Child Support Enforcement Div. of Alaska v. Brenckle

• Decision Date: 06 February 1997
• Citation: 424 Mass. 214,675 N.E.2d 390
• Parties: CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT DIVISION OF ALASKA 1 v. Joseph J. BRENCKLE, Jr.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 390

675 N.E.2d 390

424 Mass. 214

CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT DIVISION OF ALASKA ¹ v. Joseph J. BRENCKLE, Jr.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts,

Suffolk.

Argued Nov. 7, 1996.

Decided Feb. 6, 1997.

Mary O'Sullivan Smith, Rockland, for defendant.

Edward J. DeAngelo, Assistant Attorney General, for plaintiff.

Before WILKINS, C.J., and ABRAMS, LYNCH, GREANEY and MARSHALL, JJ.

MARSHALL, Justice.

This case raises questions about the relationship between successive Massachusetts statutes for the interstate enforcement of child support orders. The child support enforcement division of Alaska brings the action on behalf of Alaska resident Carol A. Brenckle (Carol Brenckle) to collect unpaid child support payments from her former husband, Joseph J. Brenckle, Jr. (Brenckle), a resident of Marshfield. On appeal, Brenckle challenges findings of the District Court entered against him in the amount of $107,365 as determined under a 1991 judgment of the Alaska Superior Court (Alaska court) and enforced by the court below. We affirm the judgment and remand this matter to the District Court, where it shall be transferred to the Probate and Family Court Department for such other proceedings as may be necessary to enforce the judgment.

We summarize the pertinent facts. The couple was married on December 19, 1964, in California. In 1971, they moved to Alaska, where they had one child, Joseph J. Brenckle, III (son), who was born on July 16, 1974. In May, 1978, they filed a joint petition for divorce which was granted by the Alaska court on July 17, 1978.

Under the terms of the divorce agreement Carol Brenckle retained custody of their son, and Brenckle agreed to pay $500 each month for child support. The divorce agreement provided that child support would terminate when their son reached the age of majority, ² and that the expenses for the child's education (preparatory school, college, and graduate school) would be shared jointly by both parents. The divorce agreement also provided for visitation arrangements between Brenckle and his son.

Soon after the divorce--the record is not specific--and in any event by January, 1979, Brenckle moved to Massachusetts, while Carol Brenckle remained in Alaska with their son. Brenckle made the required child support payments for several months only. ³ It is undisputed that Brenckle made no child support payments after December, 1979. He stopped all payments at that time, he says, because one support payment sent to Carol Brenckle at her home address was returned to him marked "unclaimed," and he "assumed" either that she would contact him with a new address, or that "she no longer intended to accept the checks because of a changed and improved financial position." Brenckle apparently made no effort to determine whether his "assumption" was correct, or whether his support payments could be sent to an alternative address, such as the post office box mailing address listed by Carol Brenckle in the divorce agreement. According to Carol Brenckle, Brenckle had no communication with their son after May, 1979. Because she was financially able to support their son with her own earnings, she did not pursue enforcement of the delinquent child support obligations until their son prepared to go to college.

In 1991, when their son turned seventeen years old and began to make plans to enter college, Carol Brenckle filed an action in the Alaska court to recover the child support arrearages owed to her because she could not afford to support him in college. ⁴ Brenckle was provided notice of those proceedings and an opportunity to be heard, but he did not enter an appearance or contest the proceedings. On December 19, 1991, the Alaska court entered judgment against Brenckle in the amount of $75,000, with interest. He has not challenged the validity of that judgment.

On June 30, 1992, Carol Brenckle filed a petition in Alaska under the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act (URESA) Alaska Stat. §§ 25.25.010--25.25.100 (since repealed), seeking to establish an enforcement order in Massachusetts, Brenckle's home State. The Alaska court certified the petition on September 18, 1992, and ordered it transmitted to the child support enforcement division of the Massachusetts Department of Revenue (department).

The petition was entered in the Brockton District Court on June 8, 1993, and an order of notice was issued by that court to Brenckle and served on him in hand. On December 9, 1993, Brenckle filed his answer to the petition, and on March 4, 1994, he filed a motion to dismiss or for summary judgment. The District Court denied his motion on March 16, 1994.

On November 16, 1994, the District Court judge conducted a hearing on the merits of the case; no testimony was received and, by agreement of the parties, the matter was submitted on memoranda and affidavits. On February 10, 1995, the judge found Brenckle liable in the amount of $107,365, the amount of the 1991 Alaska judgment with interest. Brenckle appealed. We transferred his appeal here on our own motion.

This case reaches us in unusual circumstances. URESA, codified at G.L. c. 273A, this Commonwealth's previous statutory mechanism for issuing, modifying and enforcing interstate child support orders, was repealed on February 10, 1995, the same date that the judgment entered in the District Court. At the same time URESA was replaced by the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA), codified at G.L. c. 209D, inserted by St.1995, c. 5, § 87. We consider first which law applies to this appeal.

UIFSA was approved by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in 1992, and has since been adopted by twenty-six States, including Alaska and Massachusetts. ⁵ 9 U.L.A. 255 (Master ed. Supp.1996). See G.L. c. 209D; Alaska Stat. §§ 25.25.101 (Michie 1996). It was developed to improve the two prior uniform laws concerning enforcement of family support orders, URESA and the Revised Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act RURESA). ⁶ See Note, The Uniform Interstate Family Support Act: The New URESA, 20 U. Dayton L.Rev. 425, 448 (1994). UIFSA aims to cure the problem of conflicting support orders entered by multiple courts, and provides for the exercise of continuing, exclusive jurisdiction by one tribunal over support orders. See Levy & Hynes, Highlights of the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, 83 Ill. B.J. 647 (1995). Under UIFSA, once one court enters a support order, no other court may modify that order for as long as the obligee, obligor, or child for whose benefit the order is entered continues to reside within the jurisdiction of that court unless each party consents in writing to another jurisdiction. See G.L. c. 209D, § 2-205; Alaska Stat. § 25.25.205 (Michie 1996).

The parties' submissions to the District Court addressed their claims only under URESA, and we assume that the findings of the District Court were made pursuant to URESA. Alaska now argues that UIFSA applies to this appeal, and that even if URESA applies, the findings of the District Court must be affirmed. The core argument advanced by Brenckle is that the District Court was precluded by URESA from entering a judgment against him for child support arrearages, first, because at the time the order was entered in the court below he owed no duty of support to his child ⁷; and second, because URESA did not provide for the collection of child support arrearages. He does not address any of Alaska's UIFSA arguments.

The Massachusetts codification of UIFSA refers to its predecessor URESA only once. General Laws c. 209D, § 2-207(c) provides that any URESA action that is "pending or was previously adjudicated" in the District Court or Boston Municipal Court Department "may be transferred to the probate and family court department" by any party or by a child support enforcement agency, and that "[u]pon transfer" the provisions of UIFSA shall apply. G.L. c. 209D, § 2-207 (c). ⁸ It is clear that the Legislature intended that all URESA proceedings in the Commonwealth be moved to a single trial department, and that all URESA proceedings, whether pending or previously adjudicated, be subject to the provisions of UIFSA. This is consistent with the fundamental purpose of UIFSA: to "create a uniform basis for jurisdiction so that ... only one support order is in effect at any one time," and to "limit the number of tribunals having jurisdiction to modify a child support order." 1995 House Doc. No. 255 at 24. We must nevertheless resolve whether UIFSA can be applied retroactively to this case.

The retroactive application of a statute is a subject we have addressed on many occasions. We have applied the rule described in Hanscom v. Malden & Melrose Gaslight Co., 220 Mass. 1, 3, 107 N.E. 426 (1914): "The general rule of interpretation is that all statutes are prospective in their operation, unless an intention that they shall be retrospective appears by necessary implication from their words, context or objects when considered in the light of the subject matter, the pre-existing state of the law and the effect upon existing rights, remedies and obligations.... It is only statutes regulating practice, procedure and evidence, in short, those relating to remedies and not affecting substantive rights, that commonly are treated as operating retroactively, and as applying to pending actions or causes of action."

It was the express intention of the Legislature that UIFSA be applied retrospectively; its provisions govern any URESA action that is "pending or was previously adjudicated." It is also clear that UIFSA, like its predecessor URESA, does not create a duty of support, ⁹ but rather provides the procedural framework for enforcing one State's support order in another jurisdiction. As a remedial statute, and one not affecting substantive rights, it is proper that UIFSA should be applied retroactively. ¹⁰ Hein-Werner Corp. v. Jackson Indus., 364 Mass. 523,...