Stanislaus County v. Ross
| Decision Date | 05 June 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 781DC768,781DC768 |
| Citation | 255 S.E.2d 229,41 N.C.App. 518 |
| Parties | The COUNTY OF STANISLAUS v. Harry Wesley ROSS, Jr. |
| Court | North Carolina Court of Appeals |
Aldridge & Seawell by G. Irvin Aldridge, Manteo, for defendant-appellant.
The defendant first assigns as error the trial court's denial of his motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. In support of this assignment, the defendant contends that the motion should have been granted because the complaint fails to state where he was employed or the amount of his earnings. We do not agree. The Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act requires that the plaintiff's complaint "state the name and, so far as known to the plaintiff, the address and circumstances of the defendant and his dependents for whom support is sought and all other pertinent information." G.S. 52A-10. The complaint may, but is not required to, contain the name of the defendant's employer. As the complaint contained the name, address and circumstances of the defendant, as well as allegations that the plaintiff was entitled to child support payments from the defendant, it was not made defective by its failure to contain the name of the defendant's employer or the amount of the defendant's earnings.
The defendant further contends that the complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted because it did not allege a substantial change in circumstances. The defendant refers us to Childers v. Childers, 19 N.C.App. 220, 198 S.E.2d 485 (1973), as authority for this contention.
The facts in the present case are distinguishable from those in Childers, and we do not find that case applicable. Unlike the situation in Childers, this case does not involve an action pursuant to G.S. 50-13.7 for an order which "modifies or supersedes" a prior order. Although the record indicates that a prior judgment was entered in California in 1964 requiring the defendant to pay $50 per month child support, that action was apparently initiated against the defendant by the mother of his minor child Suzanne Gail Ross. The present action, on the other hand, is an original action brought by the County of Stanislaus against the defendant and is independent of all other previous actions. The legislature apparently foresaw and provided for just such situations when it enacted G.S. 52A-21 which provides that "A support order made by a court of this State pursuant to (the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act) does not nullify and is not nullified by a support order made by a court . . . of any other state pursuant to a substantially similar act or any other law regardless of priority of issuance, unless otherwise specifically provided by the court." In such situations, that statute further provides for credits for payments pursuant to one support order against amounts owed pursuant to the other. The legislature apparently intended that its enactment of G.S. 52A-21, after our opinion in Childers, would provide authority to the courts of this State to apply the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act so as to provide for the support of a minor child independent of and without regard for any other support judgments or whether there had been a change in the circumstances of either the child or its parents. Therefore, it was not necessary that the complaint in the present case contain allegations of facts constituting changed circumstances. Additionally, we find this view consistent with the legislative intent that the remedies provided by the act be "in addition to and not in substitution for any other remedies" and that the act "be so interpreted and construed as to effectuate its general purpose to make uniform the law of those states having a substantially similar act." G.S. 52A-4; G.S. 52A-32. For the reasons previously discussed, this assignment of error is overruled.
The defendant next assigns as error the trial court's findings of fact. He contends that those findings are not supported by the evidence. The defendant further contends that no evidence was presented for the plaintiff county. In an action brought under the Uniform...
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...a support obligation should always bear on the 'reasonableness' of that party's personal expenses. See, e.g., County of Stanislaus v. Ross, 41 N.C.App. 518, 255 S.E.2d 229 (1979). In the absence of contrary indications in the record, however, an appellate court will normally presume that a ......
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State, Iowa Dept. of Social Services ex rel. Blakeman v. Blakeman
...a change of circumstances from those prevailing when an unrelated support order was entered. See County of Stanislaus v. Ross, 41 N.C.App. 518, 521-22, 255 S.E.2d 229, 231 (1979); Jaramillo v. Jaramillo, 27 Wash.App. 391, 394-95, 618 P.2d 528, 529-30 (1980); Maine, Department of Human Servi......
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