Court Cannot Open Dissolution Judgment Absent Fraud

A court cannot open a dissolution judgment absent fraud, the Connecticut Appellate Court re-confirmed in a January 25, 2016 advance release opinion. The court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to open the judgment without finding fraud, even if the parties agree to open it.

In 2010, the plaintiff in Reinke v. Sing (to be officially released on February 2, 2016) filed a motion to open the 2007 dissolution judgment claiming that defendant fraudulently misrepresented his assets in his financial affidavit.

The trial court opened the judgment ‘‘by oral agreement of both parties, without a finding of fraud’’ in order to reassess the financial orders. No one raised the issue of subject matter jurisdiction to open the judgment absent fraud.

The court found that defendant’s financial affidavit underreported both his income and the value of a number of assets. Defendant’s income was twice, yes twice, what his affidavit disclosed. The court changed the alimony terms and the division of marital assets and retirement accounts.

Arguments on Appeal

Plaintiff argued that the changes to the alimony and the division of the marital assets were inequitable given the trial court’s findings concerning the actual status of defendant’s financial affairs.

Appellate Court’s Conclusions

The Appellate Court raised the subject matter jurisdiction issue sua sponte. It considered itself bound by its decision in Forgione v. Forgione, 162 Conn. App. 1, officially released on December 22, 2015. The court observed: “That case held that in the absence of a finding or concession of fraud, the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to open a dissolution judgment, at least as to the division of the parties’ marital assets, despite an agreement by the parties to permit the trial court to do so.”

The Appellate Court reversed and remanded with instructions to dismiss plaintiff’s motion to open for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

Impact

Ouch. Defendant avoided a fraud finding by agreeing to open the judgment and ended up benefitting from underreporting his income (by a factor of two) and assets on his financial affidavit. It occurred it to me that maybe plaintiff agreed to open without the fraud finding because she wasn’t convinced that she could establish, under the elevated clear and convincing evidence standard, that defendant committed fraud. That would mean that defendant knew plaintiff could prove his financial affidavit was inaccurate. It seems wrong to me let stand a judgment based on an inaccurate financial affidavit even if the inaccuracies were not fraudulent. I like to think, because I’ve seen evidence of it, that our appellate courts find a way to fix such problems. I guess it couldn’t be done in this case.

About the Photo

Connecticut courts often describe subject matter jurisdiction as “the right to set the judicial machinery in motion.” The photo depicts machinery.