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Bowers v. Bowers
State: Connecticut
Court: Court of Appeals
Docket No: AC20420 Dissent
Case Date: 12/12/2000
Preview:****************************************************** The ``officially released'' date that appears near the beginning of each opinion is the date the opinion will be published in the Connecticut Law Journal or the date it was released as a slip opinion. The operative date for the beginning of all time periods for filing postopinion motions and petitions for certification is the ``officially released'' date appearing in the opinion. In no event will any such motions be accepted before the ``officially released'' date. All opinions are subject to modification and technical correction prior to official publication in the Connecticut Reports and Connecticut Appellate Reports. In the event of discrepancies between the electronic version of an opinion and the print version appearing in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports, the latest print version is to be considered authoritative. The syllabus and procedural history accompanying the opinion as it appears on the Commission on Official Legal Publications Electronic Bulletin Board Service and in the Connecticut Law Journal and bound volumes of official reports are copyrighted by the Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may not be reproduced and distributed without the express written permission of the Commission on Official Legal Publications, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut. ****************************************************** O'CONNELL, J., dissenting. I do not agree that the plaintiff properly was held in contempt for violating the trial court's June 3, 1993 order. That order expressly suspended the plaintiff's obligation to make payments on his child support arrearage until he (1) received unemployment compensation, (2) received disability insurance or (3) found a new job. It is undisputed that none of those events occurred. I am unable to stretch my imagination to construe the defendant's possible inheritance to be the equivalent of any of the three triggering events.1 Because the contempt remedy is particularly harsh, it must be founded solely on a clear and expressed direction from the court. Blaydes v. Blaydes, 187 Conn. 464, 467, 446 A.2d 825 (1982). ``One cannot be placed in contempt for failure to read the court's mind. . . . Recognizing those basic tenets, most courts, in deciding whether a contempt has occurred, have refused to expand judgments by implication beyond the meaning of their terms. . . . [W]here parties under a mandatory judgment could be subjected to punishment as contemnors for violating its provisions, such punishment should not rest upon implication or conjecture, but the language declaring such rights should be clear, or imposing burdens spe-

cific and unequivocal so that the parties may not be misled thereby.'' (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 467
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