Walsh v. Jodoin

• Decision Date: 17 July 2007
• Docket Number: No. 17837.,17837.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Robin WALSH v. Jeffrey JODOIN.

925 A.2d 1086

283 Conn. 187

Robin WALSH v. Jeffrey JODOIN.

No. 17837.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued April 16, 2007.

Decided July 17, 2007.

Robert A. Nagy, assistant attorney general, with whom were Thomas P. Crean, assistant attorney general, and, on the brief, Richard Blumenthal, attorney general, for the appellant (state).

BORDEN, NORCOTT, KATZ, PALMER and ZARELLA, Js.

NORCOTT, J.

The sole issue in this appeal is whether Public Acts 2004, No. 04-100 (P.A. 04-100),¹ which extended the parental obligation to support a child of unmarried parents until that child either "completes the twelfth grade or attains the age of nineteen, whichever first occurs," applies retroactively to support orders already in effect at the time of that act's effective date of October 1, 2004. The plaintiff² state of Connecticut appeals³ from the judgment of the trial court dismissing its appeal from the decision of the family support magistrate terminating the child support orders against the defendant, Jeffrey Jodoin,⁴ retroactive to the eighteenth birthday of the minor child, Joshua Jodoin. Because P.A. 04-100 amended various family statutes to render the support available to a child of unmarried parents equal to that provided to a child whose parents have divorced, we conclude that the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution requires us to construe P.A. 04-100 to apply retroactively. This entitles the minor child to support beyond his eighteenth birthday and, accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the trial court.

The record reveals the following undisputed facts and procedural history. The named plaintiff, Robin Walsh, is the mother of the minor child, who was born on November 8, 1986. The defendant is the acknowledged father of the minor child. In March, 1990, the state, which had been providing public assistance to Walsh for the support of the minor child, applied to the court for a support order pursuant to General Statutes (Rev. to 1989) § 46b-172 (b).⁵ The family support magistrate, Katherine Y. Hutchinson, granted the state's request and ordered the defendant to pay continuing support and arrearage to Walsh, as well as to provide medical and dental insurance at a reasonable cost for the minor child.

Thereafter, in November, 2004, the family support magistrate, Harris T. Lifshitz, granted the state's application and ordered the defendant to appear in January, 2005, to show cause why he should not be held in contempt of court for failure to comply with the court's previous orders in the case. In March, 2005, at a hearing held on that application, the support enforcement officer informed the court that, although the minor child had turned eighteen years of age, the state would continue to enforce the support order pursuant to P.A. 04-100 because he was still enrolled in high school. Magistrate Lifshitz concluded, however, that the order had been terminated by operation of law on the minor child's eighteenth birthday on November 8, 2004. Accordingly, he refused to extend the order, and he ordered support enforcement services to modify or to adjust its records to reflect termination of the order as of November 8, 2004.

The state appealed from the decision of Magistrate Lifshitz to the trial court pursuant to General Statutes § 46b-231 (n).⁶ On appeal, the state claimed that P.A 04-100 applies retroactively to extend support orders that already had been entered before the public act's effective date of October 1, 2004. Relying on this court's decision in D'Eramo v. Smith, 273 Conn. 610, 872 A.2d 408 (2005), and General Statutes § 55-3,⁷ the trial court, Swienton, J., concluded that P.A. 04-100 was a substantive change in the law that presumptively applied prospectively only. The trial court further concluded that there was nothing in the text or legislative history of P.A. 04-100 that indicated that the legislature had intended for the public act to apply retroactively, notwithstanding its purpose, which was to equalize the treatment of children in need of support, independent of their parents' marital status. Accordingly, the trial court rendered judgment dismissing the state's appeal.

Thereafter, the state moved for reargument, contending that the trial court's construction of P.A. 04-100 violated the equal protection clauses of the federal and state constitutions by providing a greater support benefit to the children of divorced parents than to children of unmarried parents. The trial court denied the motion for reargument. This appeal followed.

On appeal, the state claims that the trial court improperly concluded that P.A. 04-100 does not apply retroactively in light of the fact that the legislature had enacted it to create parity among all children entitled to support. The state also claims that the trial court's construction to the contrary violates the equal protection rights of children of unmarried parents by disadvantaging them compared to children of parents who were married when those children were born. Although we conclude that there is insufficient evidence of the requisite legislative intent to justify retroactive application of this substantive law, we nevertheless conclude that P.A. 04-100 applies retroactively because a prospective only application would perpetuate a continuing equal protection violation with respect to children of unmarried parents.

Whether a statute applies retroactively raises a question of statutory construction over which our review is plenary. See, e.g., State v. Nowell, 262 Conn. 686, 701, 817 A.2d 76 (2003). "[T]he retroactive application of a law occurs only if the new or revised law was not yet in effect on the date that the relevant events underlying its application occurred." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Skakel, 276 Conn. 633, 681, 888 A.2d 985, cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 578, 166 L.Ed.2d 428 (2006).

"Whether to apply a statute retroactively or prospectively depends upon the intent of the legislature in enacting the statute. . . . In order to determine the legislative intent, we utilize well established rules of statutory construction. Our point of departure is General Statutes § 55-3, which states: No provision of the general statutes, not previously contained in the statutes of the state, which imposes any new obligation on any person or corporation, shall be construed to have retrospective effect. The obligations referred to in the statute are those of substantive law. . . . Thus, we have uniformly interpreted § 55-3 as a rule of presumed legislative intent that statutes affecting substantive rights shall apply prospectively only.... The rule is rooted in the notion that it would be unfair to impose a substantive amendment that changes the grounds upon which an action may be maintained on parties who have already transacted or who are already committed to litigation.... In civil cases, however, unless considerations of good sense and justice dictate otherwise, it is presumed that procedural statutes will be applied retrospectively.... Procedural statutes have been traditionally viewed as affecting remedies, not substantive rights, and therefore leave the preexisting scheme intact. . . . [A]lthough we have presumed that procedural or remedial statutes are intended to apply retroactively absent a clear expression of legislative intent to the contrary . . . a statute which, in form, provides but a change in remedy but actually brings about changes in substantive rights is not subject to retroactive application. . . . While there is no precise definition of either [substantive or procedural law], it is generally agreed that a substantive law creates, defines and regulates rights while a procedural law prescribes the methods of enforcing such rights or obtaining redress."⁸ (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) D'Eramo v. Smith, supra, 273 Conn. at 620-21, 872 A.2d 408. Put differently, substantive changes to statutes "in the absence of any clear expression of legislative intent to the contrary [are] presumptively prospective." Id., at 623, 872 A.2d 408.

The relevant provisions of P.A. 04-100, which is a substantive law governing the rights to support of children of unmarried parents, have an effective date of October 1, 2004, but the public act does not state explicitly whether it applies only to support orders rendered after that date. In contrast, General Statutes § 46b-84,⁹ which, as amended by Public Acts 1994, No. 94-61 (P.A. 94-61), similarly extended parental obligations in divorce cases,¹⁰ specifically provides that it "shall apply only in cases where the decree of dissolution of marriage, legal separation or annulment is entered on or after July 1, 1994."¹¹ General Statutes § 46b-84 (b). Thus although the related statute applicable in dissolution proceedings quite clearly applies only to orders entered after a date certain, the legislature, in enacting P.A. 04-100, did not provide, with similar clarity, an indication of its intent with respect to its application.¹²

The legislative history similarly contains no evidence indicating clearly whether the legislature intended P.A. 04-100 to apply retroactively to court orders already in effect as of its effective date. Speaking in support of the bill that subsequently was enacted as P.A. 04-100 shortly before its passage by the House of Representatives, Representative Christopher Stone stated only that it "incorporates several of the characteristics or several of the requirements that we presently have for married couples who have children who are engaged in divorce proceedings into the provisions presently in the books for [f]amily [c]ourt magistrates and collection of child support for unmarried individuals. Most primarily and substantively, the bill extends the obligation of child support for non-married individuals who have children to a—until the child is [nineteen] years old or graduates from high school,...