Facts: Husband and Wife divorced after 23 years of marriage. Ten years later, this is their third appeal.

In January 2021—after the first appeal—the trial court awarded Wife the Cayman Island properties. Husband was ordered to add Wife as an owner to the bank accounts associated with the properties and to make no further withdrawals. If one account had less than a certain balance, Husband was ordered to provide an accounting within 30 days.

In September 2021, Wife petitioned for criminal contempt, alleging that Husband falsely claimed he sold the Cayman Island properties. In February 2022, she amended her petition to allege Husband:

• did not add her as an owner to the bank accounts awarded to her,
• closed one of the bank accounts awarded to her,
• made withdrawals from one of the bank accounts awarded to her.

In March 2023, the criminal contempt petition was tried. The trial court found the February 2022 amended petition was not barred by the 12-month statute of limitations because it related back to the original petition filed eight months after the trial court’s order. The trial court found Husband guilty of five counts of criminal contempt and sentenced him to serve 40 days in jail.

Husband appealed.

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

In Tennessee, contempt is not defined as a criminal offense. Further, while contempt proceedings are generally classified as “civil” or “criminal,” they are neither wholly civil nor criminal and may have features of both. Whether a contempt proceeding is civil or criminal is determined by its character and purpose.

Civil contempt is remedial and brought to force compliance with an order, thus securing private rights established by the order. When a trial court orders imprisonment after finding civil contempt, the confinement is remedial and coercive in nature, designed to compel the contemnor to follow the court’s order. Thus, if a contemnor follows the order, they will be immediately released from confinement.

Criminal contempt is designed to serve the limited purpose of vindicating the authority of the court. With criminal contempt, the court punishes conduct that violates specific duties imposed by the court that arise directly from the parties’ participation in judicial proceedings. People facing criminal contempt enjoy certain constitutional rights, including the presumption of innocence, the right to be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the right against self-incrimination, the right to a court-appointed attorney, among other rights.

TCA § 40-2-102(a) requires that “all prosecutions for misdemeanors shall be commenced within 12 months after the offense has been committed.” TCA § 39-11-110 says “all violations of law punishable by fine or confinement for less than one year” are misdemeanors. Thus, Husband argued that a charge of criminal contempt equates to a misdemeanor charge such that the 12-month statute of limitations applies.

Wife argued that TCA § 40-2-102(a) does not apply. Instead, Wife argued there is no statute of limitations to enforce a domestic relations order, citing TCA § 28-3-110(e), which says “there is no time within which a judgment or decree in a domestic relations matter issued by a court with domestic relations jurisdiction pursuant to title 36 must be acted upon, unless otherwise specifically provided for under title 36.”

The Court began by examining Tennessee’s general contempt statute, TCA § 29-9-102, where it observed:

The language used in each subsection provides that courts may hold persons in contempt when they behave in such a way as to obstruct the administration of justice. Importantly, there is no language in the statute to show that the Legislature intended for courts to hold persons in contempt for violations of the general criminal laws. Indeed, our courts have long held that the purpose of criminal contempt proceedings is not to punish a contemnor “for conduct proscribed as harmful by the general criminal laws,” but to vindicate the authority of our courts for a contemnor’s bad conduct “arising directly from the parties’ participation in judicial proceedings.” Indeed, criminal contempt charges should not be treated as misdemeanors under TCA § 39-11-110. Thus, the statute of limitations governing misdemeanors does not apply here.

The Court also observed that a prosecution for a misdemeanor begins when an indictment or presentment is filed, a warrant is issued, or a juvenile petition alleging a delinquent act is issued. None of these methods begin a criminal contempt proceeding. Instead, a criminal contempt proceeding is often started either by the court’s own motion or with the filing of a contempt petition by a private party. The Court concludes:

If the Legislature intended for criminal contempt charges to be classified and treated as substantive criminal offenses, it would have enacted a statute to reflect that intent—as it has done before…. The Legislature has not enacted a statute making a contemnor’s violation of a domestic relations decree a substantive criminal offense, and we decline to interpret TCA § 29-9-102 [i.e., the 12-month statute of limitations for misdemeanors] so broadly.

After determining that the statute of limitations for criminal misdemeanors does not apply, the Court examined Wife’s argument that the statute of limitations for domestic relations decrees applies. Specifically, Wife argued that TCA § 28-3-110(e) expressly provides no statute of limitations for enforcement of a domestic relations order.

The Court rejected Husband’s argument that TCA § 28-3-110(e) is limited to civil actions and does not apply to criminal contempt matters:

Husband is partially correct. Section 28-3-110(e) is limited to civil actions, but criminal contempt petitions can be—and often are—brought in civil actions. As discussed above, contempt proceedings are unique and incidental to the case out of which they arise. As such, civil and criminal contempt proceedings may arise out of both civil and criminal cases. Indeed, the Legislature has explicitly provided that this Court “has appellate jurisdiction over civil or criminal contempt [proceedings] arising out of a civil matter.” Likewise, the Legislature has explicitly provided that the Court of Criminal Appeals has appellate jurisdiction over “civil or criminal contempt [proceedings] arising out of a criminal matter.” … Here, it is undisputed that Wife’s criminal contempt allegations arose out of the parties’ underlying divorce proceedings, i.e., a civil matter. If they had not, this appeal would not be before this Court. As such, this contempt proceeding, although one for criminal contempt, arose out of and is a civil matter. Accordingly, TCA §§ 28-3-101 and 28-3-110(e) are applicable here. As such, there was no statute of limitations within which Wife was required to bring her criminal contempt petitions against Husband.

The Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment.

K.O.’s Comment: Until this opinion, it was widely understood that criminal contempt claims were subject to the 12-month statute of limitations for misdemeanors. Because of some excellent lawyering by Wife’s counsel, that is no more (at least for now).

Still, Tennessee law requires that courts “avoid constructions that place one statute in conflict with another and endeavor to resolve any possible conflict between statutes to provide for a harmonious operation of the laws.” Is it not possible to reconcile the principle that there is no time limit on an action to enforce a domestic relations order with the principle that criminal contempt must be initiated within 12 months of the violation? I find it curious that the Court did not attempt to address that question.

Source: Trezevant v. Trezevant (Tennessee Court of Appeals, Western Section, October 2, 2024).

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