ROBERTIN RAMIREZ v. NESTORA RAMIREZ

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-0

ROBERTIN RAMIREZ,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

V.

NESTORA RAMIREZ,

Defendant-Respondent.

___________________________________

June 3, 2015

Submitted May 12, 2015 Decided

Before Judges Higbee and Currier.

On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Chancery Division, Family Part, Union County, Docket No. FM-20-674-06.

Andril & Espinosa, LLC, attorneys for appellant (Antonio R. Espinosa, on the briefs).

Musa-Obregon & Associates, PC, attorneys for respondent (Peter Kapitonov, on the brief).

PER CURIAM

Plaintiff, Robertin Ramirez, appeals from two trial court orders granting defendant, Nestora Ramirez's motion to enforce Article VI, Section 6 of the parties' Property Settlement Agreement (PSA), dated April 17, 2007. After reviewing the record and considering the contentions advanced on appeal, we affirm substantially for the reasons set forth by Judge Daniel R. Lindemann in his statement of reasons accompanying his February 28, 2014 and March 26, 2014 Orders.

Plaintiff and defendant married in June 1995. The couple had two daughters. The parties were divorced on March 27, 2007. The parties subsequently executed a comprehensive PSA, which was annexed to the Amended Judgment of Divorce (JOD), entered on April 17, 2007. Article VI, Section 6 of the PSA provided as follows

EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION

. . . .

6. The parties own a Note for the sale of Madison Coin Laundry. The parties agree the monthly payment for said note is the amount of $1743.00, which is to be divided in three equal parts between the Husband, Wife and Husband's brother, Eduardo Ramirez. The Husband agrees to pay one third of said amount, or $581.00 to the Wife on a monthly basis for the duration of the life of the Note (August 3, 2004 through August 3, 2019).1

In addition to distributing the parties' property, the PSA also resolved issues of child support, alimony, and other financial matters. Relevant here, the parties owned property on Julia and Madison Street, where plaintiff and his brother operated the laundry business referenced in Article VI, Section 6 of the PSA. As part of the PSA, plaintiff was to pay defendant for any interest she had in the property. The business itself had been sold before the divorce, and payments had been made on a note for over two years by the purchaser of the business. The contract to sell the laundry business named only plaintiff as seller.

Also relevant here, defendant was unable to vacate the marital property at the time she agreed to leave. Plaintiff therefore kept the first three $581 payments to compensate him for rent charged to defendant; he then made two payments to her. In the interim, the buyer of the laundry business defaulted on his purchase, and stopped paying on the note held by the plaintiff.2 As a result of non-payment on the note, plaintiff demanded return of his last two payments made to defendant, since he was not being paid by the defaulting purchaser of the business. Defendant did not oblige this demand. Defendant was then told by plaintiff that she could have one third of the business if she contributed to debts and repairs of the business. Defendant replied that she would just sell her share of the business.

Neither party made any attempt to modify the existing PSA, nor to enforce it for seven years. During that time, plaintiff and his brother claimed they fixed and operated the business, and then leased it to a tenant. Eventually, plaintiff made an application to the court concerning defendant's obligations towards their older daughter's college expenses. That issue was resolved by the court.

Defendant then moved to enforce the PSA, requiring payment to her of the $581 monthly payments that plaintiff had ceased paying. Plaintiff never offered her a portion of the rents from the new tenant, nor had he applied to have her contribute to repairs to the business. Neither plaintiff nor defendant now seek to change the fact that defendant has no interest in the business.

Defendant moved before the court for enforcement of the PSA. In response, plaintiff claimed that the agreement only required him to pay defendant if he received payments from the purchaser on the note, and therefore, he had no obligation to pay defendant. He asserted that defendant could sue on the note, despite the fact that she had no direct interest in the note. He repeats those arguments on this appeal.

We set forth certain fundamental principles that guide our analysis of this matter. A settlement is essentially a contract, which is to be enforced as written, absent a demonstration of fraud or other compelling circumstances. Honeywell v. Bubb, 130 N.J. Super.130, 136 (App. Div. 1974). New Jersey has "a strong public policy favoring settlement of litigation." Borough of Haledon v. Borough of N. Haledon, 358 N.J. Super.289, 305 (App. Div. 2003)(citations omitted). The public policy in favor of settlement is especially strong in family disputes. Puder v. Buechel, 362 N.J. Super.479, 488 (App. Div. 2003)(citations omitted), rev d on other grounds, 183 N.J.428 (2005).

There is often nothing more destructive to the personal resolution of the complex aspects of family dissolution than a trial, where relationships become further polarized. "Courts will therefore 'strain to give effect to the terms of a settlement wherever possible.'" Bistricer v. Bistricer, 231 N.J. Super.143, 147 (Ch. Div. 1987) (quoting Dep't of the Pub. Advocate v. N.J. Bd. of Pub. Utils., 206 N.J. Super.523, 528 (App. Div. 1985)).

Judge Lindemann's "Statement of Reasons" addressed the substance of plaintiff's arguments, and found them wanting. He found that the PSA was an integrated document that reflected the negotiations of the parties, where each had given up certain rights and compromised claims in return for other benefits. The judge found the PSA was not ambiguous and most importantly, that Article VI, Section 6 of the agreement was for a sum certain, with plaintiff owing defendant $581 monthly from the date of the agreement through August 3, 2014. This provision was without regard to whether the purchaser of the laundry business would default.

The judge then calculated the amount owed by plaintiff to defendant to be $44,737, which could be offset by any sums defendant owed plaintiff as a result of an order entered by another court. The judge reasoned that this part of the agreement may not have turned out as well for plaintiff as he planned, but the court would not remake the agreement.

Reviewing courts "grant substantial deference to a trial court's findings of fact and conclusions of law, which will only be disturbed if they are 'manifestly unsupported by or inconsistent with the competent, relevant and reasonably credible evidence.'" Crespo v. Crespo, 395 N.J. Super. 190, 193-94 (App. Div. 2007) (quoting Rova Farms Resort, Inc. v. Investors Ins. Co., 65 N.J. 474, 484 (1974)) (citations omitted). On the other hand, we are not obliged to defer to the Family Part's legal analysis because a "trial judge's interpretation of the law and the legal consequences that flow from established facts" is not entitled to any special deference. Barr v. Barr, 418 N.J. Super. 18, 31 (App. Div. 2001) (citing Manalapan Realty, L.P. v. Twp. Comm. of Manalapan, 140 N.J. 366, 378 (1995)).

We discern nothing in this record that would require a plenary hearing or contradict the judge's conclusion concerning the binding nature of the settlement agreement. We concur with the judge's determinations, and therefore affirm for substantially the same reasons.

Affirmed.

1 It is undisputed that the payments actually were to end August 3, 2014, not August 3, 2019, as misstated in the PSA. The duration of the payments is not being appealed since Judge Lindemann made the appropriate correction in his "Statement of Reasons."

2 Defendant never had ownership of the business, nor was she a party to the note. She was also never assigned any interest in the note, despite her lawyer requesting the same in a letter prior to the purchaser's default.