## Facts

- Husband and wife executed a detailed separation agreement in 1972 after nearly 17 years of marriage.
- The agreement set alimony and child support for three minor children under a specific formula and was later incorporated but not merged into a divorce judgment.
- The agreement contained an arbitration clause covering disputes “arising out of or in connection with” the agreement and “any matter herein made the subject matter of arbitration.”
- The agreement elsewhere expressly identified limited categories of arbitrable disputes, including formula adjustments tied to specified contingencies (e.g., certain tax-law changes, changes to a cost-of-living index) and disagreements about the husband’s ability to pay college costs.
- In 1977, the husband asserted “changed circumstances,” announced he would reduce support and stop tuition payments, and then unilaterally reduced payments.
- The wife initiated arbitration to enforce the existing formula and recover arrears; the husband sought to stay her arbitration and compel arbitration of his claim for a downward modification consistent with his unilateral reduction.
- The trial court favored the husband; the Appellate Division held the downward-modification issue was not arbitrable, and the husband appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether a separation agreement’s broadly worded arbitration clause authorizes arbitration of a claim seeking downward modification of support based on generalized changed circumstances.
2. Whether the agreement’s specific enumeration of arbitrable matters limits arbitration to those identified subjects, excluding support modification not expressly made arbitrable.

## Decision

- The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the Appellate Division.
- The court held the husband’s claim for downward modification based on changed circumstances was not arbitrable under the agreement.
- The court read the arbitration clause, in context, as covering only those matters the agreement expressly made subject to arbitration, not open-ended support modification.

## Legal Principles

- Arbitration is a matter of contract; a party cannot be compelled to arbitrate an issue absent a clear agreement to submit that issue to arbitration.
- A broadly phrased arbitration clause may be limited by qualifying language and by the agreement’s structure, including provisions that specifically enumerate arbitrable subjects.
- In a separation agreement with a detailed support formula and specified contingency-based adjustment mechanisms, courts will not infer that generalized “changed circumstances” support modification was delegated to an arbitrator without clear, specific contractual authorization.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that, despite broad introductory arbitration language, the agreement’s qualifying phrasing and its express listing of particular arbitrable disputes showed the parties did not clearly agree to arbitrate a generalized request to reduce support due to changed circumstances.


Bowmer v. Bowmer, 50 N.Y.2d 288 (N.Y. 1980)