STATE DCS EX REL. ALASKA v. Anderson

• Citation: 189 Or. App. 162,74 P.3d 1149
• Parties: STATE of Oregon DCS, on behalf of the STATE OF ALASKA, Appellant, and Patricia G. Wetherell, Obligee, v. David L. ANDERSON, Respondent.
• Decision Date: 13 August 2003
• Court: Court of Appeals of Oregon

74 P.3d 1149

189 Or. App. 162

STATE of Oregon DCS, on behalf of the STATE OF ALASKA, Appellant, and Patricia G. Wetherell, Obligee, v. David L. ANDERSON, Respondent.

001025; A114324

Court of Appeals of Oregon.

Argued and Submitted December 16, 2002.

Decided August 13, 2003.

Judy C. Lucas, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for appellant. With her on the briefs were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and Mary H. Williams, Solicitor General.

Chris W. Dunfield, Corvallis, argued the cause and filed the brief for respondent.

Before LANDAU, Presiding Judge, and ARMSTRONG and BREWER, Judges.

LANDAU, P.J.

This complex and acronym-intensive case involves the enforceability of an Alaska child support order in Oregon. The trial court refused to enforce a 1996 Alaska support order. The court concluded that, although the Alaska order was valid and could be registered in this state, the order could not be enforced because, under the relevant provisions of the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA), ORS 110.303 to 110.452, a 1990 Oregon administrative child support order was controlling. The Division of Child Support of the Oregon Department of Justice (DCS) appeals, arguing that the 1996 Alaska order is enforceable as to arrearages that accrued until the 1990 Oregon order was declared to be controlling. We agree and reverse and remand.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The facts are uncontested. Father and mother were married in Oregon in the late 1970s. They had two children; their younger child, whose support is at issue in this case, was born in 1983. Father and mother were divorced in Alaska in 1987. The decree of dissolution ordered father to pay $150 per month for each child until, as pertinent here, age 18. The older child turned 18 in 1989. Meanwhile, father returned to Oregon.

In 1990, DCS issued an administrative support order relating to the younger child. The Oregon order was entered as a judgment against father in the Circuit Court of Lincoln County, where father then resided. The order calculated father's "state debt" as $666 and established a child support amount of $74 per month, to begin on November 2, 1990. As of April 2000, father was current as to those obligations.

In February 1994, while mother and the younger child were living in Alaska, mother sought collection of previously unpaid Alaska child support payments for the older child. On June 2, 1994, the Alaska Child Support Enforcement Division (CSED) sent to father in Oregon a "Notice of Liability Under Support Order and Demand for Payment," asserting that, under the 1987 Alaska order, he was liable for $12,883.62 in past due child support, interest, and penalties and $150 per month "for ongoing support." Around the same time, Alaska CSED provided DCS with an audit of father's payments under the 1987 Alaska order, showing accumulated arrearages and interest in the amount of approximately $11,638.

In November 1995, the Alaska district court ordered father to submit an affidavit and documentation concerning his income, for the purpose of calculating his child support obligation. Father apparently did not submit any information directly to the court, but he did submit information to the Lincoln County District Attorney. In April 1996, the district attorney faxed to Alaska CSED a statement of father's earnings, showing that his 1995 gross income was approximately $22,254. On July 11, 1996, Alaska CSED sent to father a "Notice of Proposed Adjustment in Child Support" and a proposed "Consent Order for Modification of Support Information." The notice indicated that, as of July 22, 1996, father's child support arrearages totaled $14,155.54. Based on those arrearages and father's 1995 gross income, the notice proposed an increase in the amount of father's child support to $303 per month. Father apparently did not respond to the notice and proposed consent order, and it apparently was never filed.

On July 15, 1996, based on father's failure to comply with its 1995 order to provide it with documentation of his income, the Alaska district court granted Alaska CSED's motion for sanctions; ordered that father's net income be presumed to be $60,000 per year; and ordered that father's child support be modified to the amount of $1,000 per month, beginning August 1, 1996.¹

In 1998, mother and child moved to Oregon. On May 10, 2000, DCS filed in Linn County Circuit Court a request for registration of the July 15, 1996, Alaska child support order. The order was entered in the register as a foreign judgment on May 11, 2000. On the same day, the court provided father with notice of the registration. The notice showed that, as of March 31, 2000, the amount of father's arrearages under the 1996 Alaska order was $39,108 plus interest. The notice also informed father that a registered order is enforceable as of the date of registration; that, if he wished to contest the validity or enforcement of the registered order, he was required to request a hearing within 20 days of the date of the notice; and that failure to contest the registered order's validity or enforcement "will result in confirmation and enforcement of the order and the alleged arrearage."

Father requested a hearing on the ground that the amount stated in the Alaska support order was incorrect. In the hearing, father argued that, at the time DCS sought registration of the 1996 Alaska order, Oregon had "exclusive, continuing jurisdiction" of its own 1990 child support order as provided in ORS 110.327; that the 1990 order therefore was the controlling order for the purpose of ORS 110.333(2)(a); and that, accordingly, the 1996 Alaska order could not be registered. DCS responded that the Alaska order was the controlling order. On April 11, 2001, the trial court entered an order determining that, although the 1996 Alaska order was valid, it could no longer be enforced because the 1990 Oregon order is now the controlling child support order.

DCS moved for reconsideration. It argued that, even if the 1990 Oregon order is the controlling order for the purpose of ORS 110.327 and ORS 110.333, that determination pertains only to prospective enforcement of multiple child support orders and does not affect the enforceability of the 1996 Alaska order as to accumulated arrearages under it. The trial court denied reconsideration.

II. DISPOSITION OF THE MERITS

A. The parties' arguments

On appeal, DCS argues that the trial court erred in denying enforcement of the arrearages that had accumulated under the 1996 Alaska order. As it did below, DCS argues that the controlling order determination relates only to prospective enforcement of a child support order. According to DCS, notwithstanding the issuance of the Oregon administrative support order in 1990, arrearages continued to accrue under, successively, the 1987 and 1996 Alaska orders up until the time that the trial court issued its order declaring that Alaska no longer has continuing, exclusive jurisdiction, that is, the order in contention in this appeal. That order, DCS argues, effectively modified the 1996 Alaska order, and, under ORS 110.327(3)(a), modified support orders continue to be enforceable as to arrearages that have accrued to the time of modification, with, as pertinent here, credit being given against those amounts for payments made under the 1990 Oregon order.

Father argues that the trial court correctly determined that Oregon's 1990 support order is the controlling order for the purpose of ORS 110.327(1) and ORS 110.333 and that, as a matter of law, orders other than a controlling order are unenforceable, either as to ongoing support or as to arrearages.

B. Disposition of the arguments

At issue in this case is the effect of three child support orders: (1) the 1987 Alaska dissolution decree that included the order to pay child support; (2) the 1990 Oregon child support order; and (3) the 1996 Alaska child support order that modified the terms of the 1987 order. We begin with the 1987 Alaska order and the effect of the subsequent 1990 Oregon order and then turn to the effect of the subsequent 1996 Alaska order on the other two.

The 1987 Alaska decree and the 1990 Oregon support order

As noted, in 1987, the Alaska dissolution decree included an obligation to pay $150 per month child support. Three years later, after father moved to Oregon, DCS issued an administrative support order requiring father to pay $74 per month child support. The question is what effect, if any, the DCS order had on the Alaska order to pay $150 per month.

At the time DCS issued the Oregon support order, the Revised Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act (RURESA), ORS 110.005 to 110.291 (1987),² was in effect. ORS 110.272 (1987) provided, in part:

"A support order made by a court of this state pursuant to this chapter does not nullify and is not nullified by a support order made by a court of this state pursuant to any other law or 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. Amounts paid for a particular period pursuant to any support order made by the court of another state shall be credited against the amounts accruing or accrued for the same period under any support order made by the court of this state."

In State ex rel Leo v. Tuthill, 170 Or.App. 79, 11 P.3d 270 (2000), we addressed the proper interpretation and application of that statute. In that case, an Alaska court in 1987 ordered the father to pay $200 per month child support for the parties' one child. The father later moved to Oregon. In 1989, an Oregon court ordered the father to pay monthly child support in the amount of $125. Over the next eight years, the father paid the $125 per month specified in the Oregon order, not the $200 per month required by the Alaska order. In 1997, the Alaska CSED asked what is now DCS to register...