Christine Diane Eyal, petitioner, Appellant,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2016).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A16-1272

Christine Diane Eyal, petitioner,
Appellant,

vs.

Ephraim Eyal,
Respondent.

Filed March 13, 2017
Affirmed
Reilly, Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-FA-09-8657

Christine D. Eyal, St. Louis Park, Minnesota (pro se appellant)

Joani C. Moberg, Susan A. Daudelin, Henschel Moberg Goff, P.A., Minneapolis,
Minnesota (for respondent)

Considered and decided by Hooten, Pr esiding Judge; Reilly , Judge; and Smith,
Tracy M., Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
REILLY, Judge
Appellant-mother challenges the district c ourt’s denial of her motion to reinstate
spousal maintenance fo llowing expiration of the maintena nce period, asserting that the
district court continued to exercise jurisd iction over spousal main tenance, and further
asserting that the district court abused its discretion by declining to order respondent-father

2
to produce financial records re garding his bonus. Because we conclude that the district
court did not err in its interpretation of the marriage-dissolution judgment and decree, and
did not abuse its discretion in denying mother’s discovery request, we affirm.
FACTS
Father and mother married in June 1999; the marriage wa s dissolved pursuant to a
marriage-dissolution judgment and decree entere d by the district court in February 2011
(the judgment). At the time of dissolution, the parties had two minor children, aged eight
and two. The judgment granted joint legal custody of the minor children and awarded sole
physical custody of the minor children to moth er, with parenting time to father. Rather
than calculating child support pursuant to the Minnesota Child S upport Guidelines, the
parties agreed that mother would receive spousal maintenance and father would pay for the
children’s expenses. The judgment explicitly provided: “All other child support is hereby
reserved.” (Emphasis added.) The district court later modified custody and awarded father
permanent sole physical custody of both minor children.
Father was employed as the President and CEO of IFP, Inc., earning a gross annual
base salary of $208,126, pl us employment benefits. Mother was not employed. The
judgment awarded spousal maintenance to mother as follows:
[C]ommencing November 15, 2010, [Father] is ordered
to pay to [Mother] the sum of $5,500 per month for 24 months,
payable in full on the fiftee nth day of ea ch month until
October 31, 2012, [Mother’s] remarriage or until either party’s
death, whichever first occurs. As and for additional spousal
maintenance, commencing Novemb er 15, 2012 [Father] is
ordered to pay to [Mother] the sum of $3,500 per month for 36
months, payable in full on the fifteenth day of each month until
October 15, 2015, [Mother’s] remarriage or until either party’s

3
death, whichever first occu rs. . . . The Court shall retain
jurisdiction to modify the awar d of spousal maintenance, but
shall do so only upon a showing of a significant change of
circumstances pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 518A.39.
(Emphasis added.)
The judgment further provided for division of father’s bonus income for fiscal years
2010 through 2015.
Father made his last required maintenanc e payment in October 2015. Nearly five
months later, mother sought a three-year “extension of marital support,” as well as an order
from the court directing father to “provide documented verification of the amount of
[father’s] 2015 bonus paid in 2 016.” Father challenged the di strict court’s jurisdiction to
address the issue of spousal maintenance, arguing that he had tendered “all monthly
[maintenance] payments as ordered.” Father also su bmitted correspondence from his
employer indicating that none of its employees or officers, including father, received a
bonus for the 2015 fiscal year. The district court agreed with father and denied mother’s
requests. The district court determined that father made his final maintenance payment in
October 2015, and did not receive a bonus for the 2015 fiscal year. The district court held
that because mother’s motion came after father’s final maintenance payment, the court “has
no authority to address the request to reinitiate a maintenance obligation.”
Mother appeals.

4
D E C I S I O N
I. The district court did not err by determ ining that it lacked jurisdiction to
reinstate spousal maintenance, where the maintenance period had expired
and the judgment did not expressly reserve jurisdiction.
The first issue presented is whether the district court erred by declining to consider
mother’s motion to extend spousal maintenance payments, after the final payment had been
made. “The district court has broad disc retion when dividing ma rital property in a
dissolution action and will not be reversed absent an abuse of that discretion.” Gottsacker
v. Gottsacker, 664 N.W.2d 848, 852 (Minn. 2003). However, we previously determined
that “issues of subject-matter jurisdiction and the interpretation of statutes and stipulations
in dissolution judgments are questions of law, which we review de novo.” Grachek v.
Grachek, 750 N.W.2d 328, 331 (M inn. App. 2008) (citing Olmanson v. LeSueur County ,
693 N.W.2d 876, 879 (Minn. 2005) (statutory interpretation); Johnson v. Murray , 648
N.W.2d 664, 670 (Minn. 2002) (subject-matter jurisdiction); Anderson v. Archer , 510
N.W.2d 1, 3 (Minn. App. 1993) (stipulations in dissolution judgments)), review denied
(Aug. 19, 2008).1
Following dissolution, the district court has discretion to modify the amount of
maintenance or support money, “from time to time, on motion of either of the parties.”

1 The parties treat this case as one raising a jurisdictional question. This decision therefore
rests on two assumptions: first, that the matter is jurisdictional in nature; and second, that
the type of jurisdictio n involved is subject-matter jurisdiction. Cf. Moore v. Moore , 734
N.W.2d 285, 287 n.1 (Minn. App. 2007) (“ Courts and parties of ten use concepts and
language associated with ‘jurisdiction’ impr ecisely to refer to, among other things . . .
nonjurisdictional limits on a court’s authority to address a question.”), review denied
(Minn. Sept. 18, 2007).

5
Minn. Stat. § 518A.39, subd. 1 (2016). Ho wever, it is a well-settled principle under
Minnesota law that the district court lacks juri sdiction to consider a request to modify or
extend a spousal maintenance award when there is no existing obligation to pay
maintenance and the district court has not reserved jurisdiction. See, e.g., Loo v. Loo, 520
N.W.2d 740, 745 (Minn. 1994) (“Once maintenance payments end, the court is without
jurisdiction to modify maintenance.”); Eckert v. Eckert, 299 Minn. 120, 125, 216 N.W.2d
837, 840 (1974) (“[W]here the decree does not specifically reserve jurisdiction of the issue
of alimony for determination at a later date, no such jurisdiction can later be claimed.”
(quotation omitted)); Moore v. Moore, 734 N.W.2d 285, 287 (Minn. App. 2007) (“[W]here
there is no existing maintenance award and no reservation of ‘jurisdiction’ over
maintenance, the district court lacks ‘jurisdi ction’ to address maintenance.”) (footnote
omitted), review denied (Minn. Sept. 18, 2007).
Father made his final maintenance payment in October 2015, and he did not receive
a bonus in 2016 for the 2015 fiscal yea r. Under the reasoning articulated in Loo, Moore,
and Eckert, mother should have served and file d her motion to extend the maintenance
award before father’s final October 2015 payment or, assuming father received a bonus for
fiscal year 2015. However, because mother delayed filing her motion until nearly five
months after the maintenance period expired, we agree with the district court that it lacked
jurisdiction to consider her untimely request to further extend spousal maintenance for an
additional three years.
Mother argues that the district court con tinues to exercise jurisdiction over the
matter because the judgment “expressly reserved jurisdiction over spousal maintenance.”

6
This argument appears to be based on the portions of the judgment stating that “[t]he Court
shall retain jurisdiction to modify the award of sp ousal maintenance, but shall do so only
upon a showing of a significant change of circumstances pursuant to Minn. Stat.
§ 518A.39.” Noting that the judgment says that the district court will “retain jurisdiction”
to “modify” maintenance, and that, in the context of spousal ma intenance, the word
“reserve” is a term of art, father points out that the judgment expressly reserved jurisdiction
over other child support, but did not expressl y provide that the court’s jurisdiction to
modify spousal support was similarly reserved. Therefore, father contends, the lack of this
term of art regarding maintena nce requires the conclusion that the relevant part of the
stipulated judgment should not be given the meaning associated with the term of art that it
did not use. This is a powerful argument. Assuming, without deciding, that a judgment’s
use of “retain” could be read in a manner sim ilar to the “reserve” term of art, mother’s
argument fails for two reasons.
First, because mother’s argument is based on the provision in the judgment stating
that “[t]he Court shall retain jurisdiction to modify the award of spousal maintenance, but
shall do so only upon a showing of a significant change of circumstances pursuant to Minn.
Stat. § 518A.39,” the only authority retained or reserved by the district court was the
authority to modify th e then-existing maintenance award. The plain language of the
provision does not authorize the district c ourt to modify, extend, or reinstate the
maintenance award after the award expired. See Eckert, 299 Minn. at 125, 216 N.W.2d at
840 (noting, with respect to previously term inated spousal maintenance, that the courts
may not modify something that has ceased to exist). Thus, the district court’s authority to

7
modify the award during the maintenance period “upon a showing of a significant change
of circumstances” within the parameters of section 518A.39 does not, and cannot, amount
to a reservation of the court’s authority to “modify” maintenance after expiration of the
maintenance period.
Second, apart from the fact that the judgm ent did not attempt to preserve for the
district court the ability to address maintenance after the award expired, Minnesota caselaw
informs us that when a maintenance award expires following the last payment, the district
court loses the ability to modify, extend, or otherwise alter maintenance payments. Eckert
provides that a district court may not, after a maintenance award expires, consider a request
to modify an award unless it has “reserve[d] jurisdiction,” 299 Minn. at 125, 216 N.W.2d
at 840 (emphasis added and quotation omitted). Minnesota cases accord with this decision.
See, e.g., McCarthy v. McCarthy, 293 Minn. 61, 66, 196 N.W.2d 305, 308 (1972) (noting
that, in a case where maintenance was not awarded, if the decree does not expressly reserve
jurisdiction of the issue of alimony, jurisd iction may not be clai med at a later date)
(emphasis added); see also Moore , 734 N.W.2d at 287 (notin g that, in a case where a
maintenance award had expired, a district court lacks auth ority to modify maintenance
unless expressly “reserved”); Diedrich v. Diedrich , 424 N.W.2d 580, 583 (Minn. App.
1988) (“Generally, if the maintenance obligation terminates under the terms of the original
decree, and the [district] court has not expressly reserved jurisdiction, the [district] court is
thereafter without jurisdicti on to modify.”). Because th e maintenance period expired
before Mother filed her motion, there was nothing left for the district court to modify.

8
In sum, we hold that the plain language of the judgment, which did not seek to
preserve in the district court the ability to address maintenance after the award expired, and
our caselaw, both support the district court’s decision that it lacked jurisdiction to modify
a maintenance award where ju risdiction was not expressl y reserved, and where the
maintenance period expired prior to the motion’s filing.
II. The district court did not abuse its discretion by denying discovery.
Mother challenges the district court’s order denying discovery. “The district court
has broad discretion in granting or denying discovery requests. Absent a clear abuse of
discretion, the district court’s decision regarding discovery will not be disturbed.” Dunham
v. Roer, 708 N.W.2d 552, 572 (Minn. App. 2006) (citation and quotation omitted), review
denied (Minn. Mar. 28, 2006).
Mother sought an order from the court directing father “t o provide documented
verification of the amount of [his] 2015 bonus paid in 2016.” In response, father submitted
evidence through an affidavit and supporting documentation. Specifically, father provided
a letter from his employer’s vice president of finance, indicating that none of its employees
or officers, including father, re ceived a bonus for the 2015 fiscal year. The district court
found father’s documentation “credible,” and denied mother’s discovery request.2

2 It is apparent from the number of hearings and extensive motion practice that the parties
have been involved in “nearly constant litigation” since 2009. The record reflects that the
district court has given this case its full and thoughtful attention and, during that time, has
had the opportunity to judge the credibility of the witnesses. We defer to those credibility
determinations. Szarzynski v. Szarzynski, 732 N.W.2d 285, 298 (Minn. App. 2007).

9
On appeal, mother argues that she is “en titled to receive [father’s] W2 and any other
documentation concerning the payment of a b onus, the payment of expenses or other
compensation.” Mother did not request father’s W2 or other specific documentation in her
motion to the district court, and we decline to consider this request for the first time on
appeal. See Thiele v. Stich , 425 N.W.2d 580, 582 (Minn. 1988) (articulating rule that
appellate courts generally will not consider matters not argued to or considered by the
district court). Moreover, there is nothing in the record to suggest th at the district court
abused its discretion by determining that discovery was not warranted under the
circumstances. We therefore determine that th e district court did not abuse its discretion
by declining to compel discovery.
Affirmed.