Department of Human Services v. Ray

• Decision Date: 16 December 2008
• Docket Number: No. 2007-CA-00362-COA.,2007-CA-00362-COA.
• Parties: DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES, State of Mississippi and Ruby J. Murphy, Appellants v. Henry RAY, Appellee.
• Court: Mississippi Court of Appeals

997 So.2d 983

DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES, State of Mississippi and Ruby J. Murphy, Appellants v. Henry RAY, Appellee.

No. 2007-CA-00362-COA.

Court of Appeals of Mississippi.

December 16, 2008.

Tamekia Rochelle Goliday, Peter Joseph Bagley, attorneys for appellants.

Howard Q. Davis, Belzoni, attorney for appellee.

Before LEE, P.J., ROBERTS and CARLTON, JJ.

CARLTON, J., for the Court.

¶ 1. This case comes before the Court from the order of the Chancery Court of Sunflower County granting Henry Ray's motion for the reimbursement of child support on the basis of fraud. The chancellor ordered the Mississippi Department of Human Services (DHS) and Ruby J. Murphy (collectively the "Appellants")¹ jointly and severally liable to Ray in the amount of $23,183.10, representing the child support payments that Ray made to Murphy through DHS for approximately nineteen years for Murphy's child, L.J.² The Appellants raise numerous issues on appeal. However, we find it necessary to only address the following issue: Whether the chancellor erred when she entered a judgment against the Appellants for child support payments that Ray made on the basis that Ray was defrauded into believing that he was L.J.'s father.

¶ 2. While we understand the chancellor's frustration over disputed paternity cases such as this one, we find that Ray not only failed to prove fraud, but also, he failed to prove his claim of fraud would not be time-barred by the statute of limitations for fraud. Therefore, we reverse the judgment entered by the chancellor and render judgment in favor of DHS and Murphy.

FACTS

¶ 3. Murphy and Ray were involved in a romantic relationship that lasted approximately two years. During their relationship, Murphy became pregnant. Ray testified that Murphy told him that she became pregnant when a condom had burst when she and Ray were having sex. Ray testified that he did not remember any condom bursting during their relationship and did not believe that any ever had. Murphy gave birth to L.J. in December 1985. Shortly thereafter, Ray and Murphy ended their relationship. In January 1986, Murphy presented DHS with an executed affidavit and affirmation of paternity naming Ray as L.J.'s father. DHS then contacted Ray, who executed a stipulated agreement of support and admission of paternity and agreed to pay $100 per month in child support. Ray also agreed to provide health-care coverage and medical support for L.J.

¶ 4. Ray made child support payments to Murphy through DHS for approximately nineteen years until a friend suggested that he was not L.J.'s father. Consequently, in January 2005, Ray filed a petition for genetic testing, which the chancellor granted. The genetic test results excluded Ray as L.J.'s natural father. Ray then filed a petition to terminate child support. A hearing was held on this petition. At the conclusion of the hearing, the chancellor terminated Ray's child support obligation and admonished Murphy, stating:

It's your responsibility to know. If you're going to practice sex with a lot of different people, it's your responsibility to know who the father is or to find out the truth. I'm going to grant this relief and I'll probably grant some more if they ask me for it.

....

And if you've got some friends that have done this you can tell them I'm fixing to start putting judgments on you women that name men to be the father and they're not the father.

¶ 5. Ray later filed a "motion to reimburse funds," seeking reimbursement from the Appellants in the amount of $23,183.10 for child support payments that he made over the previous nineteen years. A hearing was held on Ray's reimbursement motion. After hearing the arguments of counsel (no witnesses were called), the chancellor granted Ray's motion for reimbursement, stating:

And above all things this is a court of equity, and certainly what happened to [Ray] was not equitable. The mother perpetrated a fraud on [Ray] and was allowed to do so by [DHS], and this Court is going to grant the motion ordering [Murphy] and [DHS] to reimburse [Ray] in the amount of $23,183.10 and a judgment in that amount is granted.

¶ 6. The chancellor later entered an order memorializing her bench ruling. The parties then filed the following motions: (1) Murphy filed a motion for reconsideration or, in the alternative, a motion for findings of fact and conclusions of law; (2) DHS filed a motion for reconsideration and/or to set aside the order to reimburse funds; and (3) Ray filed a motion to amend his motion to reimburse funds to specifically plead fraud. The chancellor granted the Appellants' motions for reconsideration and granted Ray's motion to amend.

¶ 7. At the reconsideration hearing, Murphy testified that during her relationship with Ray, she had sex one time with a man named Johnny Lloyd.³ According to Murphy, she believed that Ray was L.J.'s father because she regularly had sex with Ray over the course of their two-year relationship, sometimes without a condom. Murphy testified that she believed that Ray was L.J.'s father until the results of the 2005 paternity test proved otherwise.

¶ 8. As for Ray's belief regarding L.J.'s paternity, Ray made five explicit admissions during his testimony that he seriously doubted L.J. was his son both before and after L.J.'s birth. Ray also made three explicit admissions that he never seriously doubted L.J. was his son. Additionally, Ray testified during cross-examination by Murphy's attorney, Tamekia Goliday, that Murphy told him she had become pregnant because a condom had burst when they had sex. Ray testified as follows:

Goliday: So, if you can't remember if the condom burst, can you remember if you used one?

Ray: Naw, she the one said dat [sic]— she the one said dat [sic] it burst. I didn't say this. Dat [sic] was her.

Goliday: So you didn't believe it burst?

Ray: No.

Goliday: Then why didn't you just go ahead and object to the DNA test?

Ray: Object to it?

Goliday: I mean, why did you sign the petition agreeing to pay child support?

Ray: Because the judge just told me if I didn't sign I was going to jail.

Goliday: The judge told you that—

Ray: I mean, not the judge. I'm getting it wrong.

Goliday: Okay.

Ray: It was the child support worker.

¶ 9. Ray also testified on direct examination to his attorney, Howard Davis, that on the day that he signed the stipulated agreement of support and admission of paternity, he told DHS workers that he did not believe that he was L.J.'s father. Ray testified as follows:

Davis: Did you make any comments to [DHS] while [Murphy] was sitting there about being the father of the child?

Ray: Yes, sir. I said I don't [sic] think I was the father of that child.

Davis: Was [Murphy] there at the time?

Ray: Yes, sir.

Davis: But at [DHS] you told them you didn't think you were the father?

Ray: Yes, sir.

Davis: And what, if anything, did they tell you at that point?

Ray: They told me she saying [sic] you [sic] the father, so we're gonna have to take her word on it, you know. They also asked me had I slept with her. I told them yeah, and I told them I had used protection at the time.

Davis: Okay. Did they tell you anything else?

Ray: No, no more than if I didn't sign those papers they was [sic] going to have the sheriff to pick [sic] me up.

Davis: If you didn't sign those papers, what were they going to have the sheriff pick you up for?

Ray: For child support.

Davis: Is that why you signed the papers?

Ray: Yes, sir.

Davis: Did you believe at the time that you were the father of the child?

Ray: No, sir.

¶ 10. On cross-examination by Byron Hughes, the attorney representing DHS in the matter, Ray testified to the following:

Hughes: Any day out of those nineteen years you could have walked in that child support office and say [sic] I want a paternity test. Why didn't you do it?

Ray: I did.

Hughes: You did?

Ray: Yes, sir.

Hughes: When did you do it?

Ray: I did it to them. They told me I had to get an attorney, so—

Hughes: That's true.

Ray: —that's what I did. I just got it.

Hughes: In 2005. But this was done in 1986. What took you so long?

Ray: Well, I told you like I said I wasn't gonna take a chance of spending no [sic] money and not really knowing whether this was my child or not.

Hughes: But you spent money for nineteen years.

Ray: Well, I didn't really know nothing [sic] about legal action for [sic] as how much it was going to cost. I thought it was going to cost a lot of money for a lawyer, so I didn't risk that chance of—

Hughes: So, you voluntarily paid your child support every month for that period of time?

Ray: Yes, sir.

¶ 11. Moreover, on redirect with his attorney, Davis, Ray testified again that he did not believe L.J. was his son when he signed the paternity agreement. The transcript reveals the following exchange:

Davis: [Hughes] asked you if you believed all those years that L.J. was yours and I—did you really believe all those years that he was yours?

Ray: No, sir ...

Davis: Okay. And he asked you why you didn't have—go hire an attorney. Did you have any money to hire an attorney back in 1986?

Ray: No, sir.

¶ 12. On recross-examination with Murphy's attorney, Goliday, Ray stated once again that he did not believe L.J. was his child when he was presented with the paternity agreement at DHS. Ray testified as follows:

Goliday: For that fifteen-year period [before 2000], you never questioned paternity?

Ray: No more than when I went in the first time.

Goliday: Okay. So let's talk about that. When you went in the first time, you said that you didn't believe that it was your child, is that correct?

Ray: Correct.

¶ 13. However, within a few moments of the above testimony, Ray testified that he did not doubt that L.J. was his child. The exchange was as follows:

Goliday: [S]o your testimony is you don't know if [the condom] broke or not? Is that correct?

Ray: That's correct.

Goliday: And so that would mean you always thought that was...