Background
The district court dissolved Chrissy Sue Becker’s and Donald Scott Becker’s marriage in 2020. Its permanent orders required the parties to divide their 529 education accounts and use those funds for their children’s education, and required husband to pay maintenance and child support. After an earlier appeal led to recalculation of child support, wife sought contempt sanctions based on unpaid support and husband’s failure to use his 529 accounts for the children.
In 2023, a magistrate found husband in remedial and punitive contempt, including for $80,083.25 in support arrears, and ordered him to pay $13,970 of wife’s attorney fees and costs. The magistrate later denied husband’s motion to reduce maintenance and imposed punitive contempt sanctions for later unpaid support. The district court adopted those rulings.
The Court’s Holding
The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed the contempt findings. The magistrate reasonably interpreted the permanent orders as requiring husband to use his 529 funds for the children’s education and had record support for finding that he refused to do so. The court also upheld the finding that husband had the ability to pay support, relying on evidence including his retirement assets, and rejected his argument that liquidation of assets made them unavailable for contempt purposes.
The court also affirmed the denial of husband’s maintenance-modification motion. Although the magistrate incorrectly calculated an advisory maintenance figure without the statutory tax adjustment, the error was harmless because the guidelines were not controlling and the ruling rested on the parties’ overall financial circumstances, wife’s needs, and husband’s ability to pay. But the court reversed the $13,970 attorney-fee award and remanded because the magistrate did not make sufficiently specific findings addressing whether much of wife’s requested billing was connected to her 2021 contempt motion.
Key Takeaways
- A court may interpret an order as a whole, including language explaining its purpose, when deciding whether a party violated it.
- Existing assets may support a finding that a party can comply with a support order even if liquidation is necessary.
- A remedial contempt fee award must contain findings specific enough to permit appellate review of whether the billed work related to the contempt proceeding.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that contempt findings turn on the contemnor’s actual resources and conduct, not merely on whether funds are immediately liquid. It also reinforces the distinction between a court’s discretion to award fees for contempt and its obligation to explain the factual basis for the amount awarded.