Alabama Appellate Watch : Blog Published by Lightfoot Franklin & White : Alabama Litigation Lawyer & Attorney : Appellate, Alabama Supreme Court (Supreme Court of Alabama)

The trial court incorporated the parties’ “partial agreement” into a divorce judgment that purported to dispose of all pending issues between the parties. The agreement did not appear in the appellate record. Neither party had “made any representation identifying the issues upon which the parties had reached an agreement.” And the trial court had received no evidence on any of the issues that “might have still been in dispute” following the partial agreement.

The judgment thus had to be reversed, for two reasons.

First, the partial agreement was unenforceable. Under section 34-3-21 of the Alabama Code, agreements made by attorneys must be in writing or entered into the court’s minutes. Oral agreements between parties are enforceable only if made in open court or during a pretrial conference. Here, despite the parties’ representations in appellate briefing, the record contained no “written documentation” of the partial agreement, and there was “no indication that a hearing was actually conducted.” The agreement thus was not binding; the judgment incorporating it had to be reversed.

Second, because the trial court did not receive evidence on a number of issues, it “had no discretion” to adjudicate those issues. This included property division, alimony, and child support. The appellate court also noted that the record on appeal did not contain most of the forms required in child-support cases.

The Court of Civil Appeals reversed and remanded the judgment. It ordered the trial court “to conduct an evidentiary hearing on any issues upon which the parties have failed to reach a settlement agreement and to properly incorporate any settlement into its judgment.”

 A wife petitioned the circuit court to modify the husband’s child-support obligations under the parties’ divorce judgment, and to hold the husband in contempt for failing to comply with provisions of that judgment.  The trial court entered a handwritten order into the State Judicial Information System on August 1, 2008, which ordered the husband to pay the wife $1100.  The order did not address the request to modify child support.

At the wife’s request, on October 6, 2008, the trial court entered a typewritten order identical to the earlier handwritten order.

The husband appealed on October 3, 2008, and the wife moved to dismiss the appeal as untimely.

The Court of Civil Appeals agreed that the appeal had to be dismissed but for a reason different from that given by the wife.  Because the trial court had not disposed of the wife’s request to modify child support, neither of its orders was final.  Neither would support an appeal.  The court thus dismissed the appeal.