## Facts

- Two fathers, Allen Shelton and Richard Kollinger, were jailed under contempt commitments issued in separate divorce proceedings.
- Shelton’s divorce decree required him to pay the medical and dental expenses of his three minor children until age eighteen; he was held in contempt for nonpayment of those expenses.
- Kollinger’s decree required him to maintain health insurance for his children, pay the premiums, and pay medical expenses not covered by insurance; he was held in contempt for noncompliance.
- The decrees imposed open-ended obligations for future, variable medical-type expenses without specifying amounts, limits, deadlines, or objective payment procedures.
- While confined, Shelton and Kollinger filed original habeas corpus applications challenging the legality of the commitments.

## Issues

1. Whether divorce-decree provisions requiring payment of broadly described, future medical and dental expenses (and insurance-related obligations) are sufficiently clear and definite to be enforced by contempt.
2. Whether contempt commitments based on such indefinite provisions are void and subject to habeas relief.

## Decision

- The court granted both habeas corpus applications and ordered Shelton and Kollinger discharged from custody.
- The court held the medical-expense and insurance-related provisions were too vague and indefinite to support contempt.
- Because the underlying orders could not validly support contempt, the contempt judgments and commitments were void.

## Legal Principles

- A contempt-enforceable order must be clear, specific, and unambiguous so the obligated person can determine from the order itself exactly what must be done to comply.
- If an order does not state the required performance with sufficient definiteness (including what is owed and when it must be paid), it cannot be enforced by contempt and imprisonment.
- Open-ended obligations to pay unspecified future expenses—such as “medical and dental expenses” or “uncovered medical expenses”—lack the definiteness required for contempt enforcement.
- Habeas corpus is an appropriate remedy to obtain release from confinement under a void contempt commitment.

## Conclusion

The court held that broad divorce-decree provisions requiring payment of future medical-related expenses, without objective and definite terms, cannot support contempt confinement; the resulting commitments were void, and habeas relief required discharge.


Ex parte Shelton, 582 S.W.2d 637 (Tex. Civ. App.—Dallas 1979, no writ)