Morris v. Cohen
| Decision Date | 02 December 1983 |
| Citation | 149 Cal.App.3d 507,196 Cal.Rptr. 834 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Doris Cohen MORRIS, etc., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. David G. COHEN, Defendant and Appellant. Civ. 22012. |
Duke & Gerstel, Bryan R. Gerstel, Carlos D. Molina and Karen J. Headley, San Diego, for defendant and appellant.
Edwin L. Miller, Jr., Dist. Atty., and Ralph J. Fear, Deputy Dist. Atty., for plaintiffs and respondents.
David G. Cohen (David) and Doris Cohen Morris (Doris) were Pennsylvania residents, married there in 1950. Two children were born. The parties separated in 1959, and on October 2 of that year, David was arrested in Pennsylvania and ordered to pay $50 per week for support of Doris and the children. David then posted a $1,000 bond with the court to insure his compliance with the support order and moved to California, where he has since resided. He made seven partial payments on the support order.
On September 30, 1959, Doris filed for divorce, which was finalized on December 7, 1960. No spousal or child support order was entered at that time. On November 4, 1961, Doris married Edwin Morris, who adopted the two children on November 29, 1962.
Fourteen years passed. Then, in 1976, Doris petitioned the Pennsylvania court to reduce arrearages due on the October 2, 1959, support order to a final judgment. David did not appear at the Pennsylvania hearing. The court entered judgment for $8,000 in Doris' favor. David did not appeal or move to vacate the judgment. Represented by the San Diego County District David moved to vacate the California judgment under section 1710.40. His attempt to raise a number of defenses to enforcement of the judgment was rebuffed by the trial court, finding the 1976 Pennsylvania judgment was entitled to full faith and credit under the United States Constitution and David's defenses to enforcement of the judgment should have been raised and litigated before the Pennsylvania court. The trial court then contradicted itself and addressed one of David's defenses, finding Doris' right to spousal support under the 1959 order terminated upon her divorce from David. The court reduced the award to $6,825, based on arbitrary apportionment of the $50 per week as $25 per week for Doris and $25 per week for the children.
Attorney, Family Support Division, Doris had the Pennsylvania judgment transferred to California and entered as a money judgment under Code of Civil Procedure section 1710.10 on September 30, 1976.
David's motion for a new trial was denied, as was Doris' motion for reconsideration of the reduction of the judgment amount. David contends the trial court erred in refusing to consider his affirmative defenses to enforcement of the 1976 judgment. Doris, on cross-appeal, argues the trial court erred in ruling on the merits of the Pennsylvania judgment and reducing the judgment.
As a preliminary matter, the district attorney's office defends its representation of Doris and her two adult children 1 in their bid to collect a 14 -year-old debt as mandated by Title IV-D (42 U.S.C., §§ 651-660), a 1975 amendment to Title IV of the Social Security Act. That amendment, implemented through regulations (45 C.F.R., § 301.0 et seq. requires that states which participate in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program provide child support collection services to all individuals, regardless of whether they are receiving public assistance, upon the individual's application for these services. (42 U.S.C. § 654(6)(A); 45 C.F.R. § 302.33(a).) California elected to continue its participation in the AFDC program and enacted statutes implementing the Title IV-D directive. (See Welf. & Inst.Code, §§ 10600 et seq. and 11200, et seq.)
Title IV of the Social Security Act, "Grants to States for Aid and Services to Needy Families with Children and for Child-Welfare Services," explicitly states the congressional purpose in its enactment as:
"[E]ncouraging the care of dependent children in their own homes or in the homes of relatives by enabling each State to furnish financial assistance and rehabilitation and other services, as far as practicable under the conditions in such State, to needy dependent children and the parents or relatives with whom they are living to help maintain and strengthen family life and to help such parents or relatives to attain or retain capability for the maximum self-support and personal independence consistent with the maintenance of continuing parental care and protection ...." (42 U.S.C., § 601; italics added.)
The congressional scheme does not envision the use of federal funds to aid adult children and their parents in securing long overdue support payments. What is envisioned is "protection of dependent children through the provision of assistance payments [and child support collection services] to meet their current needs." (Burnham v. Woods, 70 Cal.App.3d 667, 673, 139 Cal.Rptr. 4; see also Garcia v. Swoap, 63 Cal.App.3d 903, 134 Cal.Rptr. 137, cert. den. 436 U.S. 930, 98 S.Ct. 2829, 56 L.Ed.2d 775.) In electing to participate in the AFDC program, California did not, pursuant to Title IV-D, assume the obligation of collecting child support arrearages due parents and California did not voluntarily assume the obligation of collecting child support arrearages due parents and their adult children. The California plan for securing past due child support (Welf. & Inst.Code, § 11475) is found in Chapter 2 of the code, "Aid to Families with Dependent Children" (Welf. & Inst.Code, § 11200 et seq.). The chapter addresses itself exclusively to the needs of the dependent children defined for purposes of the chapter as "children under the age of 18 years ... in need [of aid or services] because they have been deprived of parental support and care ...." (Welf. & Inst.Code, § 11250.)
their adult children, who are not "dependent children" under Title IV. What it did assume, rather, was the obligation to provide child support collection services to families of minor children in present need of the arrearages for the children's maintenance, whether or not the families are receiving public assistance.
While Welfare and Institutions Code section 11475.1 rather ambiguously provides:
the language "to all individuals" must be construed, in accordance with the comprehensive scheme of Chapter 2 of the Welfare and Institutions Code, to encompass individuals with dependent children (that is, children under the age of 18 who are in need because they lack parental support and care [see Welf. & Inst.Code, § 11250] ) for whose benefit the child support order now sought to be enforced was entered.
Counsel have not cited and we have not found authority interpreting section 11475.1 on this point. The district attorney relies on Carter v. Morrow, 526 F.Supp. 1225 (W.D.N.Car.1981) to support his position that the district attorney's office is required, under federal law, to represent Doris. The case is inapposite. Carter held that failure of defendant state officials to provide plaintiffs, none of whom were currently receiving AFDC, with all necessary and appropriate child support enforcement services violated the provisions of Title IV-D. However, each of the Carter plaintiffs was found to be "in immediate need of child support payments from absent fathers in order to provide for their minor children." (Id., at p. 1226.)
What is involved here is not the enforcement of a parent's obligation to support minor children in immediate need of child support payments but the collection of a 14-year-old debt owed an ex-wife for the support of now adult children. Federal law does not require, and California law does not authorize, the district attorney to represent Doris in this litigation. In seeking to enforce the 1976 Pennsylvania judgment on behalf of Doris and her two adult children, the district attorney's office quite inappropriately acted as a collection agency, at the taxpayer's expense.
We proceed to address the parties' contentions with regard to enforcement of the judgment in this state, as we foresee the possibility of Doris retaining private counsel and again attempting to enter the 1976 judgment as a sister-state judgment in the California courts.
The district attorney has brought this action under the 1974 Sister State Money-Judgments Act (SSMJA). (Code Civ.Proc., §§ 1710.10-1710.65.) David argues on appeal that Doris' enforcement action in fact falls under the Revised Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act of 1968 (RURESA), enacted in California as Code of Civil Procedure sections 1650-1699, rather than under the general act for enforcement of sister state judgments. Doris' action indeed falls under RURESA.
A judgment may be enforced as a sister state judgment if it is "part of any judgment, decree, or order of a court of a state of the United States,...
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