Davis v. Blackstock

• Decision Date: 05 April 2013
• Docket Number: 2111244.
• Citation: 159 So.3d 708
• Parties: Mark D. DAVIS v. Tonya D. BLACKSTOCK.
• Court: Alabama Court of Civil Appeals

159 So.3d 708

Mark D. DAVIS

v.Tonya D. BLACKSTOCK.

2111244.

Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama.

April 5, 2013.

Opinion on Return to Remand July 19, 2013.

Certiorari Denied Sept. 13, 2013

Mark D. Davis, pro se.

Luther Strange, atty. gen., and Sharon E. Ficquette, chief legal counsel, and Jennifer M. Bush, asst. atty. gen., Department of Human Resources, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

The parties to this appeal, Mark D. Davis (“the father”) and Tonya D. Blackstock (“the mother”), have been before the appellate courts of this state on several previous occasions.

“The father and the mother married on November 11, 2000. Four months later, while they were residing in Tennessee, the father and the mother separated. The mother was pregnant with the [parties'] child at the time of the separation. Subsequently, a petition for divorce was filed in the Chancery Court for Lawrence County, Tennessee (‘the Tennessee trial court’). Before the Tennessee trial court ruled on the divorce petition filed with that court, the father and the mother moved to Alabama, where the mother gave birth to the child on December 27, 2001.

“On February 15, 2002, the Tennessee trial court entered a judgment divorcing the father and the mother. In essence, the Tennessee judgment granted the father and the mother joint custody, with the mother receiving primary physical custody and child support. In June 2002, while the father, the mother, and the child continued to reside in Alabama, the father petitioned the Tennessee trial court for a modification of its February 15, 2002, judgment with regard to custody. On September 3, 2003, the Tennessee trial court modified its divorce judgment by granting the father equal physical custody on a four-day rotating basis and terminating the father's child-support obligation.

“The mother appealed the September 3, 2003, judgment to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. On October 12, 2004, the Tennessee Court of Appeals issued an opinion and an order affirming that portion of the September 3, 2003, judgment that modified custody and vacating that portion of the judgment that modified the father's child-support obligation. The Tennessee Court of Appeals remanded the case for a hearing to determine which parent should be the ‘primary residential parent’ and whether child support should be awarded. See Davis v. Davis, (No. M2003–02312–COA–R3–CV) (Tenn.Ct.App.2004) (not reported in S.W.3d). The Tennessee trial court never acted on this mandate.

“On February 6, 2006, the mother filed a petition for modification of custody and child support in the Lauderdale Circuit Court (‘the Alabama trial court’). In response, on February 23, 2006, the father filed a petition for a custody hearing in the Tennessee trial court. Both parties filed motions to dismiss the other's petition on the ground of lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The mother argued that the Tennessee trial court no longer had jurisdiction over the custody issue because the father, the mother, and the child had resided in Alabama for the preceding four years. The father argued that the Alabama trial court could not exercise jurisdiction because the Tennessee court was continuing to exercise its jurisdiction. The Alabama trial court granted the father's motion to dismiss, but it set aside its dismissal order after the mother alleged that the Tennessee trial court had yielded jurisdiction to Alabama as a more convenient forum and had dismissed the father's custody-hearing petition.

“The parties proceeded to a custody hearing in the Alabama trial court. At the hearing, the father requested that the mother be held in contempt for failing to abide by the Tennessee trial court's September 3, 2003, judgment; he also requested that he be awarded primary physical custody of the child. The mother denied that she was in contempt and requested that she be awarded primary physical custody of the child. Following ore tenus proceedings, the Alabama trial court entered a judgment on September 1, 2006. The Alabama trial court's judgment maintained joint legal custody, but it awarded the mother primary physical custody of the child and awarded the father visitation. The Alabama trial court further ordered the father to pay child support and to pay one-half of the uninsured-medical expenses of the child. The judgment also provided the father a credit of $1,338.93 to be applied to his share of the child's uninsured-medical expenses.”

Davis v. Blackstock, 47 So.3d 796, 797–98 (Ala.Civ.App.2007) ( “Davis I ”) (footnote omitted).

In Davis I, supra, this court rejected the father's arguments that the Lauderdale Circuit Court (hereinafter “the trial court”) had lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the child-custody dispute, but this court reversed the trial court's award of primary physical custody to the mother. The mother petitioned for a writ of certiorari, and our supreme court granted the writ, holding that this court had erred in reversing the trial court's custody award. Ex parte Blackstock, 47 So.3d 801 (Ala.2009). In reaching its holding, our supreme court noted its agreement that the trial court had properly exercised subject-matter jurisdiction over the parties' custody dispute. Ex parte Blackstock, 47 So.3d at 803 n. 1 (“The Court of Civil Appeals concluded that the [trial court's] assumption of jurisdiction was consistent with the provisions of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, Ala.Code 1975, § 30–3B–101 et seq. This conclusion appears to be correct.”).

On remand from Ex parte Blackstock, supra, this court affirmed the trial court's award of primary physical custody to the mother and addressed the father's challenge of the child-support award set forth in the September 1, 2006, judgment. Davis v. Blackstock, 47 So.3d 816 (Ala.Civ.App.2010) ( “Davis II ”). This court agreed that the father's child-support obligation had been improperly calculated, noting that the trial court had failed to include in its calculation the cost of health insurance for the child. Davis II, 47 So.3d at 817. Accordingly, this court reversed that portion of the trial court's September 1, 2006, judgment pertaining to the amount of child support awarded and ordered that the father's child-support obligation be recalculated. Id.

Davis II was released on April 2, 2010, and the certificate of judgment was issued on April 21, 2010. The matter appears to have been set for a status hearing in the trial court in September 2010, but the record does not indicate whether that hearing took place. This court explained the further procedural history of this matter as follows:

“On November 10, 2010, the father filed in the Alabama trial court a motion for a hearing and for modification of the 2006 judgment entered by the Alabama trial court. He argued that the 2006 judgment violated his constitutional rights, and he also alleged that a material change in circumstances had occurred since the entry of the 2006 judgment that justified a modification of custody. The father also requested that the Alabama trial court take steps necessary to protect the child from inappropriate conduct allegedly occurring at the mother's house. After a hearing, the Alabama trial court entered a judgment on November 18, 2010, finding that the father was in arrears with regard to his child-support obligation in the amount of $14,246, plus $2,314.14 in accumulated interest. The Alabama trial court also set the father's child-support obligation at $435 per month. The Alabama trial court finally noted:

“ ‘It further appears to the court that pursuant to the appellate decisions heretofore issued that there remains an issue regarding the imputation of health insurance cost in the calculation of child support pursuant to Rule 32 [, Ala. R. Jud. Admin.,] that must be applied. The court hereby sets further hearing on this matter.... The court will hear argument in regard to said issue as well as any other pending motions.’

“....

“On February 25, 2011, the father filed a motion to vacate ab initio the 2006 judgment. The father alleged that the 2006 judgment was void for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because of the mother's noncompliance with various provisions of the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (‘the UIFSA’), § 30–3A–101 et seq., Ala.Code 1975, and the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (‘the UCCJEA’), § 30–3B–101 et seq., Ala.Code 1975.... The father's motion to vacate was denied on March 4, 2011. The father filed a petition for a writ of mandamus with this court on March 8, 2011.”

Ex parte Davis, 82 So.3d 695, 699 (Ala.Civ.App.2011) (footnotes omitted).

In Ex parte Davis, supra, this court determined that no final judgment had been entered in this matter, and, therefore, that review of the issues raised by the father was appropriate pursuant to the petition for a writ of mandamus.¹ The father argued, among other things, that the trial court had not obtained subject-matter jurisdiction over the issue of child support when the mother initiated her 2006 action in the trial court because the mother had failed to register the judgments of the Chancery Court for Lawrence County, Tennessee (“the Tennessee court”), pursuant to the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (“the UCCJEA”), § 30–3B–101 et seq., Ala.Code 1975, or the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (“the UIFSA”), § 30–3A–101 et seq., Ala.Code 1975. This court rejected each of the father's arguments on this issue.

This court also rejected other arguments asserted by the father that the trial court had lacked subject-matter jurisdiction under various provisions of the UCCJEA. In doing so, this court concluded that the provisions relied upon by the father were not applicable under the facts of this case. See Ex parte Davis, 82 So.3d at 701–03. Accordingly, this court denied the father's petition for a writ of mandamus in Ex parte Davis, supra.

Thereafter, the mother moved the trial court to set a hearing to consider the matter. However, the...