Ex-Husband Delay of Divorce Division Not Held Contempt

Tennessee case summary on post-divorce enforcement and contempt.

Timothy Alan Portice v. Roshawnda Lynn Foster Portice

The husband and wife in this Campbell County, Tennessee, case were divorced in 2016.  The decree called for the sale of the marital residence to be sold with the equity equally divided.  Until the sale, the husband was to continue residing in the home and was responsible for the mortgage.  The decree also called for the wife to receive half of the husband’s retirement account.

Later that year, the wife returned to court asking for the husband to be held in contempt.  She alleged that he was not cooperating with the sale of the home, and had not provided information regarding the retirement account.

After hearing, the trial court declined to find the husband in contempt.  However, it ordered him to sell the home within 6 months, and to obtain a realtor within 30 days.  The order provided that after six months, the court clerk would sell the house.  The court also ordered the husband to provide information regarding the pension.

The wife appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.  She argued that the trial court made an order that was in conflict with the original decree.  In particular, she argued that the lower court had erred in not holding the husband in contempt.

The appeals court first held that the trial court had not erred in specifying the six month deadline.  It noted that a lower court has authority to enter “appropriate additional orders” to enforce the earlier order.  In this case, the appeals court held that the specific later order was not at odds with the original order.

With respect to the retirement account, however, the appeals court held that the later order was in conflict with the original order.  There was enough of a deviation for the appeals court to reverse this portion of the lower court’s order.

On the issue of contempt, the Court of Appeals first noted that courts have an inherent power to use contempt to enforce prior orders.  But the court reviewed the contempt statute, and concluded that the husband’s acts were not of the type contemplated by that statute.  For example, the wife argued that the husband had used her social security number to obtain cable TV.  But the wife had not suffered any monetary damages, and the appeals court held that the lower court had acted within its discretion in not finding contempt.

For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court, after reversing the portion of the order concerning the retirement account.

No. E2016-01682-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Aug. 10, 2017).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see The Tennessee Divorce Process: How Divorces Work Start to Finish.