JULIE K. BOWLES v. ALAN D. BOWLES

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." Although it is posted on the internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R.1:36-3.

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-0

JULIE K. BOWLES,

Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.

ALAN D. BOWLES,

Defendant-Respondent.

__________________________________

November 10, 2016

Submitted October 31, 2016 Decided

Before Judges Sabatino and Haas.

On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey, Chancery Division, Family Part, Essex County, Docket No. FM-07-0808-07.

Alan D. Bowles, appellant pro se.

Matthew M. Fredericks, attorney for respondent.

PER CURIAM

In this matrimonial case, defendant Alan D. Bowles appeals the Family Part's December 29, 2014 order denying his motion for relief from the terms of the Amended Final Judgment of Divorce ("AFJD"). We affirm.

The parties were married in 1989 and had two children. Plaintiff Julie K. Bowles filed a divorce complaint in October 2006, and the court issued a pendente lite order for support. After defendant failed to comply with the pendente lite order, the wife moved in June 2008 for his arrest and enforcement relief. That prompted defendant to flee to the United Kingdom, where he has since remained. In his absence, a preliminary judgment of divorce by default was initially entered in December 2009.

Subsequently, the Family Part issued specific findings of fact, and the divorce judgment was amended on February 23, 2011 in the form of the AFJD, as corrected in a superseding AFJD on March 23, 2012. The AFJD requires defendant to pay plaintiff alimony, child support, and equitable distribution.

Plaintiff attempted to get defendant to make his payment obligations, but to no avail. As a result, she retained counsel in England to pursue defendant and attempt recovery from his assets in that country. Plaintiff moved in October 2013 in the English courts for the equivalent of summary judgment, but defendant managed to persuade the English tribunal to stay its hand while he allegedly would seek relief from the AFJD in the American courts.

In October 2014 defendant moved in the Family Part to reduce his payment obligations and to vacate the court's outstanding order of arrest. Plaintiff submitted an opposing certification explaining why such relief was unwarranted and unjustified.

The Family Part denied defendant's post-judgment motion in all respects in its December 29, 2014 order. The court found that the application was essentially a motion for reconsideration of the AFJD, and was untimely filed three-and-one-half years after the judgment was entered. The court also noted that defendant did not appeal from the divorce judgment.

The court additionally found that defendant's motions to reduce or modify his alimony and child support obligations on the basis of alleged changed circumstances was not established under the criteria ofLepis v. Lepis, 83 N.J. 139, 148-49 (1980). The court noted that defendant's Case Information Statement ("CIS") reported annual living expenses of $235,526.16, but failed to disclose the source of his means to support that lifestyle. The court also pointed out that defendant's CIS reflected that he owned property in the United Kingdom, which has a monthly mortgage payment of $466.63, but that the husband failed to disclose the value of that property or other properties he owned. Meanwhile, the court found noteworthy that, as of November 26, 2014, the husband owed the wife $962,178.80 in arrears.

In this appeal, in which he represents himself, defendant contends that he is unemployed and does not have any substantial assets to pay his obligations under the AFJD. He claims that, on reflection, he made mistakes in filling out his CIS form before the trial court. He attempts to tender a revised CIS form dated February 10, 2015, which he contends shows that all but $8,000 of his assets are exempt from equitable distribution.

We affirm the Family Part's order, substantially for the reasons detailed by Judge Nancy Sivilli in the body of the two-page December 29, 2014 order. The judge rightly noted that defendant failed to file an appeal from the AFJD within the forty-five-day deadline prescribed by Rule 2:4-1(a). In addition, the judge correctly found that defendant's attempt to seek reconsideration of the AFJD years later was woefully out of time. See R. 4:49-2 (mandating that a motion for reconsideration "shall be served not later than 20 days after service of the judgment or order").

Furthermore, to extent defendant's application could be viewed as a motion for relief based on changed circumstances, we have no grounds to set aside Judge Silvilli's stated reasons for rejecting it. Indeed, defendant, who had the evidential burden under Lepis, supra, 83 N.J. at 148-49, does not even furnish us with an appendix containing his motion submissions to the trial court. See R. 2:6-1(a)(1)(I) (requiring an appellant to provide in his appendix "parts of the [trial court] record, excluding the stenographic transcript, as are essential to the proper consideration of the issues"); Society Hill Condo Ass'n v. Society Hill Assocs., 347 N.J. Super. 163, 177-78 (App. Div. 2002) (interpreting the Rule to authorize the appellate court to refrain from addressing issues that relate to parts of the trial court record omitted from the appendix). We also will not consider the revised CIS tendered for the first time on appeal, since it was never presented to the Family Part judge whose decision is on review.

To the extent we have not already commented, defendant's remaining arguments lack sufficient merit to be worthy of discussion. R. 2:11-3(e)(1)(E).

Affirmed.