Ex parte Littlepage

Summary

The Supreme Court of Alabama held that a trial court improperly modified a divorce judgment incorporating the parties' property settlement agreement more than 30 days after entry of the judgment. The court concluded that the agreement unambiguously required payment of only one specified individual Visa account and that the trial court could not use parol evidence to expand that obligation. The judgment was reversed and the cause remanded.

Holdings

1. A court may not modify property provisions in a divorce judgment after 30 days from final judgment, except to correct clerical errors; an incorporated property settlement is final and not modifiable absent fraud or duress.
2. Paragraph 15 was unambiguous in requiring payment of one individual Visa account, although the identity of that account could be determined through interpretation; the provision did not require payment of all of the wife's Visa accounts.
3. The trial court could consider parol evidence only to identify which single individual Visa account was intended; it could not use parol evidence to vary or expand the express provisions of the divorce judgment.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the trial court had jurisdiction, on a motion filed more than 30 days after entry of the divorce judgment, to modify the judgment's property and debt-allocation provisions.
2. Whether paragraph 15 of the incorporated settlement agreement was ambiguous so as to permit the trial court to use parol evidence and require payment of additional Visa debts.
3. Whether the trial court's later order enforcing payment of debts not covered by the divorce judgment impermissibly varied the express terms of that judgment.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded