IN RE THE MARRIAGE OF: TAMMY WAGENMAN, Petitioner and Appellant, v. MATT WAGENMAN, Respondent and Appellee.
No. DA 15-0748.
Supreme Court of Montana
Submitted on Briefs May 11, 2016. Decided July 19, 2016.
2016 MT 176 | 384 Mont. 149 | 376 P.3d 121
JUSTICE WHEAT delivered the Opinion
For Appellant: Michelle R. Lee, Lee Law Firm, LLC, Billings.
For Appellee: Katherine Delaney Berst, K.D. Berst Law, Billings.
JUSTICE WHEAT delivered the Opinion of the Court.
¶1 Tammy Wagenman ( Tammy ) appeals the final judgment of the Montana Thirteenth Judicial District, Yellowstone County, denying her Cross-Petition to Amend the parties’ Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Final Decree of Dissolution. We reverse and remand.
¶2 Appellant raisеs two issues on appeal which we address as follows:
- Whether the District Court erred when it denied Tammy‘s Motion to Amend the Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Final Decree of Dissolution pursuant to
M. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6) . - Whether the District Court erred when it awarded attorney fees to Matt Wagenman.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
¶3 Matt Wagenman ( Matt ) and Tammy were married on March 22, 1996. During nearly sixteen years of marriage the parties acquired a marital home and mortgage along with other personal property and debts. On February 17, 2012, Matt and Tammy filed a pro se Joint Petition for Dissolution to dissolve the marriage and divide up their property and debt. As pro se parties, the parties utilized a Jоint Petition for Dissolution, no Children form approved by the Montana Supreme Court. In the Real Property section of the petition the parties indicated that they were the owners of record of real property, their marital home, located at 5611 Haynes Road, Shepherd, Montana. At section 9(b) of the Pеtition, they stated that their real property should be distributed as described in Exhibit A, which they attached to their Petition. The parties signed the Petition and filed the documents with the District Court on February 17, 2012, with Exhibit A attached.
¶4 Exhibit A is a property settlement agreement between the parties. The agreement is signed and dated September 1, 2011, аnd contains specific details agreed upon by the parties to settle their real property claims, payments owed to the IRS, and other debts. The agreement also included plans to refinance car loans for Matt‘s Corvette and Tammy‘s Camaro from joint to individual loans. The real property division made allowances for Matt to stay in the marital home, so long as he made payments in a timely manner. The agreement also required Matt to refinance the home within one year and to remove Tammy from the mortgage or the property would be listed for sale. Upon sale or refinancing of the home, the agreement provided that each party would receive 50% of the equity. According to the Petition, the home was valued at $205,000 and the mortgage balance on the property was $112,000.
¶5 After filing the Petition, Matt and Tammy appeared in District Court on March 13, 2012. Following a two-minute hearing, the court granted the dissolution of thе marriage. The court record contains five documents as part of the dissolution, including the parties’ Petition with Exhibit A attached and the Final Decree granting the dissolution dated the day of the hearing. In the Final Decree, the court filled in a Montana Supreme Court approved decree form but did not enter the рroperty and debt distribution according to Exhibit A, nor did it incorporate Exhibit A into the Decree. Instead, the court distributed the marital home to Matt and entered a mortgage debt to Matt in the amount of $180,000, an amount unsubstantiated in the record.
¶6 Over the next two years, the parties took action in accordance with their sеttlement agreement as they disentangled their assets. During this time, the parties communicated in regard to refinance of the house and Tammy‘s eventual receipt of her portion of the marital home equity. Because Matt had not sold the home or paid Tammy the equity after two years, on May 20, 2014, Tammy contacted an attorney who sent a letter to Matt indicating she was going to proceed with the property distribution in accordance with the Decree. Matt and Tammy subsequently agreed on an extension for Matt to comply with the provisions of the property distribution. Matt hired an attorney in August 2014, and it was then that both parties discоvered the District Court failed to incorporate Exhibit A into the Decree.
¶7 Upon discovering that Exhibit A was not incorporated into the Decree, Matt changed his position from honoring the agreement with Tammy to asking Tammy to file a quitclaim deed on her interest in the house pursuant to the Decree. On September 22, 2014, Mаtt‘s counsel filed a Motion to
STANDARD OF REVIEW
¶8 The standard of review of a district court‘s ruling on a motion pursuant to
DISCUSSION
¶9 1. Whether the District Court erred when it denied Tammy‘s Motion to Amend the Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Final Decree of Dissolution pursuant to
¶10 Upon motion, the Court may relieve a party from a final judgment in certain circumstances.
On motion and just terms, the court may reliеve a party or its legal representative 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 is void;
(5) 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
(6) any other reason justifying relief from the operation of the judgment.
(Emphasis added.)
¶11 We have determined that a motion under Rule 60(b)(6) must be more than a request for rehearing, or a request for the district court to change its mind; it must be shown that something prevented a full presentation of the cause or an accurate determination of the merits that for reasons of fairness and equity redress is justified. Orcutt v. Orcutt, 2011 MT 107, ¶ 11, 360 Mont. 353, 253 P.3d 884. We have also concluded that Rule 60(b) is designed to be applied primarily as an exception to the finality of a judgment where a party was wronged through no fault of its own. In re Marriage of Hopper, 1999 MT 310, ¶ 29, 297 Mont. 225, 991 P.2d 960.
¶12 A successful Rule 60(b)(6) motion requires that the movant demonstrate
¶13 Tammy asks the Court to modify the Final Decree to incorporate Exhibit A as the parties initially intended. She contends thаt the record demonstrates that the Essex extraordinary circumstance is the District Court‘s failure to incorporate Exhibit A to the Final Decree, which is a violation of
¶14 The public policy of the State of Montana is to promote the amicable settlement of disputes between parties to a marriage.
¶15 The District Court determined in the Montana Supreme Court approved Final Decree form that the parties’ division of property was reasonable and should be enforced. On the form, the District Court concluded as a matter of law that the [p]etitionеr‘s proposed division of property and debts is equitable, and that the relief requested should be granted. These conclusions support Tammy‘s argument that Exhibit A should have been incorporated into the Final Decree. During the short hearing, the District Court filled in the form order. In the real property provision, the court indicated that Matt would receive all of the real estate and attendant debt, while Tammy would quitclaim her interest. The District Court then left blank all spaces for division or settlement of other property including vehicles and debt. The only proposal for division of the remainder of property and debt was contained in their Joint Petition for Dissolution and Exhibit A, which addressed the division of those other items of property between the parties and was made part of the court record. The court‘s action of leaving most of the form blank lends significant support to Tammy‘s argument that the court was relying upon Exhibit A to equitably settle the marital prоperty, because the Final Decree is incomplete without its detailed provisions.
¶16 In addition, because the court failed to incorporate Exhibit A, the court failed to comply with
¶17 As we stated in Blankenship:
Section 40-4-201, MCA , sets forth certain criteria that must be present before a court may disregard a separation agreement. Subparagraph two of the statute states that the terms of the agreement are binding on the court unless it finds the agreement unconscionable. If the court does find the agreement unconscionable, then the court may make its own disposition of the property.Section 40-4-201(3), MCA .
Blankenship, 210 Mont. at 35, 682 P.2d at 1356.
¶18 Here, the court created its own division of the only property of value in the marriage, giving 100% of the marital home to Matt instead of a 50% equity division to each party under the settlement agreement. Because the District Court did not incorporate Exhibit A into the parties’ separation agreement without providing a determination of unconscionability or other provision for an equitable division of the marital property, the court failed to comply with the separation аgreement statute
¶19 The second element under the Essex test requires that the movant must act to set aside the judgment within a reasonable time. Essex, ¶ 25. Tammy argues her motion was made within a reasonable time because her failure to act earlier stemmed from a belief that the court had incorporated Exhibit A into the parties’ settlement, and upon the discovery of the error by Matt‘s counsel, she immediately filed a motion to amend the settlement. In Bartell v. Zabawa, 2009 MT 204, ¶ 34, 351 Mont. 211, 214 P.3d 735, we determined that filing a motion to set aside 10 days after discovery of the error entered against Zabawa and his insurer six years after the underlying accident was within a reasonable amount of time because Zabawa had proceeded with diligence. Similarly, we conclude here that Tammy acted within a reasonable time as she moved immediately, within 8 dаys, to amend the judgment against her upon the discovery of the District Court‘s error.
¶20 Finally, we conclude that Tammy is blameless for failing to discover the issue, as the error was not due to her actions. Because the court had a duty to inquire about the equity of the agreement, we do not fault Tammy as a pro se litigant who had littlе previous contact with the court system and who was relying on the marital dissolution statutes, and the court, to uphold their agreement.
¶21 Accordingly, the District Court‘s subsequent decision to deny her Rule 60(b)(6) motion was an abuse of discretion. The court‘s legal error prevented an accurate determination of the merits regаrding the property settlement agreement; thus, we reverse the District Court‘s denial of Tammy‘s Motion to Amend under Rule 60(b)(6), because it was an abuse of the court‘s discretion.
¶22 2. Whether the District Court erred when it awarded attorney fees to Matt Wagenman.
¶23 Under
¶24 The District Court erred by failing to incorporate the parties’ property settlement, detailed in Exhibit A, into the Final Decree. The District Court abused its discretion when it denied Tammy‘s Rule 60(b)(6) motion to amend the Final Decree to incorporate Exhibit A. Further, the District Court improperly awarded attorney fees to Matt. Accordingly, we reverse and remand for further proceedings on the property settlement agreement.
CHIEF JUSTICE McGRATH, JUSTICES BAKER, SHEA and RICE concur.