In the Matter of Christopher Taylor and Therese Taylor

THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

SUPREME COURT

In Case No. 2023-0443, In the Matter of Christopher Taylor
and Therese Taylor, the court on April 16, 2025, issued the
following order:

The court has reviewed the written arguments and the record submitted
on appeal, and has determined to resolve the case by way of this order. See
Sup. Ct. R. 20(3). The petitioner, Christopher Taylor, appeals a decision of the
Circuit Court (Lemire, J.) challenging rulings pertaining to the trial court’s
renewal or modification of alimony. We affirm.

The following facts are set forth in the trial court order, are not
contested, or are supported by the record. The parties were married in 1997
and have three daughters. As the petitioner acknowledged in his notice of
appeal, he had a “lucrative career in information technology sales.” The
respondent, Therese Taylor, has a high school education. Prior to 2013, she
was a part-time music teacher, but she has been disabled since 2013. The
petitioner filed for divorce in 2012. The respondent filed an answer and cross-
petition and participated in the proceedings to a point, but she later failed to
file an appearance or update the court with a new address. A default judgment
was issued in the divorce proceeding in June 2013. No child support or
alimony orders were issued at that time.

In January 2014, the respondent filed an emergency motion to bring
forward final divorce, parenting order and uniform support order for
modification. In September 2014, the Trial Court (Weaver, J.) ordered the
petitioner to pay the respondent $2,219 per month in child support and $800
per month in spousal support. The trial court found, in part, that the
respondent had a “great need for alimony” but that the petitioner’s “ability to
pay alimony was limited.” In January 2016, a two-hour final hearing on
modification of child support, alimony and contempt was held, after which the
Trial Court (Foley, J.) issued an order finding “on virtually undisputed
evidence, that [the petitioner] understated his income on every single Financial
Affidavit that he has filed with this Court since, and including, 7/23/14.”
(Emphasis added.) The trial court also found:

[The petitioner’s] testimony during [the hearing] regarding those
understated incomes pushed the boundaries of credibility. [The
petitioner] stated that he never looked backward. He only looked
forward and tried to estimate his future commissions. In my view,
 that was code for ignoring the factual information regarding his
income that was on each and every paystub he received.

The trial court awarded the respondent child support and alimony arrearages
totaling $51,941 and alimony of $1,000 per month, the alimony to be paid until
December 31, 2020. The petitioner appealed, and we affirmed the trial court
rulings. See In the Matter of Christopher Taylor and Therese Taylor, No. 2016-
0093 (non-precedential order), 2016 WL 7451414 (N.H. Nov. 15, 2016).

Following a three-day hearing in April 2023, the trial court ruled on a
number of motions that had been filed by the parties and issued the fifty-three-
page narrative order the petitioner now appeals. The trial court found that the
petitioner not only continued to underreport his income in his filings with the
court, but also “willful[ly] conceal[ed] it.” The trial court set aside and vacated
several prior support orders, recalculated the petitioner’s child support and
alimony obligations, and ordered the petitioner to pay the respondent: (1)
$21,965 in child support arrearages and $40,700 in alimony arrearages for the
period between March 2018 and December 2020; (2) $27,679 in alimony
arrearages for the period January 2021 to January 2022 and $52,170 in
alimony arrearages for the period January 2022 to June 2023, and (3) alimony
in the amount of $3,000 per month until January 1, 2033. On appeal, the
husband challenges only the trial court’s rulings pertaining to the renewal or
modification of alimony; that is, the trial court’s order that he pay alimony in
the amount of $3,000 per month until January 1, 2033.

The trial court is afforded broad discretion in awarding alimony. In the
Matter of Nassar & Nassar, 156 N.H. 769, 772 (2008). We will uphold the trial
court’s findings and rulings unless they are lacking in evidentiary support or
are tainted by error of law. Id. Absent an unsustainable exercise of discretion,
we will not overturn the trial court’s factual findings, but we review its rulings
of law de novo. Id.

The petitioner first argues that the trial court erred as a matter of law
because it treated the respondent’s motion for alimony as a request for a
renewal of alimony, rather than a request to modify. He asserts that the
standard for renewal, which places the burden of proof upon the party “in
whose favor the order is to run to establish that justice requires a renewal or
extension,” In the Matter of Lyon & Lyon, 166 N.H. 315, 321 (2014), is a much
lower standard than the standard he asserts the trial court should have
applied, which requires a party seeking modification to prove that a
“substantial change in circumstances has arisen since the initial award,
making the current support amount either improper or unfair.” Laflamme v.
Laflamme, 144 N.H. 524, 527 (1999) (quotation omitted). The petitioner argues
that our case law suggests that “renewal is continuation of alimony in the same
amount,” and that “modification is a change in alimony amount.”

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(Capitalization and bolding omitted.) We have previously considered and
rejected this argument. See In the Matter of Hoyt & Hoyt, 171 N.H. 373, 378
(2018).

The petitioner in Hoyt appealed an order reinstating his alimony
obligation to the respondent and granting an upward adjustment to his child
support payment. Id. at 374. The petitioner in Hoyt made the same argument
the petitioner makes here, that is, that the trial court erred because it
“modified the original award without proof of a substantial change in
circumstances.” Id. at 378. In rejecting this argument, we stated:

The petitioner’s argument relies upon an inapplicable standard of
proof. It is true that a party seeking to obtain an order modifying a
support obligation . . . must show that a substantial change in
circumstances has arisen since the initial award, making the
current support amount either improper or unfair. However, this
standard does not apply to a request to renew an expired award,
which is what the respondent sought here. Rather, in the latter
scenario, we have articulated that the burden is upon the party in
whose favor the order is to run to establish that justice requires a
renewal or extension, and if so, what justice requires as to amount,
in the light of all the circumstances then existing.

Id. (quotations and citations omitted). In light of the above-quoted language,
we find unavailing the petitioner’s effort to distinguish Hoyt on the grounds
that “it appears the modification standard had been met” there. The trial court
here correctly articulated and applied the general standard applicable to
requests to renew alimony. See id.

Having concluded that the trial court did not err as a matter of law, we
turn to the petitioner’s argument that the award of alimony in this case was
unreasonable. Because the petition for divorce was filed in 2012, the trial
court applied the prior version of the alimony statute and analyzed whether
justice required the award of alimony, and if so, in what amount. The
petitioner does not challenge the trial court’s application of that statute, which
authorizes the trial court to award alimony if: (1) the party in need lacks
sufficient income, property, or both to provide for his or her reasonable needs,
considering the marital standard of living; (2) the payor is able to continue to
meet his or her reasonable needs, considering the marital standard of living;
and (3) the party in need cannot be self-supporting through appropriate
employment at a standard of living that meets reasonable needs. See RSA
458:19, I (2018) (amended 2018).

The trial court found that the respondent had demonstrated a need for
alimony because she is 58 years old, has a high school education, and her only

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income, totaling $1,170 per month, is from Social Security, Aid to Permanently
Disabled, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The trial court
specifically found the respondent’s claim that she has been disabled since 2013
to be credible and supported by the record, and that the respondent had
demonstrated a need of $4,600 per month. Regarding the petitioner’s ability to
pay and his ability to meet his own needs, the trial court noted that the
petitioner himself had stated that “he would never say he cannot afford
alimony, because he can [afford alimony],” and that the petitioner’s earnings
after the 2016 order were substantially similar to his earnings prior to the 2016
order. Regarding the petitioner’s assertion that his only income at present is
from unemployment security benefits, the court stated that it

considers this information in the context of the overall
circumstances in this case. The Court is particularly mindful of
what appears to be a near constant change in the Petitioner’s
employment, the most recent change coinciding with the
Respondent’s request for alimony. Given the evidence provided to
date as to the Petitioner’s employment and reporting history, this
Court finds that he is presently voluntarily unemployed and
imputes the income to him that he was most recently earning . . .
$11,250 gross per month, finding he has demonstrated
approximately this level of earning capacity for the last several
years.

The trial court also took into consideration the petitioner’s “sources of income,
assets, and overall earning capacity,” and concluded that the petitioner has the
ability to pay $3,000 per month, effective January 19, 2022 until January 19,
2033. Based upon our review of the record, we cannot conclude that the trial
court unsustainably exercised its discretion when it required the petitioner to
continue to pay alimony beyond his retirement age. Nor did it unsustainably
exercise its discretion when it awarded the respondent alimony to last longer
than the length of the marriage. See Nassar, 156 N.H. at 777 (recognizing that
the rehabilitative principle of alimony statute is not controlling where
supported spouse suffers ill health and is not capable of establishing her own
source of income).

In her brief, respondent requests that we order the petitioner to pay her
alimony for the years 2021-2033 in a lump sum and to reimburse her in the
amount of $20,000 for “the costs of transcripts [and] all related filing fees and
legal fees.” The respondent’s request for an order directing the petitioner to
pay alimony for the years 2021-2033 in a lump sum is denied. Because the
respondent has not appealed a trial court order denying a request for alimony
to be paid in a lump sum, the issue is not properly before us. The respondent’s
request for attorney’s fees is also denied because we cannot conclude that the
petitioner’s appeal was either frivolous or in bad faith. See Sup. Ct. R. 23. The

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respondent’s request for costs is denied without prejudice to her filing a
request for taxation of costs with itemization within 30 days after the date on
the final order pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 23.

Affirmed.

MACDONALD, C.J., and BASSETT, DONOVAN, and COUNTWAY, JJ.,
concurred.

Timothy A. Gudas,
Clerk

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