King v. King, WD

• Decision Date: 15 September 1998
• Docket Number: No. WD,WD
• Citation: 976 S.W.2d 49
• Parties: Mikayla KING, Respondent, v. Mark KING, Appellant. 54645.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 49

976 S.W.2d 49

Mikayla KING, Respondent, v. Mark KING, Appellant.

No. WD 54645.

Missouri Court of Appeals Western District.

Sept. 15, 1998.

David R. Browning, Independence, for appellant.

J. Michael Murphy, Liberty, for respondent.

Before HANNA, P.J., and LAURA DENVIR STITH and EDWIN H. SMITH, JJ.

LAURA DENVIR STITH, Judge.

Appellant Mark King appeals from the trial court's judgment entered April 29, 1997 finding an arrearage of unpaid child support in the amount of $68.60 due to the Respondent, Mikayla King Kieffer. Mr. King claims the trial court's finding of an arrearage of $68.60 was against the weight of the evidence and that the trial court failed to give him credit for all payments which the records of the Missouri Division of Child Support Enforcement (the Division) show he made. Finally, he asserts that the trial court erred in ordering the $68.60 be paid to Ms. Kieffer because all amounts due had been assigned to the Division, and it was the only proper party to sue for these amounts. Finding no error either in the trial court's determination that Mr. King owes $68.60, or in its determination that Ms. Kieffer had a standing to sue, we affirm.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

During the time that Mark and Mikayla King Kieffer were married, she received Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC payments) from the state to pay for necessaries for her children. When she received such benefits, and periodically thereafter, she signed documents assigning to the State any rights she might have to receive child support payments from her husband. The State obtained a judgment against Mr. King in 1981 for reimbursement of $943.00 in AFDC payments previously made by it to his spouse. The Clinton County Circuit Clerk was to collect this sum as trustee and send it to the State.

Mr. King's family continued to obtain AFDC in 1982 and 1983, and in 1983 the State again sued Mr. King for reimbursement of these AFDC payments. On May 11, 1983, the Circuit Court of Clinton County entered a consent decree in which the State agreed that Mr. King would pay it an additional $1,300.00 in reimbursement for AFDC paid to his family since the time of the 1981 judgment. Mr. King also agreed to pay his spouse $135.00 per month in support for the children in the future. Four months later, however, in August 1983, his spouse filed for dissolution of their marriage in Platte County, Missouri.

In October 1983, the Circuit Court of Platte County dissolved the Kings' marriage. At that point, the circuit courts of both Clinton and Platte Counties recognized that the portion of the May 1983 Clinton County consent decree requiring Mr. King to pay $135.00 per month in child support was supplanted by the child support provisions of the October 1983 Platte County dissolution decree. Mr. King's child support obligation in the Clinton County case was thus fixed as of the date of the Platte County dissolution decree in October 1983. At that point, the Clinton County Circuit Court had ordered Mr. King to pay a total of $2,918.00 ($943.00 under the 1981 judgment plus $1,300 under the May 1983 consent decree plus five months of child support at $135.00 per month for May, June, July, August and September 1983). He had paid only $727.55 on these amounts, leaving a balance due in the Clinton County case of $2,190.45.

The Platte County dissolution decree, entered in October 1983, provided that Ms. (King) Kieffer would receive custody of the children and ordered Mr. King to pay $325.00 per month in child support. The Platte County Clerk was appointed as trustee for the collection and distribution of child support payments. Ms. Kieffer continued to receive AFDC payments until February 1985, and continued to assign her right to child support from Mr. King to the State in return for these AFDC payments. As Mr. King made child support payments through the Platte County Clerk, the Clerk turned them over to the State in reimbursement for its AFDC payments.

Mr. King was unemployed in 1984, and fell far behind in his payments due under the October 1983 Platte County dissolution decree. In January 1985, the Platte County court thus reduced the amount of child support he was required to pay to $205.00 per month, retroactive to November 1984. This meant that between October 1983 and January 1985 he should have paid $4,840.00 in child support under the Platte County dissolution decree (13 months at $325.00 per month plus 3 months at $205.00 per month). He had, in fact, paid only $83.00 to the Circuit Clerk of Platte County, but had also paid $496.00 to the Circuit Clerk of Clinton County, and $470.00 directly to Ms. Kieffer, for a total of payments of $1,049.00. The Platte County court gave Mr. King credit for these payments to Clinton County and direct to his former spouse. This still left a substantial arrearage, however.

On January 25, 1985, the Circuit Court of Platte County therefore entered a Judgment ordering the Platte County Clerk to correct the child support records of the court to reflect that as of January 15, 1985, Mr. King owed an arrearage of $3,791.00. The court further ordered Mr. King to pay support in the amount of $205.00 per month beginning on February 15, 1985, and each month thereafter.

Mr. King made numerous payments through the Platte County Clerk pursuant to the January 1985 decree. He also continued to make payments through the Clinton County Clerk until sometime in 1988. Mr. King also made some direct payments to Ms. Kieffer during this period. Ms. Kieffer did not receive AFDC benefits from February 1985 through March 1988, but she did again begin to receive AFDC benefits beginning in April 1988, and ending on May 31, 1990.

In June 1990, Mr. King received temporary custody of the children, and on December 13, 1990, the Platte County Circuit Court entered an order changing custody of the minor children to Mr. King, and the court thereafter terminated Mr. King's current obligation to pay child support. He has continued to have custody of the children and no additional support obligation has accrued since May 1990. This did not terminate his obligation to pay past due child support to Ms. Kieffer, or his obligation to reimburse the State for AFDC payments made prior to 1985 and from April 1988 through May 1990, however, since Ms. Kieffer had assigned her right to child support to the state to the extent of her AFDC benefits.

Mr. King remained behind in his payment of his child support arrearage, and Ms. Kieffer eventually filed a garnishment against Mr. King. In response, Mr. King filed a motion to determine arrearage on December 2, 1996. The Platte County Circuit Court held a hearing on April 17, 1997, to determine how much, if any, money was still due from Mr. King. The evidence consisted of the decrees and payment records of the circuit courts of Clinton and Platte Counties. The Court also heard the testimony of David Dean, a Child Support Enforcement Investigator for the Missouri Division of Child Support Enforcement (the Division), and considered the records of the Division.

The records of Platte County and of the Division agreed that, pursuant to the Platte County court's January 1985 order, as of that date Mr. King owed an arrearage of $3,791.00. The records also agree that the total amount of support accruing between January 15, 1985 and May 31, 1990, was $13,120.00, which, when added to the arrearage, comes to a total of $16,911.00 owing from Mr. King under the Platte County dissolution decree.

The records of Platte County and the Division do not agree as to how much Mr. King has paid on this amount, and as to whether it incorporates the amounts due under the Clinton County judgments, however. The Division's records, as testified to by Mr. Dean, and as modified at the time of the hearing to show certain payments of which the Division was not previously aware, showed that Mr. King had paid a total of $19,088.85 either directly to his former spouse, to the Circuit Court of Platte County, or to the Circuit Court of Clinton County, since January 1985. If Mr. King was entitled to credit for all of these payments, this would mean that Mr. King had overpaid his child support obligation in the amount of $2,177.85. Mr. King says that this is the correct figure and is the one the court below should have adopted.

The court below did not accept Mr. Dean's figure, however. Instead, the court below determined that Mr. King had paid a total of only $16,842.40. It reached this figure by adding together the amounts Mr. King paid to his former spouse directly, the amounts which he paid through Platte County and the tax intercepts which were not reflected in the Platte County records but which the Division and the Clinton County records unequivocally show had been paid. (Apparently, these intercepts were, for unknown reasons, intercepted by the State and notice of them forwarded to Clinton County rather than to Platte County). The court did not consider any other Clinton County payments which had been made after January 1985 in determining the amount due under the Platte County decree. When the $16,842.40 paid into Platte County or intercepted by the State is subtracted from the total $16,911.00 which Mr. King should have paid under the Platte County decree before he took custody of the children in 1990, it leaves a total of $68.60 still owing in child support accrued prior to the change of custody. The court below thus found that "as of the date of the hearing in this cause that the respondent [Mr. King] owes $68.60 in unpaid child support to the petitioner [Mikayla King Kieffer]."

Mr. King appeals the judgment. Mr. King argues that the court erred in finding that he still owed $68.60 to Ms. Kieffer, for numerous reasons. First, Mr. King argues, we should be bound by the State's figures and that it was improper for the trial court to accept Platte County's figures and hold that $68.60 were due when the...