Facts: Husband and Wife divorced in 2006. Their marital dissolution agreement (“MDA”) provided that a piece of real estate would be sold. Until it sold, Husband was responsible for paying all debt and expenses associated with the property.

The parties had difficulty selling the property.

Eventually, Wife filed a petition for contempt, alleging that Husband improperly kept rental proceeds from the property. The trial court agreed and awarded Wife a judgment for $7500 for her share of the rental proceeds on March 8, 2012. Remember that date because this judgment is the subject of this appeal.

Eventually, the trial court ordered the clerk and master to select a realtor to sell the property. Because of several baseless motions to recuse the trial court judge, Rule 11 sanctions were awarded against Wife in the amount of $20,000, which were ordered to be taken from Wife’s share of the proceeds from the property sale.

Wife appealed, lost on appeal, and Husband was awarded over $11,000 for his attorney’s fees. Wife appealed that and lost again on appeal.

When the property was finally sold, the proceeds were deposited with the clerk’s office. Husband asked for $32,000 from Wife’s portion to account for the sanctions and attorney’s fees awarded to him.

The trial court entered an order granting each party one-half of the funds held by the clerk and giving Husband $32,000 for the fees, expenses, and sanctions owed to him.

Wife appealed.

On Appeal: The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court.

Wife represented herself on appeal, and it showed. The Court had difficulty understanding her argument:

[T]he issues Wife attempts to raise on appeal are difficult to decipher and appear largely related to an order the trial court entered on March 8, 2012….

As best we can discern, Wife takes issue with the manner in which the March 8, 2012 order is labeled in the technical record…. Wife spends the majority of her argument opining that the order entered March 8, 2012 was not valid because it was not entered in accordance with Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure 58…. According to Wife, the March 8, 2012 order was “falsely recorded as a ‘Final Order.’” She appears to argue that because of this purported error, the 2022 property sale was “illegal and property ownership is fraudulent.” According to Wife, the error regarding the March 8, 2012 order means that the original claims are still pending in the trial court, and a valid judgment for purposes of appeal has not been entered….

Wife is not entitled to relief. There is no meaningful difference in referring to the trial court’s March 8, 2012 order as a “judgment” or a “final order.” To the extent that Wife is arguing that an error occurred because the order is referred to as a “final order” in the record, as opposed to a “judgment,” this is inapposite because Tennessee law does not distinguish between final orders and judgments. More importantly, however, Wife did not appeal the order with which she now takes issue, and that order became final in 2012.

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Wife’s claims regarding the purported errors with the 2012 order did not change the fact that this Court has already ruled that the parties’ MDA is valid and enforceable, and the [] property must be sold pursuant to that MDA…. Wife cannot continue to relitigate issues that this Court has already adjudicated…. Wife cannot achieve an end-run around the law of the case doctrine by attacking the long final March 8, 2012 order. Again, the order was never appealed, and there is no error arising from the fact that the order is referenced in the record as both a “judgment” and a “final order.” The parties’ MDA is valid and enforceable, and thus there is no issue with the trial court dispersing to the parties the funds from the sale of the [] property.

The Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment.

Source: Holleman v. Holleman (Tennessee Court of Appeals, Eastern Section, June 21, 2024).

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