In re Marriage of Chapa: Maintenance Review and Fees

In re Marriage of Chapa is a June 2024 order of the Illinois Appellate Court, Third District, in a long-running Du Page County divorce. It addresses what happens when a spouse who receives maintenance for a fixed term asks the court to extend it at a scheduled review, and the other spouse argues she did not make enough effort to become self-supporting. The appellate court upheld the denial of the extension. It also held that the trial court's $2,000 attorney fee contribution was an abuse of discretion and raised it to $15,422.64.

What happened

Daniel and Nancy Chapa married in 1989. Daniel filed for divorce in 2009, and the court entered the judgment in April 2012. Nancy was to receive $3,400 every two weeks, about half of Daniel's income, plus 50% of his net annual bonuses, for a fixed term of 48 months beginning after the marital home sold. The award was subject to review. To continue maintenance past 48 months, Nancy had to file a petition no later than 30 days after the final payment; the court would then review her request de novo under the criteria in section 504 of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act; and during the maintenance period Nancy was obligated "to use her best effort to become increasingly self[-]supporting."

The home did not sell until November 2015, a delay an earlier appellate decision attributed "in large part" to Nancy's refusal to comply with the judgment. On September 20, 2019, Nancy petitioned to review and extend maintenance, seeking permanent maintenance and an increase. Daniel asked the court to terminate maintenance.

The evidence showed that Nancy has a bachelor's degree in finance and had been a bank vice president in Dallas early in the marriage. She stopped working at the end of 1991, was a homemaker who cared for the children, and did not work from 1992 to 2014. After the 2012 judgment she did not look for work until 2014, while she cared for the couple's daughter as the daughter prepared for college. She then worked as a seasonal greeter and, from 2015, part-time at a sporting goods store at $12.50 an hour, with hours that had fallen to "[a]lmost zero." She testified about online job applications and a "job diary," but the applications were not in her interrogatory answers. Daniel's income had declined since the divorce. His 2021 base salary was $290,000, and he testified that he had withdrawn hundreds of thousands of dollars from his retirement account to pay legal fees, maintenance, and living expenses.

The trial court denied the extension in December 2021. In 2022, in In re Marriage of Chapa, 2022 IL App (2d) 210772, the Second District vacated that ruling. It held that the trial court had failed to conduct the required de novo review of the section 504(a) factors, and that Nancy's best efforts were one factor to consider along with those factors, not a prerequisite to an extension. It also held that the trial court abused its discretion by relying on nonstatutory considerations without an express finding that they were just and equitable, and by refusing Nancy's fee petition without considering the statutory factors. It directed the trial court to apply the section 504(a) factors in effect on the date of the original April 2012 judgment.

On remand, in January 2023, the trial court again denied the extension, terminated Daniel's maintenance obligation as of January 1, 2023, and ordered Daniel to contribute $2,000 toward Nancy's attorney fees. Nancy appealed again.

What the appellate court decided

1. Denying the extension was within the court's discretion

Maintenance rulings are reviewed for abuse of discretion. The Third District found that the trial court had done what the Second District required: it considered the twelve section 504(a) factors in effect in 2012 along with Nancy's efforts to become self-supporting. The factors do not have to be given equal weight "so long as the balance struck by the court is reasonable under the circumstances."

The appellate court held that the trial court's focus on Nancy's lack of effort was "consistent with the record." It pointed to the two years after the judgment when she did not work and to part-time hours that declined in the following years. It said a four-week trip in 2017 to care for relatives could not be "deemed a substantial impediment" to finding substantial work. And it noted that she failed to produce evidence of her job applications in discovery or corroborate them at trial beyond what the court called her "self-serving ‘job diary.’" Her own testimony indicated she enrolled in scripture school out of interest in the subject, not to improve her employability.

Nancy compared her case to decisions in which long-term homemakers were granted extensions. The court acknowledged similarities to one of them, a lengthy marriage in which one spouse earned the income and the other was the homemaker. But it found a key difference: here the trial court also weighed that Daniel had depleted his retirement accounts during the review period to fund the litigation and, at 62, faced limits on his future earning capacity. The court also noted that, unlike in several cases Nancy cited, the paying spouse's income had decreased after the divorce rather than increased.

One limit is worth noting. The court said that Nancy's decision not to withdraw from her own retirement accounts was not an appropriate consideration, quoting an earlier case: "[T]he duty to seek financial independence does not require the party receiving maintenance to liquidate his or her assets in order to achieve that independence." It concluded that this point did not materially influence the ruling.

2. Past conduct could bear on credibility

Under the 2012 statute, a court could consider a factor beyond those listed only if it "expressly finds" that factor "to be just and equitable." Nancy argued that the trial court again relied on her conduct, which the Second District had rejected as a basis for denial. The Third District disagreed. It read the trial court's account of the home-sale dispute as procedural history, and it held that Nancy's "perceived lack of respect for the judicial system, her demonstrated lack of regard for court orders, [and] her purposeful delay of the sale of the residence" were appropriate considerations in judging her credibility. It did find one credibility finding improper: the trial court's belief that Nancy might be receiving undisclosed support from another person was "wholly unsupported" by the evidence. Because the trial court kept that finding separate from its maintenance review, it did not require reversal.

3. The $2,000 fee contribution was an abuse of discretion

Nancy owed her attorney $15,422.64. On a post-judgment fee petition, the trial court had to consider the parties' financial resources and decide contribution under section 503(j), which bases any contribution on the property-division criteria of section 503 and, if maintenance has been awarded, the maintenance criteria of section 504. The trial court's order did not cite the statutory factors and did not explain the $2,000 figure in light of the size of Nancy's outstanding fees and the imbalance in what each side had spent. The appellate court added that Daniel's retirement withdrawals did "little to compromise his superior financial position to contribute to Nancy’s attorney fees."

Ordinarily the fee issue would have gone back to the trial court. Instead, "in an effort to provide closure to the parties after seven appeals," and because of the disparity in the parties' resources and fee spending, the appellate court used its authority under Supreme Court Rule 366 to modify the order and raise the contribution to $15,422.64.

4. Other rulings

The court upheld the denial of Nancy's motion to reopen the evidence after a car accident, because her inability to work going forward did not bear on her efforts during the review period from April 2012 to September 2019. It also held that it was not error for the judge who had already ruled on the case to keep it on remand, despite a local rule directing remanded cases to the courtroom they came from, and it found no evidence of favoritism or antagonism.

What Chapa means for an Illinois maintenance review

• Read the review clause in your judgment. In Chapa, the 2012 judgment set the deadline (30 days after the final payment), the standard (a de novo review under section 504), and an express duty to use best efforts toward self-support. Those terms framed everything that followed. Because the judgment limited the review to the section 504(a) factors and Nancy's efforts, the Second District said that the modification factors in section 510(a-5) did not apply.
• If you receive maintenance subject to review, treat self-support as an obligation. The court cited Illinois cases holding that a recipient of rehabilitative maintenance has an affirmative obligation to seek training and appropriate employment, and bears the burden of showing it at review. Keep records of applications, interviews, job offers, and training aimed at employment, and produce them in discovery.
• Effort is one factor, not the whole case. The outcome depended on the full section 504(a) analysis, including the paying spouse's finances, age, and income trend.
• If you pay maintenance, your circumstances count too. Lower income, age, and retirement withdrawals used to pay support and litigation costs were part of the analysis that supported denial.
• Check which version of the statute applies. Chapa applied the 2012 version of section 504(a) because the earlier appellate decision required it, and the Third District expressly declined to decide which version applies generally to awards entered before the statute was amended. The current section 504(a) lists 14 factors, including "the realistic present and future earning capacity of each party" and any impairment of the paying spouse's earning capacity, and section 504(b-4.5) now distinguishes fixed-term, indefinite, and reviewable maintenance.
• Fee contribution must be grounded in the statute. Section 508(a) allows a court to order one party to pay the other's fees "after considering the financial resources of the parties," and section 503(j)(2) ties contribution to the property and maintenance criteria. A ruling that does not apply those factors or explain the amount is open to challenge. In Chapa, the record also included the parties' stipulation that the fees submitted were fair and reasonable.
• Courtroom conduct affects credibility. The appellate court approved the trial court's use of Nancy's disregard of court orders and her conduct in the litigation when judging her credibility.
• Know the case's weight. Chapa is a nonprecedential order. It shows how these issues are argued and decided and may be cited as persuasive authority, but it does not bind any court.

Sources

• In re Marriage of Chapa, 2024 IL App (3d) 230047-U (June 20, 2024): order on the Illinois Courts website (PDF)
• In re Marriage of Chapa, 2022 IL App (2d) 210772 (Sept. 8, 2022): opinion on CourtListener
• 750 ILCS 5/504 (maintenance): Illinois General Assembly
• 750 ILCS 5/503(j) (contribution to fees and costs): Illinois General Assembly
• 750 ILCS 5/508 (attorney's fees): Illinois General Assembly

Related reading

• Modifying maintenance in Illinois
• Terminating maintenance in Illinois
• Interim attorney's fees under section 508(a)

This article summarizes one appellate order and general Illinois law as of October 2026. It is not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.

Written by Jonathan D. Steele

Chicago divorce attorney with cybersecurity certifications (Security+, ISC2 CC, Google Cybersecurity Professional Certificate). Illinois Super Lawyers Rising Star 2016-2025.

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