In re Garrett, 03-60327.

• Decision Date: 30 September 2004
• Docket Number: No. 03-60327.,03-60327.
• Citation: 315 B.R. 431
• Parties: In re William M. "Mike" GARRETT, Debtor.
• Court: U.S. Bankruptcy Court — Eastern District of Texas

315 B.R. 431

In re William M. "Mike" GARRETT, Debtor.

No. 03-60327.

United States Bankruptcy Court, E.D. Texas, Tyler Division.

September 30, 2004.

Jim Echols, Saunders, Schmidt, Echols, Ring & Heck, P.C., Tyler, TX, for Debtor, William M. "Mike" Garrett.

Dee Dinnie, Deputy Department Counsel, Santa Ana, California, for Claimant, Orange County Dept. of Child Support Services.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

BILL G. PARKER, Chief Judge.

This matter is before the Court upon hearing of the objection filed by the Debtor, William Michael (Mike) Garrett (the "Debtor") to the proof of claim filed by the Department of Child Support Services, County of Orange, California (the "Claimant") in the above-referenced case and the hearing to consider confirmation of the Debtor's proposed Chapter 13 plan. The referenced priority claim is for an allegedly unpaid child support arrearage arising from the Debtor's divorce in California in 1981. The Debtor asserts that such child support obligation has been paid in full and his proposed Chapter 13 plan fails to provide for such a priority claim.¹ At the conclusion of the hearing, the Court took both matters under advisement. This memorandum of decision disposes of all issues pending before the Court.²

Factual and Procedural Background

In 1981, the Debtor was divorced from Linda Lee Garrett in Los Angeles County, California. A portion of the divorce decree imposed a child support obligation upon the Debtor in favor of his two minor children in the amount of $400.00 per month, commencing on October 16, 1981 and "continuing until said children reach the age of majority, die, marry, become emancipated or upon the further order of the court."³ After the divorce was finalized, the Debtor moved to Smith County, Texas.

In 1996, the Office of the Texas Attorney General was procured by the State of California to initiate a child support enforcement action against the Debtor on behalf of Linda Lee Garrett in the 321st Judicial District Court of Smith County, Texas. On August 28, 1996, the Texas state court entered an "Order Enforcing Child Support Obligation (UIFSA)" which contained the following provision:

The Court FINDS and confirms that WILLIAM MICHAEL GARRETT is in arrears in the amount of $15,530.00 as of August 16, 1996. This includes all unpaid child support and any balance owed on previously confirmed arrearages or retroactive support judgments as of the specified date, but does not include any application of any child support paid on that date. The judgment for this amount is a cumulative judgment.

The Court GRANTS JUDGMENT against WILLIAM MICHAEL GARETT and in favor of the Attorney General in the amount of $15,530.00, with interest at the rate of 12% per annum, for collection and distribution according to law.⁴

The judgment further provided that the Debtor would address that arrearage by paying $100.00 per month until the arrearage was paid or his child support obligation ended and, if the judgment had not been paid in full by the date that his regular child support obligation ceased, he would pay $300.00 per month from the termination date until the judgment was paid in full. A wage garnishment order was also implemented to fulfill the obligations imposed upon the Debtor by the judgment.⁵

Yet the August 1996 judgment rendered in Texas was erroneous because it failed to recognize and incorporate the interest which had accrued on the California judgment to that date under California law.⁶ While the Texas judgment found arrearages totaling $15,530.00, the actual sum, including accrued interest, was $30,318.40. No appeal was taken by any party from the Texas judgment.

On February 27, 2002, the Debtor completed payment of all sums through the Office of the Texas Attorney General which were due under the August 1996 judgment. This fact has been verified by statement and by ledger.⁷ The completion of payments through the Attorney General's office is the basis of the Debtor's objection to the claim currently before the Court. He asserts that there is no remaining child support indebtedness which must be addressed in this Chapter 13 case. Notwithstanding the verification of receipt of all payments under the Texas judgment, the Claimant asserts that the amounts remaining unpaid under the original California decree remain enforceable against the Debtor and that, therefore, the claim must be recognized in this proceeding.

Discussion

It is likely that no legal topic has generated more interstate cooperation and coordination than the collection of delinquent child support. The heightened priority given this issue has resulted in a series of uniform laws which have been adopted to varying degrees in virtually every American state during the past three decades and are identified by statutory acronyms which would make any federal regulator envious. The Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act ("URESA") has yielded to the Revised Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act ("RURESA"), which has now been supplanted in every state by the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act ("UIFSA").⁸ In addition, Congress enacted the Full Faith and Credit for Child Support Orders Act (the "FFCCSOA")⁹ in 1994 to eliminate any further jurisdictional skirmishes between states which had previously impeded the prompt enforcement of child support orders.

The evolution of these statutes reflects the growing mobility of the American population and a concerted, gradual effort by the Congress and state legislatures to thwart the ability of a party responsible for family support to evade the effectiveness of a support order by simply moving to a state other than that which issued the support decree. This effort began with the adoption of URESA which, for the first time, provided a mechanism through which the interstate enforcement of a support decree could be easily accomplished. It created the concept of the "initiating state" certifying the existence of a support decree to the "responding state" which currently has jurisdiction over the support obligor and his property. From the outset, URESA, and its eventual replacement, RURESA, contained an anti-supersession provision that appeared to protect the viability of the original support decree.¹⁰ However, conflicting decisions began to appear as to the application and impact of those provisions upon the power and ability of the "responding court" to modify the existing support obligation as a component of its enforcement effort. Most courts concluded that the responding court was entitled to enter a support order for an amount different from that in any previous order.¹¹ This anomaly resulted in a widespread recognition that, since URESA and RURESA were each designed solely as a supplemental means to enforce support orders and contained the anti-supersession clause, multiple orders of support with different obligation calculations might be outstanding and enforceable against an obligor, depending upon the jurisdiction which could be invoked against that obligor at any particular time. See, e.g., Sheres v. Engelman, 534 F.Supp. 286 (S.D.Tex.1982) recognizing the URESA jurisprudence that "both the original and modifying support orders are valid" and holding that, since a Bexar County, Texas court acting under URESA did not possess the power to modify the original child support decree from New York, that original New York decree could be enforced in federal court; State v. Whitehead, 735 S.W.2d 534, 536 (Tex.App.—Tyler 1987, no writ) finding that the trial court erred in determining that it had no jurisdiction to modify an Ohio support decree but recognizing that any modification order could not affect the validity of the original decree and that URESA "assumes that separate and independently valid orders of support may exist which provide for payments of different amounts"; Thompson v. Thompson, 366 N.W.2d 845, 848 (S.D.1985) endorsing a South Dakota court's modification of a Wyoming support order but recognizing that under RURESA "such an order does not modify the out-of-state support order and is prospective in effect only.". See generally, Jane H. Gorman, Note, Stemming the Modification of Child Support Orders by Responding Courts: A Proposal to Amend RURESA's Antisupersession Clause, 24 U. MICH. J.L. REFORM 405, 412-13 (1991). Thus, under both URESA and RURESA, a support obligor could fully satisfy the payment terms under a modified support order issued by a responding state court, yet find that he is still subject to judgment in another jurisdiction for arrearages calculated under the original support order. See, e.g., Jefferson County Child Support Enforcement Unit v. Hollands, 327 Ark. 456, 939 S.W.2d 302 (1997); Bobbs v. Cline, 116 Ohio App.3d 46, 686 N.E.2d 556 (1997); In re Marriage of Shepherd, 429 N.W.2d 145, 146 (Iowa 1988); Kammerman v. Hammerman, 543 A.2d 794, 795-96 (D.C. 1988).

There was widespread recognition of the difficulties created by the allowance of multiple, subsisting support orders under both URESA and RURESA. Thus, efforts to eliminate them led to the development and adoption of UIFSA.¹² Specifically, UIFSA establishes the concept of the "continuous, exclusive jurisdiction" of any "initiating tribunal." It seeks to protect the ongoing validity of any child support order from any interference or alteration by any other state's courts so long as one of the parties or the child resides in the initiating state. As one observer noted,

To redress the problems caused by URESA, UIFSA implements the "oneorder system." This means that only one state's order governs, at any given time, an obligor's support obligation to any child. Further, only one state has continuing jurisdiction to modify a child support order. This necessarily requires all other states to recognize that order and to refrain from modifying it unless the first state has lost jurisdiction.

Patricia W. Hatamyar, Interstate Establishment, Enforcement, and Modification of...