Motion for clarification of a judgment of divorce (JOD)

Holding that the trial court erred when it granted defendant-ex-husband’s motion for clarification of the JOD, the court vacated the trial court’s 7/20/22 order and remanded for further proceedings. The trial court did not merely clarify the terms of the JOD “but changed its previous ruling, which impacted the parties’ substantive rights. There was no ambiguity in the [JOD]—it plainly provides that Plaintiff[-ex-wife] was ‘awarded fifty (50%) of the proceeds from the personal injury lawsuit of Defendant stemming from a motor vehicle accident.’ Rather than clarifying this provision, the trial court substantively modified it by limiting it to only past lost wages up to the date the [JOD] was entered. Additionally, as the trial court rightly acknowledged, this issue was not fully litigated at the time of trial. The result of this failure, though, was that the trial court could not look to its previous findings of fact and conclusions of law to determine how [its] judgment intended to address this issue.” This in turn supported that the trial “court was not merely clarifying its judgment but substantively modifying it. For these reasons, the trial court could not consider defendant’s request to modify the [JOD] as a request for clarification, and [it] erred by purporting to ‘clarify’ the [JOD] by modifying it in a way that changed the substantive rights of the parties.” The court noted that the “trial court could only grant the substantive relief requested by defendant if” he established he was entitled “to that relief under MCR 2.612(C)(1)(f).”