In re the Marriage of: Jeffrey Alan Fish, petitioner, Respondent,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2018).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A19-0560

In re the Marriage of: Jeffrey Alan Fish, petitioner,
Respondent,

vs.

Kristin Klein Fish,
Appellant.

Filed February 18, 2020
Affirmed
Johnson, Judge

Chisago County District Court
File No. 13-FA-17-383

Del A. Blocher, Stillwater, Minnesota (for respondent)

Zachary Smith, Vox Law, LLC, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Johnson, Presiding Judge; Florey, Judge; and Kirk,
Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
JOHNSON, Judge
Jeffrey Alan Fish and Kristin Klein Fish were married for seven years before their
marriage was dissolved . Three years after the dissolution , Jeffrey moved to reopen the

 Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant
to Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.

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dissolution decree and to vacate the child -support award on the ground that Kristin had
committed fraud upon the court. The district court granted Jeffrey’s motion and ordered
Kristin to reimburse Jeffrey for $19,646 of child-support payments. We conclude that the
district court did not err in its findings of fact or in its decision to grant the motion.
Therefore, we affirm.
FACTS
The parties were married in February 2006. They have one minor child, a boy who
was born in 20 11. Jeffrey is p hysically disabled and unable to work due to a workplace
accident in 2002. He began receiving Social Security disability benefits in 2009. He has
two other children from a prior marriage, who live with Jeffrey’s first wife . Each of
Jeffrey’s three child ren receive s derivative disability benefits. Jeffrey was the
representative payee of benefits for the parties’ child until September 2012, when Kristin
became the child’s representative payee. The child’s benefit at that time was $261 per
month.
The parties separated in March 2013 , and Jeffrey petitioned for dissolution of the
marriage the following month . The parties engaged in mediation, w hich resulted in a
stipulated decree that resolved all disputed issues . I n November 2013, the parties orally
entered the agreement into the record at a pre -trial conference. They agreed that, among
other things, Jeffrey would pay Kristin $500 per month in basic child support, with the
express understanding that Kristin would continue to receive disability benefits of $261
per month as their child’s representative payee. The parties agreed that Jeffrey’s child -
support obligation would begin September 1, 2013. The agreement was reduced to writing

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and was signed by Kristin on M arch 19, 2014, and by Jeffrey on March 27, 2014. On
April 22, 2014, the stipulation was approved by the district court, and judgment was
entered.
Meanwhile, u nbeknownst to Jeffre y, his children ’s derivative disability benefits
were increased significantly because of a change in the way the Social Security
Administration calculate s benefits. At some time i n March 2014, the Social Security
Administration sent a letter to Kristin, informing her that the parties’ child’s benefit had
increased to $809 per mont h, retroactively to September 2012. Later that month, Kristin
received a lump-sum payment of more than $9,000 for retroactive benefits and the first
monthly payment of the increased amount.
In March 2017, Jeffrey contacted Kristin to propose a modification of his parenting
time. In June 2017, the parties reached a mediated agreement to modify parenting time
and child support. In September 2017, the district court approved the agreement and filed
an order that increased Jeffrey’s parenting time and eliminated his child-support obligation.
During the mediation process in 2017, Kristin did not disclose to Jeffrey the amount
of the ir child’s monthly derivative disability benefit, even after Jeffrey’s attorney
specifically requested it. Jeffrey contacted his first wife and asked her about the amount
of benefits that his two other children were receiving , and he learned that they were
receiving $825 per month. Jeffrey’s first wife further informed him that she learned of the
increase in benefits from $261 to $809 per month when she received a letter from the Social
Security Administration that was dated March 3, 2014. Jeffrey also learned from his first
wife that the increase was retroactive to S eptember 2012. Thereafter Jeffrey visited a

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Social Security office four times to obtain information concerning the benefits paid to his
and Kristin’s child . He eventually received documentation of the benefits paid from
October 2011 to December 2016 , which matched the benefits described by his first wife.
He also learned that Kristin began receiving $809 per month “on or about” March 3, 2014.
Based on this information, Jeffrey moved to reopen the dissolution judgment and
decree and to vacate the basic child -support provision . He argued that Kristi n had
intentionally misrepresented the amount of their child’s derivative disability benefits.
Jeffrey asked the district court for retroactive relief. Kristin opposed the motion . The
district c ourt held an evidentiary hearing in September 2018 . Three months later , the
district court filed an order in which it found that Kristin had committed a fraud upon the
court by not disclosing the increase in the child’s benefits before the dissolution judgment
and decree was filed in April 2014. The district court reasoned that Kristin breached “her
affirmative duty to disclose that the child’s derivative benefit had increased, by not
disclosing such information before the Court signed the Decree.” The district court granted
the motion to re open and requested su pplemental briefing and evidence concerning the
amount of child support that would have been due if the increased amount of benefits had
been known. Jeffrey filed a memorandum of law in which he argued that he had overpaid
child support in the amount of $19,646, based on a 2017 child-support worksheet.
In March 2019, the district court filed an order in which it reasoned that Jeffrey was
entitled to reimbursement of the amount of child -support payments that naturally and
proximately resulted from Kristin’s fraud on the court. The district court stated that, using
a 2019 child-support worksheet, the amount of overpayment appeared to be $20,868. But

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the district court adopted Jeffrey’s lesser amount and ordered Kristin to pay him $19,646.
Kristin appeals.
D E C I S I O N
Kristin argues that the district court erred by reopening the dissolution decree and
vacating the child-support award.
A.
A dissolution judgment and decree is final when entered, unless a party establishes
grounds for reopening the judgment and decree. Thompson v. Thompson, 739 N.W.2d 424,
428 (Minn. App. 2007). A district court may reopen a judgment and decree for any of the
reasons specified in section 518.145 of the Minnesota Statutes. See Minn. Stat. § 518.145,
subd. 2 (2018). In addition, a district court may “set aside a judgment for fraud upon the
court.” Id. A party commits fraud upon the court if he or she engages in “an intentional
course of material misrepresentation or non-disclosure, having the result of misleading the
court and opposing counsel and making the settlement grossly unfair .” Maranda v.
Maranda, 449 N.W.2d 158, 165 (Minn. 1989).
If a district court must determine an award of child support, the parties to a
dissolution action must make disclosures of “all sources of gross income .” Minn. Stat.
§ 518A.28(a) (2018). The term “gross income” is defined to include “any form of periodic
payment to an individual, including, but not limited to, . . . disability payments [and] Social
Security or veterans benefits provided for a joint child under section 518A.31.” Minn. Stat.
§ 518A.29(a) (2018). The confidential relationship between parties to a marital dissolution
creates an affirmative duty to fully and accurately disclose all types of financial information

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that are relevant to disputed issues. See Ronnkvist v. Ronnkvist, 331 N.W.2d 764, 765-66
(Minn. 1983); Doering v. Doering, 629 N.W.2d 124, 131 (Minn. App. 2001), review denied
(Minn. Sept. 11, 2001). This affirmative duty to disclose extends until the formal entry of
the decree. Ronnkvist, 331 N.W.2d at 766 . “In a stipulated marriage dissolution, if one
party defrauds the other, he or she necessarily defrauds the court which sits as a third party
to the stipulation.” Maranda, 449 N.W.2d at 165.
The party seeking to reopen a dissolution decree bears the burden of establishing
fraud upon the court. Thompson, 739 N.W.2d at 428. This court applies a clear -error
standard of review to a district court’s finding that a party breached the duty to make a full
and accurate financial disclosure, Maranda, 449 N.W.2d at 164, and an abuse-of-discretion
standard of review to a district court’s ultimate decision to reopen a dissolution decree ,
Thompson, 739 N.W.2d at 428 (citing Kornberg v. Kornberg, 542 N.W.2d 379, 386 (Minn.
1996)).
B.
Kristin makes a series of arguments that challenge the district court’s legal
reasoning and conclusions.
First, Kristin argues that there is no precedent for the relief ordered by the district
court. She contends that “not a single case exists which allows the fraud -upon-the-court
exception to be applied to re -open a de cree when a party’s income (or Social S ecurity
payment) changes during the period between when an agreement is read into the record
and the parties submit their written decree.” As a matter of statute, a child-support award
may be set aside pursuant to section 518.145, subd. 2. Minn. Stat. § 518A.38, subd. 6

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(2018). Furthermore, this case is quite similar to Ronnkvist, in which a husband who had
agreed with his wife on a division of marital property failed to disclose that he acquired
additional stock before the dissolution decree was entered. 331 N.W.2d at 765. The
supreme court held that a party to an oral dissolution stipulation “has a duty to disclose
property acquired after the oral stipulation but before the entry of the judgment and decree.”
Id. at 765-66. The supreme court concluded that the husband breached that affirmative
duty by not disclosing the acquisition of additional stock in the interval between the oral
agreement and the entry of the dissolution judgment and decree. Id. at 766. The supreme
court further concluded that the husband’s breach of his duty to disclose such information
was fraud upon the court. Id. at 766. This case is only slightl y different in that Kristin
failed to disclose an increase in monthly disability payments, not an increase in assets. But
that difference is immaterial. The Ronnkvist opinion clearly recognizes a duty to disclose
relevant financial information, and its h olding has been applied in subsequent cases that
were not identical to the facts of that case. See Maranda, 449 N.W.2d at 166 (holding that
party breached duty of disclosure by not accurately disclosing assets and liabilities, thereby
making marital property settlement “grossly unfair”); Sanborn v. Sanborn , 503 N.W.2d
499, 50 3 (Minn. App. 1993) (holding that party breache d duty of disclosure by not
accurately disclosing actual value of company and negotiations to sell it), review denied
(Minn. Sept. 21, 1993). The relief ordered by the district court is expressly authorized by
statute, and is well supported by the above-described body of caselaw.
Second, Kristin argues that the district court ’s application of the fraud -upon-the-
court doctrine effectively created an unwarranted exception to the statute governing the

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modification of a child -support award, which states that modification “may be made
retroactive only with respect to any period during which the petitioning party has pending
a motion for modification but only from the date of service of notice of the motion on the
responding party.” See Minn. Stat. § 518A.39, subd. 2(f) (2018). A child-support award
may be modified only if there has been a substantial change in circumstances that makes
the terms of the child-support award “unreasonable and unfair.” Id., subd. 2(a). A motion
to modify is appropriate for substantial changes that occur after the entry of the dissolution
decree. See id., subds. 1, 2(f). Jeffrey did not move to modify the child -support award
based on changes occurring after the entry of the decree; he moved to re -open the
dissolution decree based on new information about circumstances that existed before the
entry of the decree. He brought a motion to reopen pursuant to a different statute, which
authorizes a district court to “set aside a judgment for fraud upon the court.” See Minn.
Stat. § 518.145, subd. 2. The relief ordered by the district court is not in conflict with the
modification statute.
Third, Kristin argues that the district court erred on the ground that “the bene fit
amount was [Jeffrey’s] own Social Security benefit, to which he had access to the amount
of the payment all along, but chose not to look into it.” In response, Jeffrey argues that he
lacked “independent, direct access” to information about the amount of the child’s benefits
because he was not the representative payee. The record supports Jeffrey’s argument .
Kristin testified that she was surprised by the increased amount of benefits in March 2014.
She did not testify that Jeffrey had superior knowledge of the increase in benefits. The
record shows that Jeffrey diligently sought information about the amount of the parties’

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child’s benefit and had difficulty obtaining it. He introduced evidence that the Social
Security Administration generally does not share such information with a disabled person
if someone else is the representative payee. The record is not entirely clear on the means
by which Jeffrey eventually obtained information about the amount of the benefits paid to
the parties’ child. In any event, the record is clear enough to reject Kristin’s argument that
her non-disclosure of the increase in benefits should be excused on the ground that Jeffrey
had independent access to the information that was not disclosed and an independent duty
to discover it for himself.
Fourth, Kristin argues that the amount of the reimbursement ordered by the district
court is excessive inasmuch as the original child-support award was not based on the child-
support guidelines but, rather, was negotiated without any determination of the parties’
respective incomes. This argument implicates the scope of the district court’s authority to
“set aside a judgment for fraud upon the court. ” Minn. Stat. § 518.145, subd. 2. Kristin
does not suggest any particular alternative remedy. In light of the circumstances of this
case, it appears that the district court effectively “set aside” the dissolution judgment and
decree, in part, by vacating the ch ild-support award and requiring Kristin to reimburse
Jeffrey for the amount of child support that he had paid to her during the period for which
she received increased disability benefits. The district court’s remedy was appropriately
tailored to Kristin’s fraud upon the court. The district court did not abuse its discretion by
ordering such relief.
Fifth, Kristin argues that Jeffrey’s “ correct remedy” was to move to modify the
child-support award when he learned of the increased disability benefits. By that time,

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Jeffrey’s child-support obligation had been terminated. As stated above, a party may obtain
only prospective relief in a motion to modify child support. See Minn. Stat. § 518A.39,
subd. 2(f). Consequently, Kristin’s view of Jeffrey’s “correct remedy” would preclude him
from obtaining any relief with respect to the 48 -month period between September 2013
and September 2017, for which she received, on behalf of the parties’ child, disability
benefits that were between $500 and $600 per month more than the amount that she had
disclosed to Jeffrey before the entry of the dissolution decree. The district court did not err
by awarding retrospective relief pursuant to the fraud-upon-the-court doctrine.
In sum, the district court did not clearly err in any of its finding of facts and did not
abuse its discretion by granting Jeffrey’s motion to reopen the dissolution decree ,
retroactively vacating the original child-support award, and reimbursing Jeffrey for the
child-support payments he made based on Kristin’s fraud upon the court.
Affirmed.