Meredith v. Meredith
| Decision Date | 05 March 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. 750627,750627 |
| Citation | 222 S.E.2d 511,216 Va. 636 |
| Parties | Clarence F. MEREDITH v. Carmen G. MEREDITH (now Carmen G. Myer). Record |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
Paul M. Lipkin, Norfolk (Samuel Goldblatt, Goldblatt, Lipkin, Cohen, Anderson & Jenkins, Norfolk, on brief), for appellant.
No appearance for appellee.
Before I'ANSON, C.J., and CARRICO, HARRISON, COCHRAN, HARMAN, POFF and COMPTON, JJ.
In this appeal, we again determine the effect of the statute lowering the age of majority on a court order for child support.
By decree entered March 13, 1970, the trial court granted Carmen G. Meredith (now Carmen G. Myer), the appellee, a divorce A vinculo matrimonii from the appellant, Clarence F. Meredith, on the ground of desertion. The decree awarded custody of Jose Meredith, infant son of the parties, to the mother, and ordered the father to pay for the 'support, maintenance and education' of the child the sum of $100.00 each month, 'to be changed only by further order' of the court. The decree also provided that a Stipulation and Agreement of the parties, dated January 2, 1970, 'shall remain in full force and effect and become a part of this Decree'.
The Stipulation and Agreement required the husband to support the child 'until such child shall reach his majority . . ..' Code § 1--13.42, effective July 1, 1972 , changed the age of majority from 21 to 18. The father petitioned the trial court for termination of child support payments as of January 19, 1975, when the child would become 18 years of age. Meredith appealed the decree entered February 6, 1975, which denied his petition on the ground that under the Stipulation and Agreement the child was vested with the legal right to be supported by his father until he attains the age of 21, marries, dies or otherwise becomes emancipated.
By petition subsequently filed with us Meredith represented that he was then serving in the United States Navy at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and could not post the required supersedeas bond, but that he was making his child support payments and would continue to do so until his appeal was decided, and thereafter if it was decided unfavorably to him. We thereupon vacated the supersedeas previously ordered and permitted the appeal to be perfected without a supersedeas bond.
We have recently considered, in two cases, the effect of Code § 1--13.42 on court orders for child support. In Paul v. Paul, 214 Va. 651, 203 S.E.2d 123 (1974), an agreement between the parties provided that the father would make child support payments until the children became 21, married, entered the armed services, or became employed full-time or 'otherwise emancipated'. By final divorce decree entered in 1971 the trial court affirmed and ratified the agreement and ordered the parties to comply with its terms. We held that the parties intended the support payments to continue until the children attained the age of 21, that the children were not, therefore, 'otherwise emancipated' by the 1972 statute lowering the age of majority, and that the intent of the parties would be upheld. 1
In Eaton v. Eaton, 215 Va. 824, 213 S.E.2d 789 (1975), there was a 1971 agreement providing for support until the child became 21, but the agreement, although filed with the papers in the cause, was not ratified or affirmed by the trial court, and was supplanted by subsequent court orders reducing support payments. After the effective date of the 1972 legislation the court merely ordered reduced support for the child to be paid 'until the further order of (the) Court'. We held that it was unnecessary to construe the supplanted agreement, which was only incidentally involved; that the trial court's jurisdiction over the child was eliminated when the child attained his majority at 18 years of age; that the father's liability for support payments under the court order terminated, without further action by the court, when the child reached the age of 18 in 19...
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Hurdle v. Prinz, s. 760569 and 761095
...status susceptible to change by the legislature. Mack v. Mack, 217 Va. 534, 537, 229 S.E.2d 895, 897 (1976); Meredith v. Meredith, 216 Va. 636, 638, 222 S.E.2d 511, 512 (1976). Thus, the plaintiffs' status properly had been changed by the enactment of § 1-13.42. Therefore, since these plain......
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Katz v. Katz
...S.E.2d at 792. Because the divorce court had no jurisdiction, it could not make further provision for the child. In Meredith v. Meredith, 216 Va. 636, 222 S.E.2d 511 (1976), the Virginia Court addressed the question of the effect of the new legislation on a divorce decree pre-dating the leg......
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Gazale v. Gazale, 770493
...were "supplanted by subsequent court orders in the divorce suit dealing specifically with that subject." Id. In Meredith v. Meredith, 216 Va. 636, 222 S.E.2d 511 (1976), the 1970 divorce decree incorporated a contract requiring the father to support the child "until such child shall reach h......
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Mack v. Mack, 751335
...again consider the effect of the 1972 statute lowering the age of majority on a court order for child support. See Meredith v. Meredith, 216 Va. 636, 222 S.E.2d 511 (1976); Eaton v. Eaton, 215 Va. 824, 213 S.E.2d 789 (1975); Paul v. Paul, 214 Va. 651, 203 S.E.2d 123 The January 1961 final d......