WILDE VS. WILDE (DIVORCE PROPERTY & ALIMONY)

Statutes cited

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

This was an appeal from a special order after final judgment (a 1951 divorce decree) refusing to enter satisfaction of judgment as to alimony. NRS 125.150 provides that on the death of either party or the wife's subsequent remarriage, all alimony awarded by the decree shall cease 'unless it shall have been otherwise ordered by the court.' The decree itself was silent on alimony but incorporated by reference a property settlement agreement whose section 13 established alimony payable in stages; only subparagraph (d), governing payments after the first ten years, expressly conditioned continuation on the wife not having remarried, while subparagraphs (a)-(c), covering the first ten years, did not. The court declined to decide whether it was construing an agreement independent of the decree or a decree in which the agreement had merged, because affirmance was indicated under either view. If construing the agreement, the wife's uncontradicted affidavits established the parties' intent that alimony be paid for the first ten years regardless of remarriage. If construing the merged decree, great weight is given to the trial court's construction of its own decree, which could not be said to be unreasonable. The express mention of the remarriage limitation only as to the later payments, and its omission from the first ten years' payments, indicated the limitation was to apply only where expressed. The order was affirmed.

In plain language

A 1951 divorce decree incorporated a written property settlement agreement that set out a schedule of alimony payments the husband would make to the wife. In 1956 the husband asked the trial court to declare his alimony obligation ended and to enter satisfaction of judgment, arguing that under Nevada law his duty to pay alimony ceased when his former wife remarried. The trial court refused, and he appealed. The only question was whether the decree provided that alimony would continue despite the wife's remarriage. Nevada's statute says that on the wife's remarriage all alimony ceases 'unless it shall have been otherwise ordered by the court.' The agreement's payment terms ran in stages over the years; only the later-stage payments (in subparagraph (d)) expressly mentioned that they would end on the wife's remarriage, while the earlier ten-year payment provisions did not. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. It found the wife's uncontradicted affidavits showed the parties intended alimony to be paid for the first ten years regardless of remarriage, which supported the trial court's ruling. And even treating the question as construction of the court's own decree, great weight is given to the trial court's construction, which was not unreasonable. The fact that remarriage was mentioned as ending only the later payments, but not the earlier ones, was itself an indication that the limitation applied only where it was expressly stated.