Ex parte Tamez

Decision Date20 December 1990
Docket NumberNo. 13-90-416-CV,13-90-416-CV
Citation801 S.W.2d 18
PartiesEx parte Reynaldo TAMEZ.
CourtTexas Court of Appeals

Charles Cromwell, Corpus Christi, for relator.

Michael Ryan, Corpus Christi, Jim Mattox, Mary F. Keller, Lou McCreary, Rhonda Amkraut, Asst. Atty. Gen., Child Support Enforcement, Austin, for the State.

Before KENNEDY, BENAVIDES and DORSEY, JJ.

OPINION

KENNEDY, Justice.

Relator filed a motion for leave to file a petition for writ of habeas corpus seeking relief from a contempt and commitment order in a child support matter. We granted relator leave to file his petition and ordered him released on bond pending resolution of the matter on its merits. He contends that the order committing him to jail for failing to pay child support is void. We deny the relief sought and order relator remanded to the custody of the sheriff.

Relator's first argument for relief is based upon his assertion that the order holding him in contempt did not comply with Tex.Fam.Code Ann. § 14.33(a) (Vernon 1990). This section states:

[I]f the order imposes incarceration or a fine, an enforcement order must contain findings setting out specifically and with particularity or incorporating by reference the provisions of the final order, decree, or judgment for which enforcement was sought and the time, date, and place of each occasion on which the respondent failed to comply with the provision and setting out the relief awarded to the court.

The trial court found that relator was ordered to pay by prior order of the court regular child support of $200.00 monthly. It further found that relator was $10,026.43 in arrears in making those payments. The trial court ordered judgment in that amount together with interest. The trial court also made contempt findings in the same order in which judgment was entered on the arrearages. The trial court found that relator had failed to pay child support on four specific occasions. The enforcement order specifically sets out the date the support was due, the amount due, the amount paid, and the time and place it was to be paid. The court found that on each of these occasions relator was able to make the ordered payments and that the failure to pay constituted contempt. The court ordered relator confined to the county jail for a period of 180 days on each count, to be served concurrently or until relator has paid the arrearage.

Relator contends that the enforcement order does not comply with § 14.33(a) because the court found more than $10,000.00 in arrearages, but found only four violations of its prior order totalling $800.00. Relator cites several cases for the proposition that the order holding him in contempt was void because the commitment order stated only arrearage amounts without specifying the dates of payment. These cases are each distinguishable from the case at hand. In Ex parte Greene, 788 S.W.2d 724, 726 (Tex.App.--Houston [14th Dist.] 1990, orig. proceeding), the court said that the commitment order failed to satisfy § 14.33(a) because it recited only the total arrearage under the prior divorce decree; see also Ex Parte Boykins, 764 S.W.2d 590, 592 (Tex.App.--Houston [14th Dist.] 1989, orig. proceeding) (order stated that the court found that relator $8,800.00 in arrears without language specified in the Family Code); Ex Parte Bahmani, 760 S.W.2d 769, 770 (Tex.App.--Houston [14th Dist.] 1988, orig. proceeding) (order merely found relator $1,000.00 in arrears); Ex Parte Sinclair, 746 S.W.2d 956, 958 (Tex.App.--Houston [14th Dist.] 1988, orig. proceeding) (relator held in contempt for willfully failing to pay child support and failing to comply with a subsequent order to pay arrearages, but the contempt order recited only total arrearages under the divorce decree). Recently, the Supreme Court held that an order finding a party in contempt and ordering him to jail for six months and further until he paid arrearages in the amount of $10,440, did not meet the specificity required by § 14.33(a). 1 Ex Parte Holland, 790 S.W.2d 568 (Tex.1990). In Holland, like all of the other cases cited by relator, the order held the party in contempt and recited the total arrearage without the specificity required by § 14.33(a). Id. The trial court, in Holland, held the obligor in contempt for the full amount of the arrearage. In the instant case, however, relator was held in contempt for four specific acts. He was not held in contempt for failing to pay the full amount of the arrearage. The trial court instead reduced the arrearage to judgment.

A request to enforce a child support order and reduce an arrearage to judgment may be joined in the same proceeding. Tex.Fam.Code Ann. § 14.313(b)(1), (2) (Vernon Supp.1991). A party seeking to enforce a child support...

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3 cases
  • Rivera v. Office of Atty. Gen.
    • United States
    • Court of Appeals of Texas
    • 11 de dezembro de 1997
    ...(Tex.App.--San Antonio 1996, no writ); Gross v. Gross, 808 S.W.2d 215, 218-19 (Tex.App.--Houston [14th Dist.] 1991, no writ); Ex parte Tamez, 801 S.W.2d 18, 19 (Tex.App.--Corpus Christi 1990, orig. proceeding.); TEX. FAM.CODE ANN. § 157.162 (Vernon Appellant takes the position that this is ......
  • Villanueva v. Office of the Atty. Gen.
    • United States
    • Court of Appeals of Texas
    • 11 de dezembro de 1996
    ..."sufficiently definite and certain." See Gross v. Gross, 808 S.W.2d 215, 218-19 (Tex.App.--Houston [14th Dist.] 1991, no writ); Ex Parte Tamez, 801 S.W.2d 18, 19 (Tex.App.--Corpus Christi 1990, orig. proceeding). In Gross, the appellant argued that a judgment that was too ambiguous and inde......
  • Ex parte Rogers
    • United States
    • Court of Appeals of Texas
    • 27 de novembro de 1991
    ...The legislature has instituted a strict scheme requiring the State to specify which exact payments it is suing for. See Ex parte Tamez, 801 S.W.2d 18, 19 (Tex.App.--Corpus Christi 1990, orig. proceeding). Because it is a contempt matter, we decline to circumvent that scheme on the facts pre......

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