Balistreri v. Balistreri

93 Mass.App.Ct. 515

106 N.E.3d 693

Guiseppe BALISTRERI

v.Janine M. BALISTRERI.

No. 17–P–1107

Appeals Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex..

Argued March 8, 2018

Decided June 29, 2018

Brian J. Kelly, Sharon, for the wife.

Mark L. Nestor, Gloucester, for the husband.

Present: Wolohojian, Agnes, & Englander, JJ.

WOLOHOJIAN, J.

The alimony reform act defines "length of the marriage" as the "number of months from the date of legal marriage to the date of service of a complaint or petition for divorce or separate support." G. L. c. 208, § 48, inserted by St. 2011, c. 124, § 3. At issue is how to apply this language where there are multiple support complaints (none resulting in a spousal support judgment), a predivorce complaint for modification that led to a spousal support judgment, a divorce complaint that did not lead to judgment, and a divorce complaint upon which judgment entered awarding alimony. We hold that, where there are one or more predivorce-judgment complaints (whether for support, modification, or divorce) that result in a judgment of spousal support, it lies within the judge's discretion—taking into account the totality of the circumstances—to determine which of these pleadings is to be used to calculate the length of a marriage for purposes of the alimony reform act (act or alimony reform act).

Background. The parties had a child in 1994 and were married on March 26, 1995. From October 1996 through April 2000, the wife filed two complaints for support¹ and a complaint for divorce.² The details of these various complaints are set out in the margin; of importance for our purposes here is that none of them led to a judgment.³

On January 11, 2005, the wife filed a complaint⁴ for separate support that, based on the parties' agreement, led to a judgment requiring the husband to pay $400 each week in child support. No spousal support was awarded or agreed to.⁵

On June 11, 2008, the wife filed a complaint for modification,⁶ seeking to modify the 2005 support judgment to require the husband to cover health costs for her and the child, and to pay spousal support.⁷ On July 31, 2009, a partial modification judgment entered in accordance with the parties' agreement with respect to all issues except spousal support.⁸ Because there was no agreement with respect to spousal support, the judge bifurcated that issue and scheduled it for trial.

After trial, the judge entered a supplemental judgment of modification which (1) restated the husband's existing child support obligation of $400 weekly, and (2) required the husband to pay $273.25 weekly to the wife as alimony until (a) the death of either party, (b) the wife's remarriage, (c) entry of an inconsistent divorce judgment, or (d) modification of the judgment.

On April 14, 2011, the husband filed a complaint for divorce pursuant to G. L. c. 208, § 1B, citing an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage. Judgment on this complaint entered on April 6, 2014,⁹ awarding the wife $298 weekly in alimony to terminate either in seventy months, or upon her remarriage, or either party's death. The wife appealed.

On appeal, a panel of this court vacated the alimony award because it was unclear whether the judge had intended to calculate the duration of the marriage by using the service date of the 2005 support complaint or of the 2011 divorce complaint, and remanded the case for reconsideration of that issue. We otherwise affirmed the judgment. See Balistreri v. Balistreri, 89 Mass. App. Ct. 1106 (2016).

The court held a trial on the issue remanded as well as additional matters not pertinent to this appeal.¹⁰ As relevant for our purposes here, the judge found that the parties did not "continue[ ] to have a relationship" after February 2, 2005—the date on which child support was first ordered. For this reason, the judge found that "it is appropriate that the length of the marriage be determined from the date of the service of the [c]omplaint" that led to that award of child support.¹¹ The judge did not have the benefit of Sbrogna v. Sbrogna, 92 Mass. App. Ct. 639, 91 N.E.3d 1175 (2018), at the time of her decision.¹²

Discussion. The alimony reform act limits the duration of general alimony by pegging it to the "length of the marriage," G. L. c. 208, § 49(b ), a phrase defined as "the number of months from the date of legal marriage to the date of service of a complaint or petition for divorce or separate support." G. L. c. 208, § 48. This language is in the disjunctive, see Miller v. Miller, 448 Mass. 320, 329, 861 N.E.2d 393 (2007) ("It is fundamental to statutory construction that the word ‘or’ is disjunctive ..." [citation omitted] ), meaning that either a qualifying support complaint or a qualifying divorce pleading may serve as the terminal event for purposes of the § 48 definition. The definition places both types of pleadings (divorce and support) on equal footing for its purposes; neither is given priority or additional weight, whether by virtue of earlier service, filing, or otherwise. See Chin v. Merriot, 470 Mass. 527, 537, 23 N.E.3d 929 (2015), quoting from Commissioner of Correction v. Superior Ct. Dept. of the Trial Ct. for the County of Worcester, 446 Mass. 123, 126, 842 N.E.2d 926 (2006) (court will not "read into the statute a provision which the Legislature did not see fit to put there"). Thus, assuming that more than one particular pleading qualifies for inclusion, the Legislature has chosen to allow each of them to be considered for purposes of § 48. This straightforward reading of the statutory language, however, begs two questions. The first is which pleadings qualify to be considered. The second is how to choose among competing qualifying pleadings.

We reached a partial answer to the first question in Sbrogna. In that case, the husband filed a divorce complaint under G. L. c. 208, § 1B, that ultimately became inactive and upon which judgment never entered. Later, the parties filed a joint divorce petition under G. L. c. 208, § 1A, that led to a divorce judgment awarding alimony. On those facts, we held that the legally relevant divorce pleading for purposes of calculating the "length of the marriage" under G. L. c. 208, § 48, was the one upon which the divorce judgment entered.¹³ Sbrogna, 92 Mass. App. Ct. at 643, 91 N.E.3d 1175. We stated that "[t]o read the statute otherwise would lead to the nonsensical result that service of a pleading that leads neither to a valid divorce nor to an alimony award could nonetheless serve as the basis for calculating the length of a marriage and the duration of alimony, even if the parties reconciled and lived together for decades before ultimately divorcing" (emphasis supplied). Id. at 642, 91 N.E.3d 1175. Although Sbrogna involved only divorce pleadings, we see no reason why its reasoning should not apply with equal force to support complaints. Thus, we conclude that a support complaint that results in a judgment awarding spousal support qualifies to be considered for purposes of § 48, but that a support complaint that does not result in such a judgment does not.

Our conclusion that the Legislature's reference in § 48 to a "support complaint" encompasses only those resulting in a judgment awarding spousal support (as opposed to support judgments awarding other forms of relief, such as child support or health care costs) is buttressed by the over-all purpose and reach of the alimony reform act. See Chin, supra (court will not read provisions into statute). The act is limited to alimony, its provisions do not have "general or unlimited application outside the arena of alimony," and the definitions contained in § 48 do not apply outside of §§ 49 through 55 of the act.¹⁴

Valaskatgis v. Valaskatgis, 87 Mass. App. Ct. 756, 757, 34 N.E.3d 1264 (2015). The act is not concerned, for example, with the division of marital assets, id. at 758, 34 N.E.3d 1264, quoting from Kittredge v. Kittredge, 441 Mass. 28, 43, 803 N.E.2d 306 (2004) (definitions of § 48 do not restrain judge's broad discretion to "weigh[ ] and balanc[e] ... the § 34 factors, and the resulting equitable division of the parties' marital property"), nor does it provide for child support. There is simply no indication that the Legislature intended to include within the definition of § 48 complaints that do not result in spousal support judgments. Nor would it make any sense to read the statute to encompass such complaints; otherwise, an award of temporary child support or health care under G. L. c. 208, § 19 (which is outside the alimony reform act) could, for example, inexplicably and illogically reduce the duration of alimony awarded at the time of divorce. Since even temporary alimony awards under G. L. c. 208, § 17, do not reduce the presumptive maximum duration of alimony under the act, see Holmes v. Holmes, 467 Mass. 653, 659, 6 N.E.3d 1062 (2014), there is even less reason for other types of support judgments to do so.

Before proceeding further, we pause to apply the principles we have set out above to the various pleadings that were filed in this case. The husband's April 14, 2011 divorce complaint is the pleading upon which the divorce judgment (including an alimony award) entered. It therefore qualified to be considered as the terminal date of the "length of the marriage" for purposes of § 48. The wife's January 11, 2005 separate support complaint led only to a judgment ordering child support. That complaint, therefore, cannot serve as a terminal date of the "length of the marriage" for purposes of § 48. By contrast, the wife's June 11, 2008 complaint for modification resulted in a judgment awarding spousal support. Although we acknowledge that § 48 does not refer to modification complaints, we conclude from the over-all structure and intent of the section and of the alimony reform act as a whole, see Zaleski v. Zaleski, 469 Mass. 230, 239–240, 13 N.E.3d 967 (2014), that a predivorce-judgment complaint for modification that results in an award of spousal...