In Re the Marriage of Duvall

IN THE
ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS
DIVISION TWO

IN RE THE MARRIAGE OF

BRADLY P. DUVALL,
Appellant,

and

JANET M. DUVALL, NOW KNOWN AS JANET M. TUCHOLSKI,
Appellee.

No. 2 CA-CV 2024-0095-FC
Filed June 19, 2025

Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County
No. FC2015002770
The Honorable Monica Edelstein, Judge

AFFIRMED

COUNSEL

Stevens & Van Cott PLLC, Scottsdale
By Charles Van Cott and Laurence B. Stevens
Counsel for Appellant

M. Wayne Lewis, Chandler
Counsel for Appellee
 IN RE MARRIAGE OF DUVALL
Opinion of the Court

OPINION

Judge Gard authored the opinion of the Court, in which Presiding Judge
O’Neil and Judge Brearcliffe concurred.

G A R D, Judge:

¶1 In this post-marital dissolution proceeding, Bradly Duvall
(“Husband”) appeals from the superior court’s order denying his petition
to enforce a provision in the dissolution decree ordering him and Janet
Tucholski (“Wife”) to each pay one-half of Husband’s student loan balance
as a community debt. Because the court correctly determined that the
enforcement petition was time-barred under A.R.S. § 25-318(P), we affirm.

Factual and Procedural Background

¶2 We view the facts in the light most favorable to sustaining the
superior court’s findings and orders. Leathers v. Leathers, 216 Ariz. 374, ¶ 20
(App. 2007); Mitchell v. Mitchell, 152 Ariz. 317, 323 (1987). In 1992, Husband
obtained a student loan to attend law school. Husband and Wife married
the following year. During the marriage, the parties made payments
toward the student loan balance using community funds. In September
1999, the lender sent Husband a disclosure statement indicating that the
loan’s final payment would be due in December 2021.1

¶3 In February 2015, Husband served Wife with a petition for
dissolution, terminating the marital community. See A.R.S. § 25-211(A)(2).
In the subsequent dissolution decree, the superior court found that the loan
had a balance of $19,638.49 and that it was a community debt. Accordingly,

1The lender automatically deferred Husband’s loan payments
between March 2020 and November 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition, beginning in 2016, Husband made multiple successful requests
to place his obligation in forbearance. The superior court noted that the
testimony regarding the various deferments was “unclear” but found that
the loan was “at least . . . in deferment until sometime in late 2021.”
Ultimately, however, the court concluded that any deferment and its effect
on the loan’s maturity date was irrelevant.

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Opinion of the Court

in dividing the community, the court ordered each party to be responsible
for one-half of the loan’s balance:

IT IS ORDERED that in fairly and equitably
allocating the student loan, [Husband] and
[Wife] shall each be responsible for one-half of
this community debt; i.e., each party owes
$9,819.25.

¶4 After the decree was entered, the parties had no
communication regarding the student loan. Although the loan was only in
Husband’s name, Wife had been listed as an authorized payor on the
account. In June 2018, Wife instructed the lender to direct all future
correspondence and communication to Husband. At no time did Wife
make any payments toward her share of the balance, either to Husband or
to the lender directly.

¶5 In October 2022, Husband paid the lender his share of the
student loan. He thereafter sent Wife a letter demanding that she pay her
portion of the loan. Wife’s counsel responded to the letter in January 2023,
asserting that any attempt to enforce the debt was barred by § 25-318(P)’s
two-year statute of limitations.

¶6 In May 2023, Husband filed a petition to enforce the decree,
asking the superior court to order Wife to immediately make payments
toward her share of the loan, including interest that had accrued, and to
award attorney fees based on her failure to pay as ordered. In February
2024, after a hearing, the court found Wife in contempt for knowingly
failing to pay her portion of the debt. The court stated, however, that the
contempt finding did “not end the inquiry” in light of the statute of
limitations issue. The court ultimately concluded that Husband’s
enforcement petition was time-barred because he should have raised it
within two years of the July 2017 decree. The court accordingly denied the
petition and awarded Husband no relief, despite having found Wife in
contempt. This appeal followed. We have jurisdiction under A.R.S. §§ 12-
120.21(A)(1) and 12-2101(A).

Discussion

¶7 Husband contends the superior court erred by determining
that the two-year statute of limitations under § 25-318(P) began upon the
decree’s filing. He argues that the statute instead commenced at the earliest

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Opinion of the Court

in December 2021, when the final payment was due on the loan prior to any
periods of forbearance.

¶8 “[W]e review a [superior] court’s ruling on a post-decree
petition to enforce for an abuse of discretion.” In re Marriage of Rojas,
255 Ariz. 277, ¶ 10 (App. 2023). But “[w]e review de novo questions of law
concerning the statute of limitations, including ‘when a particular cause of
action accrues,’ where, as here, such a determination ‘hinges solely on a
question of law rather than resolution of disputed facts.’” Rogers v. Bd. of
Regents of Univ. of Ariz., 233 Ariz. 262, ¶ 6 (App. 2013) (quoting Montaño v.
Browning, 202 Ariz. 544, ¶ 4 (App. 2002)); see Mertola, LLC v. Santos, 244 Ariz.
488, ¶ 10 (2018) (cause of action accrues and statute of limitations
commences when one party is able to sue another). We likewise review
de novo a court’s interpretation of a dissolution decree, as well as its
interpretation and application of the law. Marriage of Rojas, 255 Ariz. 277,
¶ 10.

¶9 “[W]hen dividing the community, the court is to consider all
community assets and debts in making an equitable property distribution.”
Hammett v. Hammett, 247 Ariz. 556, ¶ 24 (App. 2019); see generally
§ 25-318(A), (B). “[T]he division of community property includes the
allocation of community debts.” Hammett, 247 Ariz. 556, ¶ 22. But a court’s
allocation of debt “only determines the obligations of the spouses with
respect to one another; the spouses’ creditors are not bound by the
allocation.” Fleming v. Tanner, 248 Ariz. 63, ¶ 23 (App. 2019); see Cmty.
Guardian Bank v. Hamlin, 182 Ariz. 627, 631 (App. 1995) (court’s allocation
of community debt does not affect third-party creditors but instead “fix[es]
responsibility between the parties for the debt and can be used by one
spouse to sue the other for contribution, if necessary”); Lee v. Lee, 133 Ariz.
118, 124 (App. 1982) (“The allocation of community liabilities determines
the rights and obligations of parties before the court only with respect to
each other.”).

¶10 If a party to a dissolution action fails to comply with a court
order allocating debt, § 25-318(P) “provides a limited statutory remedy” for
the non-defaulting party. Birt v. Birt, 208 Ariz. 546, n.6 (App. 2004). This
remedy, however, has a two-year statute of limitations:

If a party fails to comply with an order to pay
debts, the court may enter orders transferring
property of that spouse to compensate the other
party. If the court finds that a party is in
contempt as to an order to pay community

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Opinion of the Court

debts, the court may impose appropriate
sanctions under the law. A party must bring an
action to enforce an order to pay a debt
pursuant to this subsection within two years
after the date in which the debt should have
been paid in full.

§ 25-318(P).2

¶11 Here, Husband contends that “the date in which the debt
should have been paid in full” under § 25-318(P) was the date the lender
had prescribed for the loan’s final payment, which, prior to any forbearance
periods, was in December 2021, making his May 2023 enforcement petition
timely. Wife, however, maintains that § 25-318(P)’s limitations period
began when the divorce decree was entered, noting that she cannot be
ordered to pay Husband’s lender directly and is not independently bound
by any payment agreements between him and the lender.

¶12 After finding the student loan to be a community liability, the
superior court ordered each party to pay an equal portion of the loan’s
outstanding balance.3 The court did not specify the manner in which the
parties were to satisfy their individual obligations—such as, for example,
through installment payments or in accordance with the lender’s payment
schedule—nor did it identify a future date by which they were to do so.
Instead, it divided the then-outstanding balance and directed each party to
pay half.

¶13 Because the superior court ordered each party to contribute a
lump-sum payment to the debt and did not qualify or attach conditions to
that order, each party’s obligation to pay his or her share arose when the
court entered the decree. See Birt, 208 Ariz. 546, ¶ 17 (“[P]rovisions as to
debt are ‘final when entered, subject to the right of appeal’ and the right to
modification.” (quoting A.R.S. § 25-325(A))); Stine v. Stine, 179 Ariz. 385, 388
(App. 1994) (recognizing that “[t]he meaning of a decree is to be determined

2We cite the current version of § 25-318 because no revisions to
subsection (P) have occurred since the entry of the dissolution decree.
3To the extent Wife challenges the superior court’s designation of the

student loan as community debt, the time to appeal from the decree of
dissolution has long passed. See Ariz. R. Civ. App. P. 9(a). We therefore do
not address her arguments on this issue.

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from the language used” and that courts will not “remake the language to
alter the existing rights or obligations”). We accordingly conclude that
Wife’s “debt should have been paid in full” immediately upon the decree’s
entry. § 25-318(P). Because Husband waited almost six years beyond this
date to bring an enforcement action, the debt was no longer enforceable by
contempt proceedings, and the superior court therefore correctly dismissed
the petition as time-barred.

¶14 In arguing otherwise, Husband overlooks that Wife is not
independently bound by any agreements between him and his lender, nor
does the decree affect any such agreements.4 See Fleming, 248 Ariz. 63, ¶ 23;
Cmty. Guardian Bank, 182 Ariz. at 631; Lee, 133 Ariz. at 124. Rather, Wife’s
obligation on the loan exists only because the loan is a community liability.
As a result, the relevant “debt” for § 25-318(P)’s purposes is not the student
loan’s full balance as owed to the lender but that portion of that balance
assigned to Wife as part of the community’s division. In the decree, the
court fixed the amount Wife owed, thereby “determin[ing] the rights and
obligations of [the] parties . . . with respect to each other,” Lee, 133 Ariz. at
124, and Husband was entitled to enforce that debt against Wife upon the
decree’s entry. See Mertola, 244 Ariz. 488, ¶ 10. We therefore agree with the
superior court that Husband filed his enforcement petition well outside of
the two-year time period set forth in § 25-318(P). The court correctly
dismissed the petition as untimely.5

4Husband also relies heavily on cases interpreting A.R.S. § 12-1551(b),

which sets a time limit for a court to issue legal process on a judgment, and
contends based on this law that the statute of limitations “does not begin to
run until the occurrence of all conditions giving rise to a right to sue under
a decree of dissolution.” Section 12-1551(b) is inapplicable here, as is the
law applying it, because Husband filed his enforcement petition under Title
25. Regardless, as we have concluded above, the dissolution decree
required a lump-sum contribution from Wife and was immediately
enforceable on issuance. All conditions giving rise to Husband’s right to
sue under the decree therefore occurred when Wife failed to comply with
the court’s order assigning her a fixed portion of the student loan debt.
5Because we conclude Husband’s petition to enforce is time-barred,

we do not address his arguments on appeal regarding contempt remedies.
We note, however, that the superior court’s finding that Wife was in
contempt contradicts its subsequent, correct finding that the statute of
limitations had run on Husband’s enforcement petition. As we have

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Opinion of the Court

Attorney Fees and Costs on Appeal

¶15 Both parties request their attorney fees and costs on appeal
under A.R.S. § 25-324. Husband argues that Wife has greater financial
resources, while Wife contends that Husband has taken unreasonable
positions on appeal and in the proceedings below. In our discretion, we
deny both parties’ requests for attorney fees. As the prevailing party,
however, Wife is entitled to her costs on appeal upon compliance with Rule
21(b), Ariz. R. Civ. App. P. See A.R.S. § 12-341; Doherty v. Leon, 249 Ariz.
515, ¶ 24 (App. 2020).

Disposition

¶16 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the superior court’s
denial of Husband’s petition for enforcement.

explained, Wife’s debt was no longer enforceable after the statute of
limitations had expired. The judicial power of contempt is inherent, Owen
v. City Court of Tucson, 123 Ariz. 267, 269 (1979), but no court may use that
power to enforce the unenforceable, see Stone v. Stidham, 96 Ariz. 235, 239-40
(1964).

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