Hoyle v. Wilson

• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: DROWOTA; HARBISON; DROWOTA; HARBISON
• Citation: Hoyle v. Wilson, 746 S.W.2d 665, 56 USLW 2483 (Tenn. 1988)
• Decision Date: 19 January 1988
• Parties: Linda K. Wilson HOYLE, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Roy Rogers WILSON, Respondent-Appellant.

Page 665

746 S.W.2d 665

56 USLW 2483

Linda K. Wilson HOYLE, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Roy Rogers WILSON, Respondent-Appellant.

Supreme Court of Tennessee at Nashville.

Jan. 19, 1988.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 22, 1988.

Mike W. Binkley, Nashville, for respondent-appellant.

W.J. Michael Cody, Atty. Gen. and Reporter, Robert Conley, Asst. Atty. Gen., Kathryn G. Griffin, Asst. Dist. Atty. Gen., Nashville, for petitioner-appellee.

OPINION

DROWOTA, Justice.

An issue of first impression in Tennessee is presented by this case. Application for Permission to Appeal was granted by this Court to resolve important questions of law and policy. Petitioner, Linda K. Wilson Hoyle, brought this action under the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act (URESA), T.C.A. Secs. 36-5-201, et seq., against Respondent, Roy R. Wilson. The issue concerns the scope of jurisdiction available to a trial court in URESA proceedings when that court retains continuing jurisdiction over the underlying support obligation upon which the URESA action is premised.

I.

Petitioner and Respondent were married on August 5, 1966. During their marriage, the parties had two children, both boys; the older was born on June 8, 1967, and the younger on August 3, 1973. On December 5, 1978, the parties were divorced in the Circuit Court of Davidson County, Tennessee. The Respondent was ordered to pay child support in the amount of $60 per week until the children reached majority. Visitation rights were also afforded Respondent. Regardless, in 1981, without informing Respondent, Petitioner moved to Virginia with the parties' two sons. During the period from 1978 to 1982, Respondent had numerous difficulties exercising his visitation rights and was forced to resort to filing several petitions in the Davidson County Court to enforce these rights; the last such petition was in May, 1982, after which the trial court ordered that Petitioner permit his two sons to visit with Respondent from July 10 to August 28, 1982. This order was entered on July 9, 1982. Respondent sent Petitioner the money to cover air fare from Norfolk, Virginia, to Nashville, Tennessee, ¹ and on the day the children were to arrive, he went to the airport to meet them; they did not, however, arrive on the scheduled flight. He then tried to contact Petitioner in Virginia but had no success. Subsequently, he lost all contact with Petitioner and his two children. In July, 1982, he ceased making support payments and at that time, as a result of an agreement with Petitioner, he owed a small arrearage of $240.

Two years later, in July, 1984, an Oklahoma District Attorney contacted Respondent regarding recommencing support payments. In August, 1984, he immediately began paying support and has continued to do so since that time. Between July, 1982, and July, 1984, however, an arrearage of $6,540 had accrued in addition to the $240 previously due and outstanding. He learned for the first time in two years where his ex-wife and their two children were when he was contacted by this Oklahoma District Attorney. On April 16, 1985, Petitioner filed an initiating URESA Petition in the District Court of Payne County, Oklahoma, to enforce payment of the arrearage--almost three years after she had disappeared. The Petition recited the respective dates of the parties' marriage and divorce and stated that Petitioner lived in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The Petition was received and filed in the Circuit Court of Davidson County on April 22, 1985. An Order to Appear and Show Cause was entered on April 24, 1985.

On June 14, 1985, Respondent filed an Answer and Counter-Petition, asserting certain affirmative defenses and petitioning for a reduction in the amount of support because the oldest child had reached majority on June 8, 1985. The Answer admitted many of the allegations of the Petition but raised equitable defenses based on the denial of his visitation rights, Petitioner's failure to comply with Court orders, and Respondent's loss of contact with Petitioner and their children. Respondent alleged that Petitioner was estopped by her contempt and by laches from enforcing Respondent's support obligation. A prayer for a reduction in the amount of support and for general relief was made by Respondent. By the Davidson County District Attorney's Office, Petitioner filed her Answer to the Counter-Petition on June 28, 1985.

A hearing was held in the Circuit Court of Davidson County on October 3, 1985. Petitioner was represented by the Davidson County District Attorney's Office. The only person to testify was Respondent. He was 38 years old at the time of the hearing and had remarried since his divorce from Petitioner. Both he and his present wife are employed and they have one child by this marriage. Respondent recounted the difficulties he had experienced with Petitioner concerning visitation and his loss of contact with her between July, 1982, and July, 1984. He testified that the reason he had discontinued making support payments was that he had lost all contact with Petitioner and his children. As soon as he discovered where they were, he resumed making payments. He now sends the support payments through the Oklahoma Department of Human Services. He last saw his two sons at Christmas in 1981. Although he contacted Petitioner's parents to find out where she was, they would not help him locate her. Following her disappearance in July, 1982, Petitioner never contacted him and he was never informed that she had moved from Virginia to Oklahoma.

On October 17, 1985, the trial court entered its Order, requiring Respondent to pay the $240 arrearage but forgiving the arrearage of $6,540 that accumulated during the period from July, 1982, through July, 1984. The trial court refused to enforce this arrearage "based upon the Petitioner's willful violation and willful contempt of the Davidson County Court Order entered in the Fifth Circuit Court ... on the 9th day of July, 1982 ... wherein the Respondent was to have child visitation privileges with the parties' minor children from July 10, 1982 through August 28, 1982...." The trial court also reduced the amount of support from $60 to $50 per week because the oldest child had reached majority. Following denial of a Motion to Alter or Amend the Judgment, Petitioner filed her Notice of Appeal.

The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court's Order and remanded for entry of a judgment for the arrearage. The Middle Section held that the trial court had no jurisdiction in a URESA proceeding to forgive a support arrearage on the basis of the Petitioner's contempt of a visitation order. Moreover, the Court of Appeals ruled that, assuming the trial court had jurisdiction, forgiveness of arrearages in child support payments was contrary to Tennessee law. Respondent has appealed to this Court from this decision; we now reverse the Court of Appeals and reinstate the judgment of the trial court.

II.

The purpose served by URESA is to facilitate enforcement and collection of child support obligations when the mother and father live in different States; however, the existence of the obligation of support is presumed by URESA. See generally T.C.A. Sec. 36-5-201; State ex rel. Department of Social Services v. Wright, 736 S.W.2d 84 (Tenn.1987); State v. Perry, 198 Tenn. 389, 280 S.W.2d 919 (1955). The duty to support is not and cannot be established through a URESA action. At some point prior to the initiation of a URESA action, some State must render an order establishing a duty to support. The State originally entering a support order is known as the rendering State. T.C.A. Sec. 36-5-202(11). The State in which a subsequent URESA petition is filed is the initiating State. T.C.A. Sec. 36-5-202(5). That petition is then certified and transmitted from the court in the initiating State to a court of competent jurisdiction in the State in which the party against whom the obligation to support is sought to be enforced resides, T.C.A. Sec. 36-5-213; this State is the responding State. T.C.A. Sec. 36-5-202(12). In this case, Oklahoma is the initiating State and Tennessee is both the rendering and responding State.

Generally, under URESA, the sole issue for determination is enforcement of the support obligation previously established by an order of a court in a rendering State and no other issues can be raised by the respondent to a URESA petition in the court of the responding State. T.C.A. Sec. 36-5-227 states that "[p]articipation in any proceedings under this part shall not confer upon any court jurisdiction of any of the parties thereto in any other proceeding." The primary focus of URESA is to enforce child support obligations and not to decide collateral issues such as those concerning the allocation of custody or enforcement of visitation rights. See, e.g., State on Behalf of Ridge v. Ridge, 483 So.2d 766, 766-767 (Fla.App.1986). The duty of the initiating State is not to determine the extent of the obligation to support but rather merely to determine whether sufficient grounds exist to permit the responding State to determine under its own law the extent of the support obligation. "URESA creates no duty to support; that statute simply provides a means of enforcing a duty of support as that duty may exist under the law of the responding state." Ray v. Pentlicki, 375 So.2d 875, 877 (Fla.App.1979). See also T.C.A. Sec. 36-5-220(a); State v. Perry, supra, 198 Tenn. at 391-393, 280 S.W.2d at 921. As T.C.A. Sec. 36-5-203 states, "[t]he remedies provided in this part are in addition to and not in substitution for any other remedies." URESA is simply a streamlined enforcement mechanism.

A.

The remedial purpose served by URESA has been impaired to some extent over the years by the utilization of the statutory procedure by a custodial parent to enforce support obligations against a stationary noncustodial parent when the custodial parent purposefully fled the jurisdiction of a State to prevent...