In re Marriage of Clark.
2025 COA 75. No. 24CA1713. Dissolution of Marriage—Separation Agreement—Modification and Termination of Maintenance, Support, and Property Disposition—Remarriage.
August 28, 2025
In 2022, wife petitioned for dissolution of the parties’ 22-year marriage. The parties were both pro se and settled the case by executing a separation agreement using the Judicial Department’s standard form JDF 1115, Separation Agreement (Marriage) (revised Feb. 2018). The parties’ separation agreement provides for husband to pay wife maintenance for six years and states that the agreement may not be modified or terminated. A magistrate entered a decree dissolving the parties’ marriage and incorporating by reference the separation agreement. In October 2023, wife moved to hold husband in contempt for not making the required payments. Husband then moved to terminate his maintenance obligation under CRS § 14-10-122(2)(a)(III) because wife had remarried in June 2023. Wife acknowledged her remarriage but asserted that the language in the separation agreement was sufficient to prevent the termination of maintenance. A magistrate denied husband’s motion to terminate maintenance. The district court district court upheld and adopted the magistrate’s order.
On appeal, husband argued that the magistrate and district court erred by ruling that his maintenance obligation continued after wife’s remarriage. He asserted that under In re Marriage of Cerrone, 2021 COA 116, ¶ 20, maintenance terminates upon remarriage unless the separation agreement explicitly states that maintenance will continue after remarriage. As relevant here, § 14-10-122(2)(a)(III) provides that “[u]nless otherwise agreed in writing” a party’s future maintenance obligation terminates upon the recipient’s remarriage. The court of appeals held that § 14-10-122(2)(a)(III) does not require any particular language for parties to agree that maintenance will continue upon remarriage; rather, an agreement must expressly or by clear implication indicate the parties’ intent that the payments continue. To the extent that Cerrone can be read to require express use of the term “remarriage” to prevent maintenance from terminating when the recipient remarries, the court declined to follow that holding. Further, the language in the parties’ separation agreement is distinguishable from the language in Cerrone that failed to overcome the statutory termination of maintenance upon remarriage. Here, it is apparent from the separation agreement that the parties’ intended for maintenance payments to continue for the six-year period even if the recipient remarried within that time frame. The court thus concluded that the parties “otherwise agreed in writing” under § 14-10-122(2)(a)(III) that the automatic termination on remarriage provision does not apply. Accordingly, the district court properly denied the motion to terminate maintenance payments.
The order was affirmed and the case was remanded for further proceedings concerning wife’s request for appellate attorney fees and costs.