TN Statute Does Not Allow Attorney’s Fees for Divorce Property Division Issues

Tennessee case summary on attorney’s fees for property division enforcement after divorce.

Virgil Lee Parker v. Paul J. Parker

For attorney’s fees to be awarded, the contempt case must relate to alimony, child support, or parenting.  Since the case before it involved property division, the statute did not apply.

The husband and wife in this Bradley County, Tennessee, case were divorced in 2021 on the grounds of irreconcilable differences.  The parties executed a marital dissolution agreement dividing their property.

The husband came back to court a few months later alleging that the wife was violating the agreement by not allowing him to retrieve his personal property from the wife’s home.  He asked that she be held in contempt, and he also asked for his attorney’s fees.  A hearing was held, and the trial court concluded that, by the time of the hearing, the husband had already retrieved what he was entitled to.  The court awarded the wife her attorney’s fees for defending the motion, under a Tennessee Statute authorizing such fees in cases involving alimony, child support, custody, and parenting plans.  The husband, however, asked the court to reconsider the attorney’s fees, since the statute did not authorize them in cases involving property divisions and their enforcement.  The trial court granted the husband’s motion, and the wife appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

While the appeal was pending, the husband died, and his personal representatives were substituted into the case.

The appeals court first noted that the interpretation of the statute was a question that the appeals court would review de novo, and it discussed the principles of statutory interpretation.  The lower court had found that to construe the statute as applying to anything other than alimony, child support, and parenting time, would be contrary to the intent of the statute.

The wife pointed to some wording in the statute that she claimed made it apply to more than just alimony, child support, and parenting.  But the appeals court pointed out that the relevant section of the statute was a single sentence, and when it diagrammed that sentence, it showed that it applied only to alimony, child support, and parenting.

The wife cited an earlier case in which the court had stated that the statute applied to cases of contempt.  But again, the appeals court pointed out that she had taken it out of context, and that for attorney’s fees to be awarded, the contempt case must relate to alimony, child support, or parenting.  Since the case before it involved property division, the statute did not apply.

For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed, and taxed the costs of appeal against the wife.

No.E2022-00720-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Oct. 12, 2023).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

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