Consent judgment of divorce; Attorney fees; Federal preemption of state law; The Supremacy Clause; Recovery of delinquent taxes by the IRS; Farr v United States (9th Cir); Effect of a party’s payment of the other party’s tax debt to the IRS; Immunity under 26 USC § 6332(e); United States v General Motors Corp (6th Cir); Contempt proceedings to coerce a party’s compliance with the judgment’s terms; Civil contempt

The court concluded that “the trial court improperly read words into the plain language of the” parties’ consent judgment of divorce when it directed plaintiff-ex-wife to pay defendant-ex-husband’s attorney $12,000. It further found that remand was required related to a payment the wife made to the IRS, and that the trial court committed legal error related to contempt proceedings against the wife. Thus, it vacated the trial court’s 5/22/24 order in part and remanded for further proceedings. “If necessary, on remand, the parties should be granted: (1) the opportunity to be heard; and (2) an evidentiary hearing. Once it determines the amounts paid to the IRS, the trial court must grant wife immunity under” § 6332(e) for these amounts. Any amounts she “improperly paid to husband or his counsel under the [5/22/24] order must be returned to her.” She contended that “by ordering her to directly pay husband’s counsel $12,000 in attorney fees and failing to fully account for her payments made to satisfy the tax levy, the trial court effectively rewrote a provision of the consent judgment.” The court agreed. The clear language of the relevant judgment provision “unambiguously entitled husband to an additional $12,000 from the sale of the marital home, for husband to use towards payment of his attorney fees, if his counsel presented proof husband owed at least $12,000 in attorney fees.” The trial court, “by ordering wife, rather than husband, to directly pay the $12,000 in attorney fees to husband’s counsel . . . tampered with the parties’ consent judgment and improperly created an obligation between wife and husband’s counsel when neither a legal nor a contractual obligation previously existed.” Thus, the court vacated the portion of the “order requiring wife to directly pay husband’s counsel $12,000[.]” As to the requirement that the wife pay $40,331.13, “a third party who honors a levy, and surrenders property to the IRS, is ‘“discharged from any obligation or liability to the delinquent taxpayer with respect to such property or rights to property arising from such surrender or payment.”’” As a result, if on remand the “wife provides sufficient evidence of payment of husband’s tax debt to the IRS, wife is only obligated to pay any amount to husband under the consent judgment of divorce that remains owing after applying the amounts paid to the IRS.”