Hill v. Hill, 12776

• Decision Date: 22 July 1969
• Docket Number: No. 12776,12776
• Citation: 153 W.Va. 392,168 S.E.2d 803
• Parties: Suzanne S. HILL v. Ernest Blaine HILL.
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court

Page 803

168 S.E.2d 803

153 W.Va. 392

Suzanne S. HILL v. Ernest Blaine HILL.

No. 12776.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted May 6, 1969.

Decided July 22, 1969.

Syllabus by the Court

1. An order for child support rendered in a foreign state pursuant to a final divorce decree obtained in a court of that state possesses the requisite finality to be entitled to full faith and credit in the proper court of this state and is entitled to be enforced as a foreign judgment, even though a statute of the state where the divorce was granted provides that said order may be altered, repealed, suspended, increased or amended and the amount of any arrearages may be reduced or remitted as the case may warrant.

2. The case of Henry v. Henry, 74 W.Va. 563 (82 S.E. 522, L.R.A.1916B, 1024), distinguished.

3. General jurisdiction over all matters at law, where the amount exceeds fifty dollars, being conferred upon the circuit court by Article VIII, Section 12 of the Constitution of West Virginia, such court has jurisdiction to hear and determine an action to recover arrearages payable under a foreign judgment providing for support.

Paul E. Parker, Jr., Fairmont, for appellant.

A. Blake Billingslea, Fairmont, for appellee.

CAPLAN, Judge:

The plaintiff, Suzanne S. Hill, instituted an action against the defendant, Ernest Blaine Hill, in the Circuit Court of Marion County seeking to recover certain support moneys alleged by her to be in arrears. From an adverse judgment the plaintiff prosecutes this appeal.

The parties to this action, formerly husband and wife, were residents of Washington County, Pennsylvania, where, on July 7, 1955, in the Court of Common Pleas, the plaintiff obtained a divorce from the defendant. Three children were born of this marriage, the custody of whom was awarded to the plaintiff. Thereafter, in a proceeding in the Court of Quarter Sessions of Washington County, Pennsylvania, Ernest Blaine Hill was ordered to pay Suzanne support money for the maintenance of the children. Many orders appear in the record which show that the court on various occasions increased or decreased the amount of monthly payment required of the defendant. Such orders also show that the court issued bench warrants upon the defendant's failure to pay, conducted contempt proceedings, required payment of accrued arrearages and at different times cancelled such arrearages.

The last order entered by the Court of Quarter Sessions was dated October 30, 1964, and directed the defendant to pay $250.00 per month, beginning in November, for the maintenance of the three children, plus $50.00 per month to be applied to the arrearages. In her complaint Suzanne alleges that Ernest has failed to comply with the orders of the court requiring the payment of monthly sums and is in arrears in such payments in the sum of $5,297.00. It is for this amount, consisting of arrearages only, that she instituted this action in the Circuit Court of Marion County.

Prior to the institution of such action and upon the further failure of Ernest to pay Suzanne, the judge of the Quarter Sessions Court, under the Uniform Support Law of Pennsylvania, directed that the proceedings be transmitted to the 16th Judicial Court in Marion County at Fairmont, West Virginia 'for filing and procedure there against the defendant Ernest B. Hill.' The matter was so transmitted on May 4, 1965.

Upon receipt of the proper complaint, the Criminal Court of Marion County, West Virginia, acting as the responding state under our Reciprocal Dependency Law (Code, 1931, 48--9, as amended), entered an order of support. It was recited in that order that Ernest B. Hill had submitted to the jurisdiction of said court; that he agreed to the entry of an order requiring him to pay $225.00 per month for the support of his minor children; and that such payments would be made to the Clerk of the Criminal Court of Marion County, who would transmit them to the Clerk of the Quarter Sessions Court of Washington County, Pennsylvania. These payments were to be made in semi-monthly installments of $112.50 each, said installments to be paid on the 1st and 15th day of each succeeding calendar month thereafter until further order of the court.

In the instant case, pursuant to an order of the circuit court entered on September 18, 1966, this matter was referred to a commissioner who was directed to take testimony for the purpose of determining the total amount, if any, due from the defendant to the plaintiff. The commissioner's report was filed with the court on March 22, 1967, showing that the defendant owed the plaintiff, as arrearages in payments of support money, the sum of $2,145.50. Contending that she is entitled to said sum of $2,145.50 as a matter of law and that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact, the plaintiff filed a motion for summary judgment.

The defendant likewise filed a motion for summary judgment and moved the court to dismiss the action. These motions were based primarily on a Pennsylvania statute which provides that any order entered for support of a wife, child or parent may be altered, repealed, suspended, increased or amended and that the court may, at any time, remit, correct or reduce the amount of any arrearages, as the case may warrant. The defendant asserted that the Pennsylvania support orders were not final orders and were therefore not enforceable in this state.

The circuit court dismissed the plaintiff's action, holding that the order of the Court of Quarter Sessions of Washington County, Pennsylvania, by reason of the above statute, did not possess the requisite finality to be entitled to full faith and credit under the Constitution of the United States and thus be entitled to be enforced as a foreign judgment in West Virginia. Furthermore, said the court, it is prohibited from entertaining jurisdiction in this matter by the opinion in Henry v. Henry, 74 W.Va. 563, 82 S.E. 522, L.R.A.1916B, 1024; nor, it held, does it have jurisdiction to render a judgment based on arrearages accrued under the order of a Pennsylvania court.

The plaintiff here says that the trial court erred in dismissing her action and in support thereof assigns as error the court's action 'in concluding as a matter of law that the order of the Court of Quarter Sessions of Washington County, Pennsylvania does not possess the requisite finality to be entitled to full faith and credit under the Constitution of the United States and thus be entitled to be enforced as (a) foreign Judgment in West Virginia, and * * * in concluding as a matter of law that the Court is prohibited from entertaining jurisdiction in this matter by the opinion of Henry v. Henry, 74 W.Va. 563, 82 S.E. 522, L.R.A.1916B, 1024, and * * * in concluding as a matter of law that the Court does not have jurisdiction to render a judgment in favor of the plaintiff against the defendant based upon arrearages accrued under the order of the Court of Quarter Sessions of Washington County, Pennsylvania * * *.' Other assignments of error are noted but the ones above quoted set out the issues involved.

The question for decision on this appeal is whether the trial court, in an action instituted to recover arrearages accrued under a Pennsylvania judgment for child support, was right in denying full faith and credit to such judgment on the ground that it lacks finality by reason of a statute of that state which permits a child support order to be altered, repealed, suspended, increased, reduced or remitted at any time, as the occasion may warrant.

Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States provides: 'Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and Judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.' Pursuant to said constitutional provision, Congress enacted a law, designated in United States Code Annotated as Title 28, Section 1738, setting out the manner by which records and judicial proceedings shall be authenticated so as to be admissible in courts of other states and which, in part, reads: 'Such Acts, records and judicial proceedings or copies thereof, so authenticated, shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the United States and its Territories and Possessions as they have by law or usage in the courts of such State, Territory or Possession from which they are taken.'

The Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution was adopted by the Framers in their endeavor to truly 'form a more perfect Union.' They obviously deemed it wise to perserve the autonomous nature of states to the extent that litigation therein be afforded the character of finality. Otherwise, one may be subjected to repetitive litigation in one state after another. With this result, however, it was considered essential that the judicial proceedings of each state be afforded full force and effect in her sister states, lest one be permitted to escape the operation of a judicial decree by merely absconding to another state. This permissive escape would be condoned under the decision of the trial court in the instant case.

A final judgment awarding Suzanne a divorce from Ernest was entered by the Pennsylvania court in 1955. When that judgment was entered the court had jurisdiction of the subject matter and personal jurisdiction of Ernest, the defendant. Likewise, the Court of Quarter Sessions in Pennsylvania had jurisdiction of the defendant when he was ordered to pay for the support of his three children. The defendant has made no showing that the validity of the Pennsylvania judgments could be successfully attacked; nor has he appealed such judgments. Certainly the Pennsylvania divorce order is a final judgment which must, under the above quoted constitutional provision, be recognized and is enforceable in all of the...