Taylor v. Taylor
| Decision Date | 19 March 1986 |
| Citation | 486 So.2d 1294 |
| Parties | Bruce Lynwood TAYLOR v. Lina Lurie TAYLOR. Civ. 4961. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Civil Appeals |
Jere C. Segrest, of Hardwick, Hause, Segrest & Northcutt, Dothan, for appellant.
John Emory Waddell, Dothan, for appellee.
Mrs. Taylor (the mother) petitioned the Circuit Court of Houston County to recognize and enforce the parties' Florida judgment of divorce as to child support and to increase that support.
After an ore tenus evidentiary hearing before the trial court in May 1985, at which time both parties testified, the trial court modified the final judgment of divorce by increasing child support from $433 each month to $600 per month. The father was further ordered to pay his arrearage of child support, which was ascertained to be $2,065, and to pay $500 towards the professional services which were rendered in the case by the mother's attorney. The father duly appealed after his motion for a new trial was overruled.
It is contended by able counsel for the father that the case must be reversed because exemplified copies of the Florida divorce judgment were not introduced into evidence, were not attached to the mother's petition, and were not before the trial court.
The best evidence of a judgment of the court of a sister state from a practical standpoint is a copy of the judgment which has been duly certified pursuant to the second sentence of Rule 44(a)(1), Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure, and, ordinarily, testimony of the contents of a trial court's judgment is not admissible since the original record, or a properly certified copy, is the best evidence of its official acts. Kroger Co. v. Puckett, 351 So.2d 582, 587 (Ala.Civ.App.1977).
However, the mother testified without objection and without contradiction that the parties were divorced on February 28, 1978, by the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Florida, and that, under paragraph three of that judgment, the father was ordered to pay to the mother $433 each month as child support. A copy of the Florida circuit clerk's record of child support payments as paid by the father was likewise introduced into evidence without objection, with the mother testifying that the document had been furnished to her by the father. It was admitted in the father's answer to interrogatories that he is obligated to pay child support of $433 monthly, and he testified as to his divorce from the mother. On one occasion the father petitioned the Florida court to reduce the amount of child support, but modification was denied. The present proceeding is the only modification of child support ever sought by the mother.
It would have been preferable and better practice for the mother to have introduced into evidence a properly certified copy of the Florida divorce, but she did not do so. The question before us is whether the foregoing evidence concerning the child support provisions of the Florida judgment was competent and sufficient proof thereof.
Once illegal evidence is admitted without objection, it is properly admitted, and the trier of facts is free to consider it without limit as to weight or purpose. Small v. Columbiana Pole & Timber Co., 433 So.2d 1148 (Ala.1983); Ex parte Neal, 423 So.2d 850 (Ala.1982); Kroger Co., 351 So.2d 582, 588. Accordingly, such testimony adequately and competently proved the Florida divorce judgment as to child support.
It is also argued that the trial court's final judgment did not specifically recognize the Florida divorce judgment. The language as utilized by the trial court was "it is ORDERED AND ADJUDGED: (1) that final judgment of divorce is modified to increase child support to $600.00 per month, ...; (2) that defendant is in arrears in the payment of child support in the amount of $2,065.00...."
We know of no rule that requires the use of any particular language by a trial court of this state in recognizing, enforcing, and/or modifying a child support judgment of the court of another state. The language used in the trial court's final judgment is most general in that respect, but, when the mother's complaint is considered in connection with the final judgment, it is clear enough that the trial court enforced, recognized, and modified the Florida judgment which divorced the parties.
The father further contends that the trial court abused its discretion by...
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