White v. State

Decision Date16 February 2001
Docket Number99-00713
PartiesDANIEL WHITE v. STATE OF TENNESSEE EX REL. BRENDA ARMSTRONGIN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT NASHVILLE Assigned on Briefs
CourtTennessee Court of Appeals

Appeal from the Juvenile Court for Davidson County: No. 147-123-893

Betty Adams Green, Judge

This appeal involves the State's liability to repay child support payments made by a man who had voluntarily legitimated a child he believed to be his own. After this court directed the Davidson County Juvenile Court to grant him prospective relief from the legitimation order in accordance with Tenn. R. Civ. P. 60.02(4), the man requested the juvenile court to order the State and the child's biological mother to reimburse him for the child support payments he had made following the entry of the legitimation order. The juvenile court denied the request on the ground that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to order the State to reimburse "overpaid child support." We have determined that the juvenile court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate these claims and, therefore, affirm the juvenile court's order.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Juvenile Court Affirmed

WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which WILLIAM B. CAIN and PATRICIA J. COTTRELL, JJ., joined.

Clark Lee Shaw and Cynthia Bohn, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Daniel White.

Paul G. Summers, Attorney General and Reporter, and Stuart F. Wilson-Patton, Assistant Attorney General, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

Daniel White and Brenda Armstrong lived together as husband and wife in the early 1990s. During this time, Ms. Armstrong gave birth to two sons. The older son was born in June 1991, and the younger in November 1992. Shortly after her second son was born, Ms. Armstrong told Mr. White that he was not the boy's biological father. This news precipitated the end of Mr. White's and Ms. Armstrong's relationship, and they separated shortly thereafter.

Following the separation, Mr. White filed a pro se legitimation petition in the Davidson County Juvenile Court.1 He waived his right to insist on genetic testing, and Ms. Armstrong did not contest his petition. Accordingly, on January 5, 1994, a juvenile court referee entered an order declaring Mr. White to be the father of Ms. Armstrong's older son. The order also directed Mr. White to pay Ms. Armstrong $4,847 in back child support, as well as $264 in prospective monthly child support.

For the next three years or so, Mr. White paid his child support and regularly exercised his visitation rights. By mid-1997, comments by Ms. Armstrong and the child prompted Mr. White to question whether he was the child's biological father. After the juvenile court refused to order genetic testing, Mr. White obtained the testing on his own, and the results of this test categorically excluded him as the child's biological father. In November 1997, he requested the juvenile court to terminate his support obligations. When the juvenile court declined to relieve him of this support obligation, Mr. White appealed to this court. We vacated the juvenile court's order and remanded the case with directions to grant Mr. White prospective relief from the January 5, 1994 legitimation order in accordance with Tenn. R. Civ. P. 60.02(4). White v. Armstrong, No. 01A01-9712-JV-00735, 1999 WL 33085 (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan. 27, 1999) (No Tenn. R. App. P. 11 application filed).

When the case returned to the juvenile court, the court entered an order on March 5, 1999, granting Mr. White relief from his child support obligation. On June 28, 1999, Mr. White filed a "motion for judgment for overpaid child support" requesting the juvenile court to order Ms. Armstrong and the State2 to reimburse him for all the child support he had paid to Ms. Armstrong since January 5, 1994. The State opposed the motion primarily on the ground that it was not legally required to repay child support in cases where paternity has been voluntarily acknowledged. On September 2, 1999, the juvenile court entered an order denying Mr. White's motion to recoup any part of his child support payments from the State. Mr. White has now perfected this appeal.

I. THE JUVENILE COURT'S SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION

The dispositive issue in this case is whether the General Assembly has given juvenile courts jurisdiction to award money judgments against the State of Tennessee to reimburse persons who have made voluntary support payments before discovering that they are not the supported child's biological parent. The juvenile court concluded that it lacked this jurisdiction. We have determined that the juvenile court's view of its jurisdiction was correct in light of both the inherent limitations on the jurisdiction of juvenile courts and the doctrine of sovereign immunity.

A. THE JUVENILE COURT'S LIMITED SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION

The concept of subject matter jurisdiction implicates a court's authority to hear and decide a particular type of case. Meighan v. U.S. Sprint Communications Co., 924 S.W.2d 632, 639 (Tenn. 1996); Cashion v. Robertson, 955 S .W.2d 60, 63 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1997). Courts derive their subject matter jurisdiction from the Constitution of Tennessee or from a legislative act, Kane v. Kane, 547 S.W.2d 559, 560 (Tenn. 1977), and thus they cannot exercise jurisdictional powers that have not been conferred on them directly or by necessary implication. Dishmon v. Shelby State Cmty. Coll., 15 S.W.3d 477, 480 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1999).

Subject matter jurisdiction depends on the nature of the cause of action and the relief sought. Landers v. Jones, 872 S.W.2d 674, 675 (Tenn. 1994). It does not depend upon the conduct or the agreement of the parties. Shelby County v. City of Memphis, 211 Tenn. 410, 413, 365 S.W.2d 291, 292 (1963). Thus, the parties cannot confer subject matter jurisdiction on a court by appearance, plea, consent, silence, or waiver. Caton v. Pic-Walsh Freight Co., 211 Tenn. 334, 338, 364 S.W.2d 931, 933 (1963); Dishmon v. Shelby State Cmty. Coll., 15 S.W.3d at 480. Without subject matter jurisdiction, a court cannot enter valid, enforceable orders. Brown v. Brown, 198 Tenn. 600, 610, 281 S.W.2d 492, 497 (1955); Riden v. Snider, 832 S.W.2d 341, 343 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1991).

The juvenile courts were unknown at common law. State ex rel. Hyatt v. Bomar, 210 Tenn. 249, 252, 358 S.W.2d 295, 296 (1962); State v. Stout, No. 89-331-II, 1990 WL 91143, at *3 (Tenn. Ct. App. July 5, 1990) (No Tenn. R. App. P. 11 application filed). They are entirely creatures of statute, and thus their subject matter jurisdiction is circumscribed by the statutes creating them. West Tennessee Agape, Inc. v. Lipe, 515 S.W.2d 648, 649 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1974). Unlike circuit or chancery courts, juvenile courts have special and limited jurisdiction, Stambaugh v. Price, 532 S.W.2d 929, 932 (Tenn. 1976); Juvenile Court v. State ex rel. Humphrey, 139 Tenn. 549, 555, 201 S.W. 771, 772 (1918), although they have full power to act within the jurisdiction they have been provided. Cartwright v. Juvenile Court, 172 Tenn. 626, 629, 113 S.W.2d 754, 756 (1938).

We must take care not to extend the subject matter jurisdiction of the juvenile courts beyond the jurisdiction conferred on them by the General Assembly. While the juvenile courts have broad statutory authority to establish a child's paternity3 and to issue orders setting, modifying, or even terminating child support,4 we find no statute giving the juvenile courts authority, expressly or by implication, to order the State to reimburse a person who has voluntarily paid child support based on the mistaken belief that he was the child's biological father. In the absence of statutory authority, the juvenile courts do not have subject matter jurisdiction over requests of this sort.

B. SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY

Even if we were to hold that the power to order reimbursement of child support is somehow implicit in the power to order the payment of child support, a compelling constitutional barrier - the doctrine of sovereign immunity - prevents us from holding that the juvenile courts have the subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate these claims against the State. The doctrine of sovereign immunity divests the courts of subject matter jurisdiction over suits against the state for money damages unless the State has consented to these suits. Shell v. State, 893 S.W.2d 416, 420 (Tenn. 1995); Pool v. State, 987 S.W.2d 566, 568 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1998). The State has not consented to being subjected to claims like the one Mr. White is pursuing here.

At common law, the doctrine of sovereign immunity provided an impenetrable barrier protecting state and local governments from suits for money damages. The original framers of our Constitution recognized that justice and good policy might require exceptions to this rule, Hembree v. State, No. 01A01-9306-BC-00279, 1995 WL 50066, at *2 (Tenn. Ct. App. Feb. 8, 1995), aff'd, 925 S.W.2d 513 (Tenn. 1996). Accordingly, they provided in Tenn. Const. art. I, 17 that "[s]uits may be brought against the State in such manner and in such courts as the Legislature may by law direct." Because Tenn. Const. art. I, 17 is not self-executing, the General Assembly has the exclusive constitutional prerogative to establish the procedures for making monetary claims against the State. General Oil Co. v. Crain, 117 Tenn. 82, 89, 95 S.W. 824, 826 (1906); Williams v. Register, 3 Tenn. (1 Cooke) 213, 217 (1812).

The General Assembly eventually enacted Tenn. Code Ann. 20-13-102(a) (1994) which flatly closed the doors of all state courts to suits intended to reach the state treasury. Quinton v. Board of Claims, 165 Tenn. 201, 217, 54 S.W.2d 953, 957-58 (1932). In the one hundred and twenty-seven years since enacting Tenn. Code Ann. 20-13-102(a), the General Assembly has been extremely reluctant to wield its power under Tenn. Const. art. I, 17....

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