State ex rel. Coleman v. Clay
| Decision Date | 25 February 1991 |
| Citation | 805 S.W.2d 752 |
| Parties | STATE of Tennessee, ex rel. Mary Alvine COLEMAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Alvin Lee CLAY, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
L.L. Harrell, Jr., Trenton, for defendant-appellant.
Charles W. Burson, Atty. Gen. and Reporter, Stuart F. Patton, Asst. Atty. Gen., Nashville, Theodore H. Neumann, Julie Alexander Grinalds, Asst. Dist. Attys., Trenton, for plaintiff-appellee.
We granted review in this case to permit re-evaluation of the juvenile court's limited child support award, entered as a part of a paternity decree naming the defendant, Alvin Clay, as the father of Kristi Coleman. We conclude that the judgment of the Court of Appeals, remanding the case to the juvenile court, was proper, and we therefore affirm.
The dispute on appeal concerns the legal effect of the 14-year delay between Kristi's birth and the initiation of paternity proceedings against Clay by the child's mother, Mary Coleman. The juvenile court held that Clay was liable for Kristi's support only from the date on which he knew for certain that he was Kristi's father. The Court of Appeals, interpreting the support provisions of the paternity statute, T.C.A. Sec. 36-2-108, held to the contrary that the father was responsible for the child's support "from and after its birth." We agree with the intermediate court's determination that the trial court erred in limiting liability. We also agree that the father has failed to establish laches as an equitable defense in this case.
Kristi's parents met in 1969, while they were students at Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee. They had intimate relations over the next two years, and Mary Coleman learned that she was pregnant in January, 1972. When informed by Coleman that she was pregnant, Alvin Clay at first denied that he was the father.
Kristi Coleman was born on June 25, 1972. Despite his initial denial of paternity, Clay came from his home in Arkansas to visit Mary Coleman and the baby in August and September, 1972. According to Coleman, Clay bought the baby diapers and medicine, and he promised to support the child. However, after he returned to Arkansas, he did not send Coleman any money, although he did visit Kristi again when she was two or three years old and brought her some clothes. About this time, Coleman consulted an attorney, seeking to get support for her child from Clay. She did not bring a paternity suit at that time, however, because she had no money and, she said, the attorney told her nothing could be done because the father was a resident of Arkansas.
Clay next saw the child in 1977 at a Coleman family wedding and again in 1981, when he came to visit Kristi. Her mother once more asked for financial assistance, but to no avail. She later began calling Clay at home in Arkansas in a futile attempt to get support for the child. She finally instituted this suit in 1986.
In the meantime, Clay had divorced his first wife, by whom he had two sons, and had remarried. He had two daughters by his second wife, the older one adopted. His younger daughter was seriously ill with an unspecified but apparently terminal illness. Clay and his wife had an annual income of over $40,000, but the family's finances had been substantially impaired by the daughter's illness. At least one of Clay's sons has now reached the age of majority, as has Kristi.
Coleman's paternity suit, initiated by the local district attorney's office, was not filed until Kristi was 14 years old. Alvin Clay succeeded in delaying entry of judgment on the petition for over two years, by refusing to accept service of process, failing to appear in court, requesting various continuances, demanding not one but two separate blood tests, and successfully petitioning for a new trial, despite his voluntary absence at the first one. Both blood tests showed, without question, that Alvin Clay is Kristi's father. The juvenile court judge finally entered a paternity decree on November 9, 1988.
In that decree, the judge awarded prospective support in the amount of $25 per week and ordered Clay to provide medical insurance for Kristi. The judge also ordered back support in the same weekly amount, but retroactive only to February 1, 1988, principally on the ground that it was the first date when the certified blood test results were available, establishing that Clay was actually the child's father. 1
We conclude that this limitation was improper, because it cannot be squared with the provisions of Tennessee's paternity statutes. Under T.C.A. Sec. 36-2-102, the father is responsible both for the child's support and for the expenses of pregnancy and birth, as follows:
The father of a child born out of wedlock is liable for the necessary support and education of the child. He is also liable for the child's funeral expenses. He is liable to pay for the expenses of the mother's confinement and recovery, and is also liable to pay such expenses, including counsel fees, in connection with her pregnancy as the court in its discretion may deem proper.
T.C.A. Sec. 36-2-108 governs entry of the paternity decree and provides in pertinent part:
(a) If the finding be against the defendant, the...
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