WICKER VS. WICKER (DIVORCE PROPERTY & ALIMONY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

Thompson, J. In an action to enforce a 1962 Wisconsin divorce judgment, the Nevada district court readjusted both the property (insurance) and alimony provisions and entered judgment for accrued unpaid alimony. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed the property and future-alimony aspects and affirmed only the accrued-alimony judgment (which the district court was bound to enter, citing Biel v. Godwin, 69 Nev. 189, 245 P.2d 997 (1952)). (1) The Wisconsin judgment was valid, unchallenged, and entitled to full faith and credit under U.S. Const. art. IV, sec. 1 and 28 U.S.C. 1738. The court deferred to Wisconsin law, under which a divorce property division is 'fixed for all time' and not subject to modification after the time for appeal has passed; Nevada was therefore powerless to alter the insurance/property division and res judicata barred relitigation (citing Kraemer v. Kraemer, 79 Nev. 287, 382 P.2d 394 (1963); Summers v. Summers, 69 Nev. 83, 241 P.2d 1097 (1952)). (2) Because Wisconsin permits modification of alimony at any time, its alimony award is inconclusive and re-examinable, and need receive no greater credit in Nevada; but modification requires a substantial or material change in circumstances and calls for an exercise of discretion. The court found an abuse of discretion in reducing and terminating alimony, where the obligor doctor's income had roughly doubled since the decree, he had voluntarily incurred new obligations, his remarriage alone is not a ground for modification, and the obligee's physical and financial circumstances had markedly worsened. It held, however, that reversal did not entitle the former wife to increased alimony, and the Wisconsin alimony provision was to stand without change for the time being.

In plain language

Shirley Wicker had a 1962 Wisconsin divorce judgment that gave her $300 a month in alimony and, as a complete division of property, required her ex-husband to keep three life insurance policies in force naming her as the irrevocable beneficiary. Years later she sued him in Nevada to enforce the Wisconsin judgment, collect unpaid alimony, force him to catch up on the insurance premiums, and increase her alimony. He asked to decrease it. The Nevada district court gave her a judgment for the past-due alimony, but then rewrote the rest of the Wisconsin order: it said he only had to keep one of the three policies, and it cut his future alimony down to $150 a month and then to nothing. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed those changes and kept only the judgment for the alimony already owed. It explained that the U.S. Constitution requires Nevada to give 'full faith and credit' to a valid Wisconsin judgment. Under Wisconsin law, a divorce property division is fixed for all time and cannot be changed, so Nevada had no power to alter the insurance/property provisions. Alimony was different: because Wisconsin allows alimony to be changed at any time, Nevada could re-examine it, but only if there was a substantial change in circumstances. Here the change ran the other way: the husband, a doctor, had roughly doubled his income, while the wife's health and finances had badly deteriorated. Cutting her alimony was therefore an abuse of discretion. But the court also held she was not automatically entitled to more, so the Wisconsin alimony amount stayed the same for the time being.