Neb. 539 (Neb. 2019) (decree meaning is determined from the four corners of the judgment)