T-2280-72
Minister of National Revenue (Plaintiff)
v .
Richard E. Hastie (Defendant)
Trial Division, Walsh J.—Montreal, December
19, 1973; Ottawa, January 10, 1974.
Income tax—Deductions—Payments to hypothecary credi
tor in addition to alimentary payments to wife—Income Tax
Act, ss. 6(1Xda), 11(1)(la), 16(1).
The Minister disallowed as deductions from the defend
ant's income for the years 1967 and 1968 the sums of
$1,440 and $1,616. These were part of the deductions
claimed as alimentary allowance, payable for the support of
his wife and the dependant children of the marriage, by
virtue of interlocutory judgments in the course of separation
proceedings. The disallowed portions represented payments
by the defendant to the hypothecary creditor on the
matrimonial domicile, which the judgments ordered the
defendant to pay his wife, in addition to other amounts
allowed to the wife and dependant children as a modus
vivendi. The defendant's appeal to the Tax Review Board
was allowed.
Held, dismissing the appeal, sections 6(1)(da), 11(1)(1a)
and 16(1) read together, indicate the intention of the Act
that periodic (as distinguished from lump sum) payments
made by the husband as alimentary allowance for the ben
efit of his wife and dependant children, are deductible by
him and taxable in his wife's hands.
The effect of the defendant's making the payments direct
ly to the hypothecary creditor is the same as if he had made
them to his wife in the literal terms of the judgments.
The fact that in making these payments the defendant
increased his equity in the property is strictly incidental to
the fact that by making these payments to the hypothecary
creditor he was maintaining a home for his wife and
children.
While it was true that the defendant was obliged to make
the payments on account of the hypothec, whether or not he
was separated from his wife, the effect of his payments, in
so far as his wife is concerned, is that she had an additional
alimentary allowance of an equivalent value resulting from
the court order that she should continue to occupy the
common domicile. The registration of the judgment against
the property reinforced her claim, as her husband could not
sell the property without providing its equivalent: art. 2036
Civil Code.
Cussion v. M.N.R. 66 DTC 297; Trottier v. M.N.R.
[1968] S.C.R. 728; Brown v. M.N.R. 64 DTC 812, aff'd.
[1966] Ex.C.R. 289; M.N.R. v. Sproston [1970] Ex.C.R.
602; M.N.R. v. Armstrong [1956] S.C.R. 446; Foxcroft
v. M.N.R. (1963) 33 Tax A.B.C. 415, considered.
INCOME tax appeal.
COUNSEL:
Hugues Richard for plaintiff.
Daniel Phelan for defendant.
SOLICITORS:
Deputy Attorney General of Canada for
plaintiff.
Stewart, McKenna and Co., Montreal, for
defendant.
WALSH J.—This is an appeal by the Minister
of National Revenue from a judgment of the
Tax Review Board dated April 26, 1972 allow
ing defendant's appeal from assessments dated
July 14, 1970 for the taxation years 1967 and
1968 whereby the sums of $1,440 and $1,616
respectively were disallowed as deductions
from his income. He had claimed deductions of
$2,915 for the taxation year 1967 and $3,380
for the taxation year 1968 pursuant to section
11(1)(1a) of the former Income Tax Act, R.S.C.
1952, c. 148 as amended as alimentary allow
ance payable for the support of his wife and
dependant children of the marriage by virtue of
interlocutory judgments rendered in the course
of legal separation proceedings between them.
The portions of the said payments disallowed by
the Minister represented payments made to the
hypothecary creditor on the former common
domicile owned by him which the wife and
children continue to occupy in accordance with
the said judgments. In the first interlocutory
judgment dated January 26, 1967 the Court
order in the judgment with respect to alimony
read as follows:
DOTH CONDEMN Respondent to pay to Petitioner as a
provisional alimentary allowance for herself and the minor
children of the parties a sum of $83.50 per week being
$33.50 for the hypothec, taxes and upkeep of the domicile
and $50.00 as s "Modus Vivendi" for Petitioner and the
children.
The judgment also stated:
DOTE GRANT to Petitioner the right to reside during the
pendency of the suit in the common domicile at Alder-
crest Street in Dollard des Ormeaux, P.Q.
This judgment was registered by the wife's
attorney against the property. A second inter
locutory judgment was rendered on May 31,
1967 increasing the allowance. The conclusions
read as follows:
DOTH INCREASE the provisional alimentary allowance
aforesaid to $65.00 per week, as a modus vivendi for the
support of the Plaintiff and the four minor children of the
parties in her custody; and, in addition, Defendant shall pay
to the Plaintiff the sum of $33.50 for the hypothec, taxes
and the upkeep of the domicile, making a total payment of
$98.50 per week to be paid by Defendant to Plaintiff, at her
domicile;
A final judgment was rendered on October
28, 1969 which does not directly concern the
present action which deals only with the 1967
and 1968 taxation years but is of some signifi
cance in indicating what the various judges of
the Quebec Superior Court who dealt with the
matter considered as being the nature of the
payments made. The conclusion of this judg
ment granting the wife a legal separation from
bed and board reads as follows:
CONDEMNS Defendant to pay Plaintiff the sum of $85.00
each and every week for the support of herself and her
minor children, payable in advance at Plaintiff's domicile;
GRANTS Plaintiff the right to reside in the former common
domicile of the parties located at 39 Aldercrest Street,
Dollard des Ormeaux, and Orders Defendant to pay $33.50
per week to cover the hypothec and taxes on the said
property, the whole with costs.
The section of the Income Tax Act on which
defendant relies in claiming the said deduction
reads as follows:
11. (1) Notwithstanding paragraphs (a), (b) and (h) of
subsection (1) of section 12, the following amounts may be
deducted in computing the income of a taxpayer for a
taxation year:
(la) an amount paid by the taxpayer in the year, pursuant
to an order of a competent tribunal, as an allowance
payable on a periodic basis for the maintenance of the
recipient thereof, children of the marriage, or both the
recipient and children of the marriage, if he was living
apart from his spouse to whom he was required to make
the payment at the time the payment was made and
throughout the remainder of the year;
This section operates in conjunction with sec
tion 6(1)(da) which reads:
6. (1) Without restricting the generality of section 3,
there shall be included in computing the income of a taxpay
er for a taxation year
(da) an amount received by the taxpayer in the year,
pursuant to an order of a competent tribunal, as an
allowance payable on a periodic basis for the maintenance
of the recipient thereof, children of the marriage, or both
the recipient and children of the marriage, if the recipient
was living apart from the spouse required to make the
payment at the time the payment was received and
throughout the remainder of the year;
so that on the one hand the husband is permit
ted to deduct from his income the amount he is
directed to pay on a periodic basis as alimony
for the maintenance of the wife and children
from whom he is living apart and on the other
hand the wife must add the amounts so received
to her income for taxation purposes. The
amount so paid will therefore not escape taxa
tion altogether although the tax payable on same
may be somewhat less if it is paid by the wife
rather than the husband as, having been ordered
to pay an allowance, he will probably be in a
higher tax bracket before the deduction from his
income is made. Counsel for the Minister stated
that as a matter of precaution in the present
case the wife has been taxed on the total
amounts received including the payments made
by the husband to the hypothecary creditor and
she had appealed this assessment to the Tax
Review Board but the hearing has been delayed
pending a decision in the present case. He
declared further that there is no intention of
duplicating the taxes payable on the amounts in
controversy and that if the Minister succeeds in
the present appeal so that defendant is not
allowed to deduct these payments from his
income, then the assessment of these amounts
as part of the wife's income will be cancelled. In
the present case it is, of course, only the taxa-
tion of defendant with which we are concerned
and the issue must be decided with reference to
his liability for taxation on the sums in contro
versy, whatever may be the consequences of
the outcome on the wife's tax liability.
In addition to section 11(lxla) defendant
relies on section 16(1) which reads as follows:
16. (1) A payment or transfer of property made pursuant
to the direction of, or with the concurrence of, a taxpayer to
some other person for the benefit of the taxpayer or as a
benefit that the taxpayer desired to have conferred on the
other person shall be included in computing the taxpayer's
income to the extent that it would be if the payment or
transfer had been made to him.
I am not unmindful of the fact that in the
present case it is the defendant husband who is
the "taxpayer" but in view of the provisions of
section 6(1)(da) the wife is also a "taxpayer"
and if the payments were made with her concur
rence on her behalf to the hypothecary creditor,
section 16 would be applicable to her and con
versely by virtue of section 11(1)(1a) defendant
could make the deductions. Since the wife testi
fied that she had no objection to the payments
being made directly to the hypothecary creditor,
although the judgments in question indicated
that the payments should be made to her and, in
fact, she had never given this any consideration,
it is not unreasonable to say that the payments
were made with the concurrence of the wife
although paid directly by the husband to the
hypothecary creditor to whom he was, in any
event, obligated to make these payments by
virtue of the hypothec.
Plaintiff has a two fold argument in opposing
the deductibility of the hypothecary payments
made by the husband to the hypothecary credi
tor, first, that these are not payments made to
his spouse to whom he was required to make
the payment and, secondly, that they are pay
ments which he was contractually obligated to
make in any event to the said creditor and that
they enure in part to his benefit since a portion
of them is in reduction of capital of the hypo-
thec on the property which is owned by him.
While I was referred by counsel for plaintiff to
some jurisprudence of the Tax Appeal Board
and of the Courts giving a narrow and restric-
tive interpretation to section 11(1)(1) 1 , I believe
that on close examination the facts of this case
are sufficiently different as to make most of this
jurisprudence distinguishable.
In the Tax Appeal Board case of Brown v.
M.N.R. 64 DTC 812 the husband was not
allowed to deduct a lump sum payment of
$1,170 which he was ordered to pay to his
wife's father as reimbursement of rent owing by
her to her parents, nor a lump sum payment of
$10,000 which he was ordered to pay to her, but
he was allowed to deduct weekly alimony pay
ments which were also ordered. The basis of
this decision was that the $10,000 payment was
not a payment payable on a periodic basis
within the terms of section 11(1)(1) and the
$1,170 payment paid to the wife's father was
not an allowance payable for the maintenance
"of the recipient thereof". This decision was
upheld in the Exchequer Court [1966] Ex.C.R.
289 which accepted the reasoning and conclu
sions of the Tax Appeal Board.
The case of Cussion v. M.N.R. 66 DTC 297
resembles the present case more closely in that
in addition to alimony of $250 a month the
separation agreement between the husband and
wife provided that she would continue to have
the use of the matrimonial domicile and he
would continue to make the mortgage payments
of $84 per month on it. The house was owned
jointly by the two of them and he attempted to
deduct one-half of the payments or $42 a month
1 Section 11(1)(1) is substantially the same as section
11(1)(1a) which I believe is more applicable to the present
case, the former dealing with judgments or written agree
ments respecting alimony when the parties are separated
"pursuant to a divorce, judicial separation or written separa
tion agreement" whereas the latter is the situation when the
parties are merely living apart which is the present case
prior to the judgment granting the separation from bed and
board in 1969. Similarly, section 6(1)(d) makes the wife
taxable on the payments received pursuant to a judgment or
agreement following a divorce, judicial separation or written
separation agreement whereas section 6(1)(da) with which
we are presently concerned deals with the situation when
they are merely living apart prior to a final separation or
divorce judgment and without any written separation
agreement.
in addition to the alimony payment. The deci
sion refused to permit him to do so on the
ground that the payments were neither made to
the wife nor were they for her maintenance, the
mortgage payments being made to protect a
capital asset, namely the house owned jointly by
them. In this case, however, the separation
agreement provided that he was to make the
mortgage payments to the mortgagee. The deci
sion seems to lay great stress on the fact that it
would be improper to require the wife under
section 6(1)(c) to pay a tax on money which she
had never received, one-half of the mortgage
payments being for the benefit of the husband.
Neither of these judgments discussed the possi
ble application of section 16 dealing with indi
rect payments by virtue of which a payment
can, with the concurrence of a taxpayer, (in this
case the wife) be made to some other person for
the benefit of the taxpayer and this payment is
then included in the taxpayer's income to the
extent that it would have been if the payment
had been made to him.
In the case of M.N.R. v. Sproston [1970]
Ex.C.R. 602, a court order resulting from a
judicial separation required periodic payments
to be made to the wife for alimony and child
maintenance. The husband made alimony
cheques out to his wife and maintenance
cheques to the children who endorsed these
cheques to the wife who then cashed them and
used the funds to maintain the home. Sheppard
DJ. refused to allow the deduction of the pay
ments made to the children but it is clear that in
doing so he reached this conclusion because
they were not made "pursuant to" the court
order within the meaning of section 11(1)0.
The husband's obligation was to pay all the
money to the wife and she alone could enforce
the order to pay. This judgment referred to the
Brown case (supra) and to two Supreme Court
judgments in the cases of Trottier v. M.N.R.
[1968] S.C.R. 728 and M.N.R. v. Armstrong
[1956] S.C.R. 446, neither of which are appli
cable to the facts of the present case. In con
cluding his judgment Sheppard D.J. stated at
page 610:
It follows that the section requires the payment to be
made to the wife before they may be deducted by the
respondent as taxpayer. That has not been done. Therefore,
the respondent is not permitted to deduct the payments
made to the children.
Again this judgment did not discuss the possible
modifying effect of section 16 read in conjunc
tion with section 11(1)(n. The Trottier case
(supra) dealt with a situation where in a separa
tion agreement the husband accepted his wife's
claim that she was entitled to half of the value
of an hotel which they had operated and he
agreed to pay her the sum of $45,000 in settle
ment of this claim guaranteed by a mortgage on
the hotel property which was in his name.
Monthly instalments of $350 were to be paid on
account of this including interest on the out
standing balance. The husband's attempt to
deduct these monthly payments as alimony was
disallowed, Cattanach J. finding that the pay
ments were made on account of the mortgage
and not as alimony. The mortgage was not given
as collateral security for periodic payments to
be made under the separation agreement but
was given in discharge of his obligation to sup
port his wife, the terms of the separation agree
ment indicating that the mortgage was given in
"full settlement of all claims for an allowance
for herself from her husband". There was an
absolute obligation upon respondent to pay the
sum of $45,000 regardless of any changes in the
financial or marital status of his wife and wheth
er she lived or died and for this reason they
could not be classified as maintenance. The
Exchequer Court decision is reported at [1967]
2 Ex.C.R. 268 and confirmed in the Supreme
Court (supra).
The Armstrong case (supra) is also distin
guishable since it too dealt with a lump sum
payment. In it a divorce decree provided for the
payment of $100 monthly to the wife for the
maintenance of herself and daughter and after
accepting these payments for two years the wife
then accepted a lump sum in full settlement of
all future payments. In rendering judgment Kel-
lock J. stated at page 448:
If, for example, the respondent had agreed with his wife
that he should purchase for her a house in return for a
release of all further liability under the decree, the purchase
price could not, by any stretch of language, be brought
within the section. The same principle must equally apply to
a lump sum paid directly to the wife to purchase the release.
Such an outlay made in commutation of the periodic sums
payable under the decree is in the nature of a capital
payment to which the statute does not extend.
In the present case we are not dealing with a
lump sum payment but with periodic monthly
payments which, although they may after the
passage of a considerable number of years
result In the completion of the purchase of a
common domicile, cannot be, in my view,
assimilated to a lump sum payment laid out to
buy a house for the wife to live in. Plaintiff's
counsel conceded in argument that had the
premises been leased premises and the husband
continued to make the rental payments to which
he as the lessee was obligated under the lease
while the wife continued to reside in the former
common domicile pursuant to the judgment of
the Court, the Minister would not have objected
to his deduction of these monthly rental pay
ments as part of the alimentary allowance he
was forced to provide for his wife and children.
In the Tax Appeal Board case of Foxcroft v.
M.N.R. 33 Tax A.B.C. 415 referred to by
defendant the appellant had been ordered to pay
$40 a month for the maintenance of his wife
and child by the Family Court. In addition he
agreed to pay a sum toward the mortgage pay
ments and taxes on the common domicile which
the wife continued to occupy but this latter
payment was disallowed as a deduction from his
income. In rendering his decision Maurice Bois -
vert Q.C., stated at page 418:
There is no doubt that the appellant undertook to pay the
periodic instalments to hold their property in order to assure
a place where his wife could live with their child; the
undertaking was a consideration to fix the alimony to $40
per month.
A consideration is not a decree nor an order of a tribunal.
The Court did not order the appellant to pay the amount of
$44.27 per month. The appellant has shown his willingness
to assume the payment but the Court did not adjudge on it,
therefore, that amount was not paid "pursuant to an order"
and is not "an allowance" for the maintenance of the recipi
ent. Moreover, the payments were made to a third parson
and for the mutual benefit of both, appellant and his wife.
In the present case there was a court order
confirming the right of the wife to continue to
remain in the common domicile and directing
the husband to pay the $33.50 a week due for
the hypothec, taxes and upkeep of same which
was incorporated in the total to be paid to his
spouse as alimentary allowance. It appears to
me to be too fine a distinction to state that if the
husband had paid this to her and she had then
used it to make these hypothecary payments it
would all have been considered as alimentary
allowance paid to her but merely because the
husband made the payments himself direct to
the hypothecary creditor it should no longer be
so considered, and I believe that the justifica
tion for refusing to make this fine distinction
can perhaps be found in section 16 which none
of these judgments appears to have considered.
It is also of interest to note the wording of
section 11(1)(1a) which permits the deduction of
"an amount paid by the taxpayer in the year,
pursuant to an order of a competent tribunal"
and concludes with the words "if he was living
apart from his spouse to whom he was required
to make the payment" (italics mine). While he
did not make the payment to her directly it
might be said that he did so constructively with
her concurrence by applying the provisions of
section 16(1), and it is common ground that the
amount was in fact "paid". I cannot sustain
plaintiff's first argument therefore.
The second argument is far more troublesome
in that there is no doubt that the payments so
made do enure in part for the benefit of the
husband himself as owner of the property. The
hypothec arose when defendant purchased the
property on March 18, 1963 and assumed pay
ment of a balance of $14,450 with interest at
6i% payable by monthly instalments at $96.79
to the hypothecary creditor, the London Life
Assurance Company by virtue of a C.M.H.C.
loan. In addition defendant was obliged to pay
by monthly instalments one-twelfth of the
estimated taxes. While only the deed of sale was
produced from the Belcourt Construction Com
pany, the builders, and not the deed of loan to
them by London Life, this deed would certainly
have also required that insurance be maintained
on the property to protect the loan. Although
the two provisional judgments in 1967 and 1968
refer to the payment of $33.50 weekly as being
for hypothec, taxes and upkeep of the domicile,
defendant's wife testified that no maintenance
was required in those years. It can be presumed
that the difference between the $1,742 per
annum which the weekly instalments ordered by
the Court of $33.50 amount to and the
$1,161.48 which the twelve monthly payments
on account of capital and interest at the rate of
$96.79 amounted to would represent approxi
mately the amount due for insurance and taxes.
Since the interest alone at 6i% on $14,450
would amount to $939.25 per annum, the differ
ence between this and the $1,161.48 which the
twelve monthly payments on the hypothec itself
total, would represent the capital reduction from
which defendant would benefit. With each
monthly payment of $96.79 the portion of inter
est on the balance would reduce slightly and the
capital portion increase to the same extent, but
in the five years from 1963 to 1968 being the
earlier years of the loan, the portion of the
monthly payments attributable to the capital
would be relatively insignificant. In the absence
of production of the deed of loan or of any
tables showing the attribution of the payments,
exact calculation cannot be made. It is likely,
however, that the loan would be amortized over
a period of not less than 30 years. As a rough
approximation it can be estimated that the por
tion of the monthly payments attributable to the
capital for each of the years 1967 and 1968
would be in a range between $250 and $300 and
this would be the only portion of the payments
from which defendant would benefit to the
exclusion of his wife and children. While the
issue was not raised and I am not called upon to
decide same, and in any event could not do so
definitively in the absence of exact figures, it is
possible that the provisions of section 16(2)
could have been invoked. This section reads as
follows:
16. (2) For the purposes of this Part, a payment or trans
fer in a taxation year of property made to the taxpayer or
some other person for the benefit of the taxpayer and other
persons jointly or a profit made by the taxpayer and other
persons jointly in a taxation year shall be deemed to have
been received by the taxpayer in the year to the extent of
his interest therein notwithstanding that there was no distri
bution or division thereof in that year.
If it were applied the portion of the payments
made in 1967 and 1968 which represent the
capital could have been attributed to defendant
and not deductible from his income while the
portions representing interest and taxes would
in this event have been attributable to the wife.
I do not believe that it is necessary to consid
er the case from this point of view, however.
Reading sections 11(1)(!a), 6(1)(da) and 16 to
gether it appears to me to be the intention of the
Act that periodic (as distinguished from lump
sum) payments made by the husband as alimen
tary allowance for the benefit of the wife and
dependant children are deductible by him and
taxable in her hands. The courts, in deciding the
amount of alimentary allowance she required,
clearly took into consideration the fact that she
was to continue in occupancy of the common
domicile at defendant's expense which repre
sented a total alimentary allowance of a value of
$83.50 a week in accordance with the judgment
of January 26, 1967 and of $98.50 a week in
accordance with the judgment of May 31, 1967.
Certainly, defendant could not have provided a
comparable residence for his wife and four
minor children at a cost of less than $33.50 a
week which works out at a monthly rental of
about $145 per month, and she required this in
addition to the portion of the alimentary allow
ance paid directly to her in cash. The fact that
defendant built up his equity in the property to
the extent of perhaps a total of $500 to $600 in
the two years in question (leaving aside such
extraneous factors as possible increases in value
of property due to inflation which we cannot
take into consideration) is strictly incidental to
the fact that by making these payments to the
hypothecary creditor he was maintaining a
home for his wife and children commensurate
with their standard of living.
In this connection reference might be made to
section 12(1)(b) of the Act which reads as
follows:
12. (1) In computing income, no deduction shall be made
in respect of
(b) an outlay, loss or replacement of capital, a payment
on account of capital or an allowance in respect of
depreciation, obsolescence or depletion except as express
ly permitted by this Part,
It must be noted that section 11(1)(1a) com
mences with the words "Notwithstanding para
graphs (a), (b) and (h) of subsection (1) of
section 12" so that whereas the normal rule
therefore is that a taxpayer can make no deduc
tion of payments made on account of capital,
this limitation does not apply when section
11(1)(1a) takes effect.
Plaintiff contends that defendant was obliged
to make the payments on account of the hypo-
thee whether or not he was separated from his
wife, obligated to pay an alimentary allowance,
or even whether or not she lived or he himself
lived as the payments would continue to be an
obligation of his estate. While this is undoubted
ly true as between him and the hypothecary
creditor, the effect of these payments in so far
as the wife is concerned is that she had an
additional alimentary allowance of an equivalent
value resulting from the Court order that she
should continue to occupy the common domi
cile. The fact that the judgment was registered
against the property reinforced her claim as her
husband could not, if he wished, have sold the
property without providing equivalent accom
modation. The third paragraph of article 2036 of
the Quebec Civil Code reads as follows:
In the case of judgment for alimentary pension, the Supe
rior Court, upon petition therefor on behalf of the party
against whom the judgment was rendered, may, from time to
time, determine the immoveable or immoveables of the
debtor upon which the judicial hypothec may be exercised,
and order at the costs of the petitioner, the radiation of any
such hypothec taken or registered in conformity with the
provisions of this article.
The only effect of this article is that the defend
ant could have substituted another property
against which the judgment could have been
registered, but only with the approval of the
Court. Certainly, no purchaser would buy the
property as long as the judicial hypothec result
ing from the judgment establishing the alimen
tary allowance was registered against it.
I am aware that this decision is in conflict
with that of the Tax Appeal Board in the case of
Cussion (supra) and with certain statements in
both the Exchequer Court and Supreme Court
decisions in the case of Trottier (supra), which
statements were, however, somewhat of an
obiter nature in that it was clear in that case that
in lieu of alimony the husband had given to his
wife a mortgage on his property repayable in
monthly instalments of capital and interest.
There was no question of the wife continuing to
live in the property, the only question being
whether the payments were on account of a
mortgage, which the courts very properly found,
rather than on account of alimony. Further
more, as previously indicated, none of these
cases considered the possible application of sec
tion 16 of the Act or the fact that section
12(1)(b) is specifically excluded from applica
tion by section 11(1)(1a) both of which sections
are in my view significant in determining the
true intention of the Act. The courts, in fixing
the terms of an alimentary allowance order, may
properly take into consideration the taxation
consequences of same, and if, as a result of this
judgment, the net cost to the husband of the
payments he was ` ordered to pay and the net
benefits of the receipt .of same by the wife,
including the occupancy of the house, are less
than anticipated` ' after taking ' the tax conse
quences into consideration, then an application
can be made to the Court making the alimentary
order for an increase in same, but this is not a
matter for decision in this Court. The appeal is
therefore dismissed with costs and the assess
ment referred back to the Minister for correc
tion accordingly. -
You are being directed to the most recent version of the statute which may not be the version considered at the time of the judgment.