Jones v. Norton

NOTICE: NOT FOR OFFICIAL PUBLICATION. UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL AND MAY BE CITED ONLY AS AUTHORIZED BY RULE. IN THE ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS DIVISION ONE In re the Matter of: CHRISTIAN JONES, Petitioner/Appellant, v. DEBRA NORTON, Respondent/Appellee. No. 1 CA-CV 26-0261 FC FILED 11-09-2026 Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County No. FN2020-096853 The Honorable Joanna Reihing, Judge Pro Tempore AFFIRMED COUNSEL Al Arpad Esq, Phoenix By Alexander R. Arpad Counsel for Petitioner/Appellant Debra Norton, Phoenix Respondent/Appellee  JONES v. NORTON Decision of the Court MEMORANDUM DECISION Presiding Judge Andrew M. Jacobs delivered the decision of the Court, in which Judge Daniel J. Kiley and Chief Judge Randall M. Howe joined. J A C O B S, Judge: ¶1 Christian Jones appeals the superior court’s denial of a petition asking it to find his ex-wife, Debra Norton, in contempt of a minute entry stating she was half-liable for a community tax debt. Yet because the minute entry didn’t contain a particular order concerning the asserted tax debt, Norton couldn’t be in contempt of it. So even though Norton filed no answering brief in this appeal, it isn’t debatable whether the superior court’s ruling was error. It wasn’t. We thus affirm. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY ¶2 Jones and Norton wed in 2020 and divorced in 2021. Their Decree of Dissolution (“the Decree”) didn’t analyze the parties’ respective obligations to pay their tax liability for 2020. ¶3 Jones appealed various issues to this Court relating to the Decree, including whether Norton improperly withdrew $40,000 from a community property account in the days before she filed for divorce. In re the Marriage of Jones, 2 CA-CV 2022-0093 FC, 2023 WL 3909244, *6 ¶ 23 (Ariz. App. June 8, 2023). Jones contended in his appeal from the Decree that he would have used the $40,000 to pay the couple’s income taxes for 2020. He asked this Court to direct Norton to pay her share of the tax obligation for 2020. Id. We denied this request, for two reasons. First, Jones asked the superior court to direct Norton to pay that tax obligation in a motion to alter or amend the judgment, which was too late to first raise the tax issue. Id. Second, lateness aside, the superior court had rejected the argument by denying Jones’s motion to alter or amend the judgment. Id. ¶4 Jones took another stab at getting Norton to pay part of the asserted 2020 tax obligation. In 2023, he filed a petition in the superior court to modify the Decree to require her to pay half of the parties’ 2020 tax obligations. The superior court denied that request in a minute entry (“the April 2024 Minute Entry”) that was never reduced to an order or judgment. The April 2024 Minute Entry emphasized that the superior court had 2  JONES v. NORTON Decision of the Court denied Jones’s request to modify the Decree, citing this Court’s decision in Jones’s appeal. The April 2024 Minute Entry also asserted it was unnecessary to modify the Decree because “[c]ommunity debts not allocated by a divorce decree remain the joint obligations of the parties.” As he notes to us, Jones didn’t seek to appeal that decision. ¶5 Instead, Jones filed a new petition in the superior court (“the 2024 Tax Petition”). The 2024 Tax Petition sought to treat the April 2024 Minute Entry as an enforceable order that Norton pay her $75,989 half of the parties’ $151,978 2020 tax liability, and to hold Norton in contempt of the April 2024 Minute Entry for her nonpayment to date. Norton also filed an opposing petition Jones and Norton litigated, which is not part of this appeal. ¶6 The superior court denied Jones’s petition to enforce the April 2024 Minute Entry. The court offered several alternative explanations for this result. First, it suggested Jones failed to address the tax issue at trial before the court entered the Decree in 2021. Second, it pointed to this Court’s decision in Jones’s appeal from the Decree, and particularly our parallel statement that Jones failed to raise the issue before the Decree issued. Jones, 2023 WL 3909244, *6 ¶ 23. Third, it noted that the April 2024 Minute Entry was not an order, so there could be no contempt of it, or by implication, any enforcement of its statement that “[c]ommunity debts not allocated by a divorce decree remain the joint obligations of the parties.” Fourth, the court questioned whether, by filing separate tax returns, the parties made it open to question whether their 2020 tax liability was a community obligation. ¶7 The superior court reduced its ruling denying the 2024 Tax Petition to a judgment. Jones timely appealed. We have jurisdiction. Ariz. Const., art. 6, § 9; A.R.S. §§ 12-2101(A), -120.21(A). DISCUSSION I. We Have Discretion to Consider Norton’s Failure to File an Answering Brief as a Confession of Reversible Error. ¶8 Jones asks us to reverse the superior court’s denial of the 2024 Tax Petition and remand for enforcement of what he asserts is Norton’s obligation to pay half of the 2020 taxes. Norton failed to file an answering brief. When that happens, if “debatable issues exist . . . we may consider such failure a confession of reversible error.” Savord v. Morton, 235 Ariz. 256, 259 ¶ 9 (App. 2014) (cleaned up). We thus analyze whether Jones’s appeal from the 2024 Tax Petition raises debatable issues. 3  JONES v. NORTON Decision of the Court II. It Is Not Debatable Whether the April 2024 Minute Entry Was an Enforceable Order in the Manner Jones Asserts It Is. ¶9 One of the superior court’s four explanations for its denial of the 2024 Tax Petition is clearly correct: the April 2024 Minute Entry was not an enforceable order with respect to the subject matter of Jones’s later requests for contempt. Contempt requires an enforceable order. See Ong Hing v. Thurston, 101 Ariz. 92, 96-97 (1966) (explaining that the civil contempt statute punishes “failure to obey a lawful writ, process, order, [or] judgment of the court . . .”) (quoting Ex parte Wright, 36 Ariz. 8, 12 (1929)); Lund v. Donahoe, 227 Ariz. 572, 583 ¶ 41 (App. 2011) (explaining that civil contempt requires “knowledge of a lawful court order”) (cleaned up). The April 2024 Minute Entry did not contain an enforceable judicial order concerning the asserted tax liability. Thus, the superior court’s third explanation for what it did — that the April 2024 Minute Entry wasn’t an order — is inarguably correct. Indeed, Jones agrees the April 2024 Minute Entry “wasn’t a final order.” This requires us to affirm. III. Jones’s Other Arguments for Affirmative Relief Fail. ¶10 Jones raises other arguments that are unavailing, for the same common reason that he jumped straight to enforcement without first seeking appellate review of his unsuccessful attempt to modify the Decree. ¶11 First, he argues that the April 2024 Minute Entry was right in attributing half-liability to Norton for the parties’ 2020 tax liability. But for the reasons we just explained, even if that statement was right, it isn’t an order, and thus isn’t an operative command. ¶12 Second, he urges us to decide that the April 2024 Minute Entry erred in denying Jones’s 2023 Petition to modify the Decree. But that would require someone taking an appeal from the April 2024 Minute Entry, which Jones agrees no party did. Since Jones never appealed the April 2024 Minute Entry, as by requesting the superior court enter a final judgment under Arizona Rule of Family Law Procedure 78(c), and never filed a special action complaining it refused to do so, there has never been a basis for appellate review of the correctness of the superior court’s denial of his request to modify the Decree. ¶13 Third, Jones invokes the “law of the case” rubric, to suggest that the superior court decided he is right about Norton owing him half of what he suggests is their 2020 tax liability. But as noted in Paragraph 9, above, the April 2024 Minute Entry was insufficiently definite to constitute a court order with respect to the subject as to which Jones seeks 4  JONES v. NORTON Decision of the Court enforcement, and thus doesn’t establish the law of the case. See Dancing Sunshines Lounge v. Indus. Comm’n of Ariz., 149 Ariz. 480, 482 (1986) (citing Ziegler v. Superior Court, 134 Ariz. 390, 393 (App. 1982)) (The law of the case doctrine requires “the decision of a court in a case” for it to serve as “the law of that case”). CONCLUSION ¶14 We affirm. MATTHEW J. MARTIN • Clerk of the Court FILED: JR 5