Wisconsin Court Had Ordered Ex-Wife Not to Make "Disparaging Remarks … About the Other Party, Attorneys, or … Employees of the Court"

From Wisconsin Court of Appeals Judge Lazar’s decision April 30 in Reeves v. Reeves:

Moondette and Timothy were divorced on November 29, 2023, after four years of marriage. Moondette was ordered to pay Timothy a total of $24,209.54, which included reimbursements and attorney’s fees related to earlier contempt findings as well as an equalization payment, by January 3, 2024. On January 31, Timothy sought an order to show cause why Moondette should not be found in contempt, alleging that she had paid nothing….

At a March 21, 2024 hearing Moondette argued that her failure to pay was not contemptuous because it was not willful, asserting that she did not have the financial means to comply with the order…. The circuit court did “not find [Moondette] credible at all,” stating its impression was that she was “telling [the court] whatever is convenient[ ]” rather than being truthful. Noting contradictions in her testimony regarding her income, her “unreal” decision to spend on things like a car payment for her eighteen-year-old daughter rather than “taking care of [her] obligations,” and her admission that she could afford up to $500 per month but had paid nothing, the court concluded that Moondette had “willfully and intentionally violated the court orders.” It held her in contempt and imposed a penalty of 120 days in jail if Moondette failed to comply with the purge condition of making monthly payments of $900 on her debt to Timothy.

After the circuit court set that condition, Timothy’s counsel brought up another issue, stating:

And there’s not an existing motion on this and I briefly mentioned it to counsel. But I can tell the Court what my client was looking to have addressed is that there continues to be a lot of social media posts from [Moondette] about my client, about this process, [and] about the judges that have handled this case.

After counsel confirmed that these alleged posts were “[a]bout the courts as well,” the court imposed an additional purge condition:

Here’s the other condition that we’re going to put into this purge condition, is that there will be … no dissemination to a third party about and disparaging remarks about the – – either party in this action, any attorney involved in this action, any court employee including the prior court judge or myself, in any social media or anything to a third party. If he has so much as a post that he has a screen shot of and he brings it back, that will be considered a violation, even if you continue to pay.

The circuit court signed an order memorializing these purge conditions on April 18. The condition related to Moondette’s speech was written as follows:

There shall be no dissemination or disparaging remarks on social media or to any third party about the other party, attorneys, or past and present employees of the court….

Setting aside the issue of whether this broad order could survive scrutiny under the First Amendment—on its face, it would prohibit Moondette from saying anything negative about her ex-husband, any attorney involved in the case, and any court official to any third party, even a friend or therapist, for example—this court concludes that it must be reversed for the simple reason that, as Moondette asserts, it is not arguably related to the conduct for which Moondette was held in contempt.

Under our supreme court’s holding in Larsen, a purge condition “should be reasonably related to the cause or nature of the contempt.” The circuit court did not explain how this condition prohibiting disparaging remarks related to Moondette’s failure to make court-ordered payments to Timothy, which was the conduct that led to its finding of contempt.

In defending the condition on appeal, Timothy only vaguely argues that “Moondette refusing to comply with orders and cooperate with the process is the very root of the problem” such that “[a]dding a purge condition to restrict the disparaging remarks and to protect the court and the people involved is reasonably related to the cause of contempt.” This court does not see the connection and concludes that there is insufficient nexus between the purge condition and the contemptuous conduct….

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