## Facts

- Juan J. Gorena and Elvia Gorena (later Elvia Barber) divorced on February 7, 1978.
- The divorce decree incorporated the parties’ agreement on property division and ordered Juan to pay Elvia 42.5% of his gross U.S. Air Force retirement pay each month, due on the first day of each month beginning March 1, 1978.
- Juan made payments through July 1978 and then stopped.
- Elvia sought contempt to recover delinquent installments.
- After a show-cause hearing, the trial court held Juan in contempt and ordered confinement in the Bexar County jail until he paid $1,807.44 in past-due amounts.
- Juan filed an original habeas corpus proceeding in the Texas Supreme Court seeking release, asserting the contempt order was void.

## Issues

1. Whether an agreed divorce decree is enforceable only as a contract, rendering contempt enforcement void for lack of judicial power.
2. Whether the decree’s requirement to pay “42.5% of Respondent’s gross retirement pay per month” was too indefinite to support contempt.
3. Whether confinement to compel payment violated the Texas constitutional prohibition on imprisonment for debt.

## Decision

- The Texas Supreme Court denied habeas relief and upheld the contempt commitment.
- The court held the contempt order was within the trial court’s power and therefore not void.
- The court rejected the argument that an agreed decree is enforceable only by contract remedies.
- The court found the decree sufficiently specific to be enforced by contempt.
- The court held the confinement did not constitute unconstitutional imprisonment for debt.

## Legal Principles

- Habeas relief from contempt confinement is available only if the contempt order is void (beyond the trial court’s power), not merely erroneous.
- A court has inherent authority to enforce its judgments through contempt to prevent its orders from becoming ineffectual.
- An agreed divorce decree, once approved and incorporated into a court’s decree, is a judgment of the court with the same force and enforceability as any other final judgment, including enforcement by contempt.
- A contempt-enforceable order must be clear, specific, and unambiguous; a requirement to pay a fixed percentage of “gross” retirement pay on specified monthly due dates meets that standard.
- Enforcing by contempt a divorce decree that awards one spouse an ownership share of property (including a portion of retirement pay treated as community property) is not imprisonment for debt, because the obligor is compelled to deliver property adjudged to belong to the other spouse.

## Conclusion

The Texas Supreme Court held that contempt confinement to compel payment of a former spouse’s adjudicated share of military retirement pay was authorized because the obligation arose from a clear court judgment—despite being agreed—and it required turning over property awarded in the divorce, not paying an ordinary debt.


Ex parte Gorena, 595 S.W.2d 841 (Tex. 1979)