KRICK VS. KRICK (DIVORCE PROPERTY & ALIMONY)

Statutes cited

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

By the Court, Pike, J. On the husband's appeal from denial of his NRCP 60(b)(4) motion to enter satisfaction of judgment, the court affirmed. The 1946 decree incorporated a property settlement providing $750 monthly "during the life of" the wife and expressly reciting that the payments were part of the property settlement and consideration for the wife's release of her community and other property claims (to the Krick Weather Service and other property), and "may not be modified." The husband contended the payments were alimony that ceased on the wife's remarriage under NRS 125.150. The court held the payments were property-settlement consideration rather than alimony; and even if treated as alimony, NRS 125.150 terminates alimony on remarriage only "unless it shall have been otherwise ordered by the court," and here the court "otherwise ordered" payment during the wife's life. The trial court's construction of the language of its own decree was entitled to great weight (Wilde v. Wilde, 74 Nev. 170, 326 P.2d 415 (1958)); Hilton v. McNitt, 49 Cal.2d 79, 315 P.2d 1 (1957), was distinguished on the ground that Nevada's statute turns on whether the court "otherwise ordered." The husband's roughly twelve years of compliance and failure to seek timely modification or appeal evidenced his consent to, and the intended meaning of, the provision (Dutertre v. Shallenberger, 21 Nev. 507, 34 P. 449 (1893)).

In plain language

The husband asked the court to declare his support obligation satisfied and stop his monthly payments, and he appealed after the trial court refused. The couple married in 1930 and the wife was granted a divorce in 1946. The divorce decree incorporated their property settlement agreement, which required the husband to pay $750 a month "during the life of" the wife. The decree spelled out that these payments were part of the property settlement - the price the husband paid for the wife giving up her community property claims to his weather-service business and other property - and said the payments "may not be modified" and would continue for the wife's lifetime. One-third of each payment was earmarked for child support until the daughter grew up, but that did not reduce the full $750 owed during the wife's life. The wife remarried in 1956 and the daughter reached adulthood in 1957. The husband then moved to end the payments, arguing they were really alimony, and that under Nevada law (NRS 125.150) alimony stops when a wife remarries. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's refusal to stop the payments. The decree did not call these payments alimony; it called them part of the property settlement, paid in exchange for the wife giving up property rights, and payable for her life. The court gives great weight to a trial court's reading of its own decree. And even if the payments were treated as alimony, NRS 125.150 says alimony stops on remarriage "unless it shall have been otherwise ordered by the court" - and here the court had "otherwise ordered" by directing that the payments continue for the wife's life. The court also noted the husband had paid for nearly 12 years without objection and never took timely action to change the decree, which showed he understood and consented to the arrangement.