Parties file Civil Contempt cases due to an opposing parties’ refusal to comply with the Court’s judgment. In defense to the contempt action, the violating party may claim that collateral estoppel or res judicata bars all claims that were or could have been asserted in previous litigation between the parties. Many cases uphold that defenses, but the Western District of the Missouri Court of Appeals held otherwise in a case where the violating party lacked the financial ability to comply with an order that he pay maintenance at the time his former spouse first tried to hold him in contempt of court on that basis.
By the time of second contempt action, however, the man’s finances had improved and the trial court allowed the former wife to proceed with her contempt claim for failure to pay temporary mainteance. The Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s rejection of collateral estoppel/res judicata as a defense.
The case is Walton v. Walton, 789 S.W.2d 64, 67-68 (Mo. Ct. App. W.D. 1990).
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