Aramini v. Aramini

220 So.3d 322

Ronald A. ARAMINI

v.Irene Ann ARAMINI.

2140547.

Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama.

July 15, 2016.

Certiorari Denied Sept. 16, 2016

Alabama Supreme Court 1151123.

Paige P. Yarbrough of Crittenden Partners, Birmingham, for appellant.

Nathan C. Weinert and L. Stephen Wright, Jr., of Najjar Denaburg, P.C., Birmingham, for appellee.

On Application for Rehearing

DONALDSON, Judge.

This court's order of April 8, 2016, affirming the judgment of the Jefferson Circuit Court ("the trial court"), without an opinion, is withdrawn, and the following is substituted therefor.

Ronald A. Aramini ("the former husband") appeals from the judgment of the trial court finding him in contempt for failing to fulfill his periodic-alimony obligation to Irene Ann Aramini ("the former wife"), awarding the former wife an amount for the former husband's unpaid-alimony arrearage, and reducing but not terminating the former husband's monthly alimony obligation. We affirm the judgment.

Facts and Procedural History

The former husband and the former wife were divorced in 2002 after 34 years of marriage. The judgment of divorce incorporated an agreement of the parties that included a provision obligating the former husband to pay the former wife $5,000 a month as periodic alimony and to maintain a $400,000 life-insurance policy naming the former wife as beneficiary. At the time of the divorce, the former husband worked as president and chief executive officer at a company that provided aircraft-maintenance and aircraft-modification services ("the aircraft company").

In December 2010, the former husband informed the former wife that his salary had been reduced and that his stock options in the aircraft company had become worthless. In January 2011, the former husband began sending reduced alimony payments to the former wife without her consent to the reduction. The aircraft company filed for bankruptcy on February 15, 2011. In September 2011, the former husband informed the former wife that he had experienced a further reduction in his salary and other financial losses. He began sending the former wife alimony payments that were further reduced, again without her consent.

On January 5, 2012, the former wife filed a petition seeking a finding of contempt against the former husband, alleging that, since January 2011, he had willfully refused to fulfill his alimony obligation. On February 20, 2012, the former husband filed an answer and a counter petition seeking to terminate or reduce his alimony obligation, alleging that there had been a reduction in his earnings and a diminishment of his assets. The former husband did not seek to eliminate his life-insurance obligation in his pleadings.

The trial court conducted a trial in March and September 2014 in which it received testimony and documentary evidence from both parties. The parties submitted evidence that contains several discrepancies as to the amount of monthly alimony payments made by the former husband. The former husband's bank statements and copies of cashed checks show that, in 2011, the former husband paid the former wife $4,000 each month from January to August, except for May, when he paid only $2,000, and that he paid $3,320 in September. The former wife prepared a chart of the former husband's arrearage amounts that differed in the amount of payments made for a few of the months in 2011. The chart indicated that the former husband paid only $2,000 in March, April, July, and August and that he paid $3,200 in September. The evidence presented by the former husband shows that the total amount of payments made in 2011 was $42,920; the former wife's total for that period was $32,800.¹ The evidence from both parties shows that the former husband paid $3,200 each month from October 2011 to March 2013. The former wife's chart indicates that the former husband stopped making any payments after March 2013. The former husband testified to making a payment in April 2013, and, in a posttrial motion, he submitted a copy of an e-mail his counsel had sent to opposing counsel to show that he had made payments of $3,200 in April 2013 and $1,600 in May 2013.²

At trial, the former husband testified that, while he was working for the aircraft company, he received a 20% salary reduction in 2007, a 10% salary reduction in 2010, and a 10% to 15% salary reduction after the company filed for bankruptcy in February 2011. The aircraft company was purchased out of bankruptcy by another company for which the former husband worked as chief executive officer. The former husband's employment at that company ended on March 31, 2013. He testified that, in addition to his salary through March 2013, in 2013 he received compensation for consulting work, Social Security benefits, and income from retirement accounts. The former husband testified that his income was around $400,000 in 2001 and around $590,000 in 2002, which is when the parties' divorce judgment was entered. He testified that his income was $426,361 in 2009, $293,609 in 2010, $388,864 in 2011, $477,884 in 2012, and $74,000 in 2013, which were the years leading up to and the years during which he made reduced alimony payments.³ The former husband testified that in 2013 he received approximately $300,000 in inheritance from his mother's estate and $11,000 from a claim of loss of rental income from a Florida condominium as a result of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The former husband testified that his overall estate has diminished since the entry of the divorce judgment and that his estate was worth $374,000 at the time of the trial. He testified that the stock options he had in the aircraft company no longer had any value and that he has lost many of the benefits he received from the aircraft company, including a rabbi trust and a $400,000 life-insurance policy naming the former wife as beneficiary that he had maintained since the divorce. The former husband testified to owning a house with an indebtedness of $595,000.⁴ A tax assessment valued the house at $818,270, and the former husband testified that he would like to list the house for sale for $900,000 to $950,000. The former husband testified to recently executing a deed in lieu of foreclosure for a condominium he had owned in Florida. According to his testimony, his brokerage account contained $270,000, and his individual retirement account contained $155,000 to $160,000. He testified to having a power boat with a fair market value of $3,000 and a motor vehicle with $6,000 to $7,000 in equity value.

At the time of the trial, the former husband was 68 years old and remarried. He testified that he has had eye surgeries, that he has had type 1 diabetes since 1998, and that he has peripheral neuropathy and a slight tremor. Before working at the aircraft company, the former husband worked at Continental Airlines for 15 years, and he worked at Allegheny Airlines for a time. He testified that, since becoming unemployed, he has submitted his resume to several companies that do consulting work and to one company that was seeking a new president, but he has not received any interview requests. He continues to monitor trade magazines for possible job openings and consulting opportunities.

According to his testimony and exhibits, the former husband's regular monthly income consists of $2,335 from Social Security benefits; $1,155 from a retirement account; $279 from another retirement account; and an amount from earned interest that is not clear from the record. He testified that, within the 12–month period before the trial, he received capital gains of $290,000 but that his investments overall were down $20,000 over the past 3 years. The former husband submitted an exhibit showing monthly living expenses of $2,978 and additional monthly expenses of $2,976 from the mortgage obligation on his house, utility bills, and other costs associated with his house and condominium.⁵ As previously noted, he testified that he planned on selling his house.

At the time of the trial, the former wife was 71 years old. She had surgery in 2010 and in 2012. She testified to having brain damage from cerebral-spinal-fluid leakage that causes problems with her memory, focus, and ability to carry on a conversation. She also has celiac disease, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, and, at the time of the trial, was receiving ongoing treatment for an infection in her finger.

The former wife was not employed at the time of the parties' divorce. Her educational background consists of a two-year college degree in "socioscience" she received in 1965. She testified that, since the divorce, she was briefly employed once in 2006 in a job not specified in the record.

The former wife lives in New Jersey. She testified that her house had a $350,000 fair market value and that she had a total of $290,000 in her savings and investment accounts. The former wife receives $900 a month in Social Security benefits, and she testified to receiving a total of $1,231 in interest income in 2013. She testified to having monthly expenses of $5,800 to $6,000 and that she has had to use her savings to pay for her expenses since the former husband stopped making alimony payments.

Both parties testified to having a time-share property arrangement in Lake Tahoe and to having gambled during the period in which the former husband reduced his alimony payments to the former wife.

On December 4, 2014, the trial court entered a judgment that reduced the former husband's monthly alimony obligation to $2,500, retroactive to May 2013, and found the former husband in civil contempt for having failed to fulfill his alimony obligation from January 2011 to April 2013. The trial court found that the former husband had failed to pay the former wife $90,800 in alimony during that period and ordered him to pay $14,745 in interest. The judgment sets a sentence of 145 days of incarceration with the condition that the former husband could purge himself of contempt by paying the former...