Case Title: Ostermiller v. Spurr

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 1998-12-10T00:00:00Z

Document:
Ostermiller v. Spurr1998 WY 152968 P.2d 940Case Number: 97-219Decided: 12/10/1998Supreme Court of Wyoming
 
Teresa A. OSTERMILLER and Brett R. Ostermiller, a minor, 
Appellants (Petitioners),

v.

Scott SPURR, Appellee 
(Respondent), State of Wyoming, Department of Family Services, Appellee 
(Petitioner).

 

Appeal from the District 
Court, Laramie County, Nicholas G. Kalokathis, J.

 

John M. Burman, 
Faculty Supervisor, University of Wyoming Legal Services Program; Blair Bales, 
Student Intern, Laramie, Wyoming; and Boyd M. McMaster of Nichols, Douglas, 
Kelly and Meade, Scottsbluff, Nebraska, for 
Appellants.

William U. Hill, 
Attorney General; Michael L. Hubbard, Deputy Attorney General; and Donna A. 
Murray, Special Assistant Attorney General, Cheyenne, Wyoming, for Appellee 
State, Department of Family Services.

No appearance 
for Appellee Scott Spurr.

Before 
LEHMAN, C.J., and MACY, GOLDEN and TAYLOR,* JJ., and GRANT, 
D.J.

* Chief Justice at time of 
oral argument; retired 11/2/98.

GRANT, District 
Judge.

[¶1]      The Nebraska 
Department of Social Services forwarded to Wyoming a petition by and on behalf 
of Teresa A. Ostermiller (the mother), a resident of Nebraska. The petition 
demanded establishment of paternity and order for child support against the 
father, Scott Spurr (the father), a resident of Wyoming. The father admitted 
paternity and his obligation of support, and counterclaimed for visitation and 
change of name of the child. The mother appeals from the district court's order, 
challenging its exercise of personal jurisdiction over her and the child to 
order custody, visitation and name change. The mother argues that the only 
statutory basis for such jurisdiction would be her purported consent which in 
reality was coerced, because it was required by the Department of Family 
Services in Nebraska as a condition to providing her Aid to Families with 
Dependent Children (AFDC) and Title XIX medical benefits. Finding this argument 
unsupported by the record and the law, we affirm.

ISSUES

[¶2]      The mother states 
the following issues for our review:

I. Did the 
District Court err when it exercised personal jurisdiction over Appellant, a 
non-resident of Wyoming?

II. Did the 
District Court abuse its discretion by allowing the issuance of a standard 
visitation order given the circumstances, by requiring [the child's] last name 
to be changed to [the father's], and by granting a tax exemption to [the father] 
who does not have sole custody of the minor child?

[¶3]      Appellee, the 
Department of Family Services, responds:1

I. Did the 
district court correctly exercise personal jurisdiction over Appellant, a 
non-resident of Wyoming?

II. Did the 
district court correctly address all issues surrounding the paternity 
action?

FACTS

[¶4]      The mother and 
father met in California and, unmarried, conceived their son. Soon after, the 
mother moved to Nebraska where the child was born. She received AFDC and 
Medicaid medical benefits for herself and the child. She notified the father of 
her pregnancy and of the birth. The father acknowledged paternity informally but 
not officially, and the birth certificate bore the surname of the mother. The 
father contributed nothing to the expenses of pregnancy and birth, provided no 
support, and never saw the child. After the birth, the father moved from 
California to Laramie County, Wyoming, and although he was then fairly close to 
the home of the mother and child in Nebraska, he made no effort at visitation 
and paid no support.

[¶5]      The Nebraska 
Department of Social Services, pursuant to the Uniform Interstate Family Support 
Act (Wyo. Stat. §§ 20-4-139 through 20-4-189 (1997) and Neb.Rev.Stat. §§ 42-701 
through 42-751 (1997)), forwarded to Wyoming's office of child support services 
a verified petition for establishment of paternity, order of support, and 
reimbursement of medical expenses. The father counterclaimed for visitation and 
change of name. Over the mother's objection to its assertion of personal 
jurisdiction over her and the child, and after a hearing at which the mother 
appeared only by counsel, the district court entered its order establishing 
paternity, requiring the father to pay child support to the mother, reimbursing 
the Nebraska agency for support and medical expenses, and providing health care 
insurance for the child. Pursuant to the father's counterclaim, the district 
court also awarded the mother custody and provided the father visitation rights. 
The order included a provision for change of the child's name on the birth 
certificate to the surname of the father and also gave the father the federal 
income tax dependence deduction since he was working and the mother was 
not.

[¶6]      The mother 
appeals from that portion of the district court's order awarding her custody and 
granting the father visitation, change of the child's name on the birth 
certificate and granting the father the federal income tax dependency deduction. 
She claims that because she and the child were and are residents of Nebraska, 
have never been in Wyoming, and have no contact with it, the district court had 
no personal jurisdiction over her or the child on the basis of which to 
determine the issues of custody, visitation, name change, and dependency 
deduction. She also claims that if the district court did have personal 
jurisdiction, it abused its discretion in ordering the "standard" visitation 
because it does not take into account the age of the child and the absence of 
any relationship between the child and the father and that the visitation should 
have been more appropriate to the circumstances.

DISCUSSION

[¶7]      The in personam 
jurisdiction of the district court over a non-resident parent who submits to it 
by seeking affirmative relief extends to all matters within the district court's 
subject matter jurisdiction and asserted by a party. One may not seek 
affirmative relief for only limited purposes and not others that are within the 
district court's subject matter jurisdiction and claims asserted by the opposing 
party. This is so because a party's demand for affirmative relief changes a 
special appearance to a general appearance which cannot later be withdrawn. 
Quenzer v. Quenzer, 653 P.2d 295, 305 (Wyo. 1982), cert. denied 460 U.S. 1041, 
103 S. Ct. 1436, 75 L. Ed. 2d 794 (1983). The mother's submission to the 
jurisdiction for adjudication of paternity and child support subjected her to 
the district court's jurisdiction for the claim asserted by the father for 
determination of visitation and name change.

[¶8]      The Uniform 
Interstate Family Support Act is a comprehensive statutory scheme to enable and 
facilitate the adjudication of support obligations including those arising from 
paternity establishment in cases of unmarried parents where the parties live in 
different states. A person claiming against another an obligation of support or 
a government entity seeking reimbursement of welfare and Medicaid benefits paid 
for the benefit of a parent or child may initiate proceedings against the 
obligor by initiating an action in the child's home state which may forward it 
to the responding state (residence of defendant) or may file it directly with 
the appropriate tribunal in the responding state.

[¶9]      The responding 
tribunal then issues process to the defendant. The statute contemplates 
reciprocal access to the enacting states' courts for the purpose of establishing 
and enforcing support obligations against residents of the responding state. In 
Wyoming, the statute incorporates by reference Wyoming's parentage statutes 
(Wyo. Stat. §§ 14-2-101 through 14-2-120 (1997)) for paternity and support 
proceedings and also provides independently for the powers and jurisdiction of 
Wyoming district courts as responding tribunal. Pertinent provisions of the 
statutes are:

(a) A district court of 
this state may serve as an initiating or responding tribunal in a proceeding 
brought under the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act * * * to determine that 
* * * the respondent is a parent of that child.

(b) In a proceeding to 
determine parentage by a responding tribunal of this state, the provisions of 
W.S. 14-2-101 through 14-2-120 and the laws of this state on choice of law shall 
apply.

Wyo. Stat. § 
20-4-185.

(a) Except as otherwise 
provided by the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, a responding tribunal of 
this state:

(i) Shall apply the 
procedural and substantive law * * * generally applicable to similar proceedings 
originating in this state and may exercise all powers and provide all remedies 
available in those proceedings * * *.

Wyo. Stat. § 
20-4-153(a)(i).

(a) In a proceeding to 
establish * * * a support order or to determine parentage, a district court of 
this state may exercise personal jurisdiction over a non-resident * * * 
if:

* * 
*

(ii) The individual 
submits to the jurisdiction of this state by consent * * 
*;

* * 
*

(vii) The individual 
asserted parentage in this state pursuant to W.S. 14-2-101 through 
14-2-120[.]

Wyo. Stat. § 
20-4-142.

(a) The judgment or order 
of the court determining the existence or nonexistence of the parent and child 
relationship is determinative for all purposes.

(b) If the judgment or 
order of the court is at variance with the child's birth certificate, the court 
shall order that a new birth certificate be issued * * 
*.

(c) The judgment or order 
may contain any other provision directed against the appropriate party to the 
proceeding concerning the duty of support, the custody and guardianship 
of the child, visitation privileges with the child * * * or any other 
matter in the best interest of the child.

Wyo. Stat. § 
14-2-113 (emphasis added).

[¶10]   The Uniform Interstate Family 
Support Act incorporating the parentage statutes clearly vest the district court 
with jurisdiction to determine parentage and to order custody, support and 
visitation. Personal jurisdiction over any non-resident parent who submits to it 
by consent or by a demand for affirmative relief is subject to it for all 
purposes contemplated by the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act and the 
determination of parentage statutes.

[¶11]   There is no evidence in the record 
to support a contention of involuntariness or coercion with respect to the 
mother's signature on the petition initiated by Nebraska's child support 
enforcement agency. The mother cites no legal authority for the claim that 
requiring such by way of cooperation as a requisite to the receipt of AFDC 
benefits is coercive as a matter of law.

[¶12]   The mother asserts that even if the 
district court had personal jurisdiction over her to order custody, visitation, 
and change of name, the district court abused its discretion in applying its 
"standard" visitation order. The father appeared at the hearing and testified as 
did his current wife. The mother, represented at the hearing by counsel, did not 
personally appear and gave no testimony. The father's testimony revealed that he 
is now married to a woman who has a young child and that he is capable of 
providing care for the child. The father's current wife is highly supportive, 
and the father wants to enjoy a relationship with the child, has a suitable 
residence, stable home and regular employment for that purpose. There was no 
evidence to refute any of this testimony and it provided a basis on which the 
district court could find as it did. We find no abuse of 
discretion.

[¶13]   As to the change of name on the 
birth certificate, Wyo. Stat. § 14-2-113(b) makes it mandatory, not permissive, 
that the district court order a new birth certificate if its finding of 
parentage is inconsistent with the present birth certificate. The district court 
did not abuse its discretion in ordering the substitution of the father's name 
on the birth certificate. The district court took into consideration that the 
mother would likely marry, in which case the child would bear a name different 
from both the mother and the father and that this would not be in the best 
interests of the child.

[¶14]   Lastly, the mother alleges the 
district court was without the authority to grant the father the tax dependency 
deduction. The person entitled to this deduction is determined by the applicable 
Internal Revenue Service regulations and is not a matter for this court to 
decide.

CONCLUSION

[¶15]   The applicable statutes confer 
subject matter jurisdiction as well as, in the circumstances of this case, 
personal jurisdiction for the district court to act as it did. There is nothing 
in the record to support the contention that the mother was coerced into 
submitting to the district court's jurisdiction and no authority for the 
proposition that her submission as a requisite to receipt of AFDC and other 
benefits amounts in law to coercion. Under the applicable statutes, the district 
court had not only the authority but the obligation to make the determinations 
it did. There was no abuse of discretion.

[¶16]   The district court is affirmed in 
all respects.

GOLDEN, J., filed a dissenting 
opinion, with which LEHMAN, C.J., joined.

Footnotes

1 The father, 
as appellee, did not submit an appellate brief.

GOLDEN, J., dissenting, with 
whom LEHMAN, C.J., joins.

[¶17]   The district court did not have 
subject matter jurisdiction over the issues of custody, visitation, name change 
or income tax deductions. Under the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act 
(UIFSA) and its predecessor acts, the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement Support Act 
(URESA) and the Revised Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement Support Act (RURESA), 
subject matter jurisdiction is limited to parentage and support issues. See In 
the Interest of R.L.H., a Child, and Concerning R.W.J., 942 P.2d 1386, 1388-89 
(Colo. Ct.App. 1997).

[¶18]   R.L.H. presented circumstances and 
issues very similar to the case at bar. The issue presented was whether, in 
proceedings brought under UIFSA, the trial court has subject matter jurisdiction 
to enter orders concerning parenting time. R.L.H., 942 P.2d  at 1387. The case 
was initiated in Nevada under URESA, the predecessor to UIFSA. Id. Pursuant to 
UIFSA, a petition was filed in Colorado, as the responding state, to determine 
parentage, child support, and arrearages. Id. The case at bar originated in 
Nebraska, the home state of the mother and child. At the request of Nebraska, 
the State of Wyoming filed a petition in Wyoming, where the father resides and 
where personal jurisdiction over the father was available.

[¶19]   R.L.H.'s father stipulated to 
paternity and the support amount, but requested an order concerning parenting 
time. Id. The Colorado trial court reasoned that, because a parentage 
determination pursuant to UIFSA requires "application" of the Uniform Parentage 
Act, the court could also determine any issues it was allowed to determine under 
the Parentage Act, which included parenting time. Id. The court commissioner in 
our case determined it had subject matter jurisdiction over any issues it could 
decide under the Parentage Act, WYO. STAT. § 14-2-101 et seq. (1997). However, 
the district court's order makes absolutely no findings of fact or conclusions 
of law concerning subject matter jurisdiction.

[¶20]   The following excerpts from R.L.H. 
are relevant and persuasive:

[I]n a URESA action, the 
authority to consider the issue of parentage was narrow and did not confer 
jurisdiction over visitation and custody issues. See In re Byard v. Byler, [74 
Ohio St.3d 294, 658 N.E.2d 735 (Ohio 1996) (URESA subject matter jurisdiction is 
limited to matters of child support)]; State v. Owens, 78 Wn. App. 897, 899 P.2d 833 (1995), aff'd, 128 Wn.2d 908, 913 P.2d 366 (1996) (purpose of URESA is to 
provide a single, convenient, and uniform interstate proceeding to obtain 
support and should not be burdened with collateral issues such as custody and 
visitation); see also People ex rel. Van Meveren v. District Court, 638 P.2d 1371 (Colo. 1982); Vigil v. Vigil, [30 Colo. App. 452, 494 P.2d 609 (Colo. App. 
1972)].

The replacement of URESA 
and RURESA by UIFSA did not expand the permissible scope of issues to be 
addressed in interstate child support enforcement proceedings. To the contrary, 
the goal of the new law was to provide mechanisms to address problems, such as 
multiple or conflicting support orders as to the same parties and children, that 
had persisted in the interstate enforcement of support under RURESA. See 
Schumacher, The Colorado Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, 23 Colo. Law. 
2535 (1994); Sampson & Kuntz, UIFSA: An Interstate Support Act for the 21st 
Century, 27 Fam. L.Q. 85 (1993).

Thus, a determination of 
custody or visitation issues is noticeably absent from the list of duties and 
powers delineated in § 14-5-305, C.R.S. (1996 Cum.Supp.), the statutory section 
of the Colorado UIFSA which, in a change from the more general language of 
RURESA, was designed to "make explicit the wide range of specific powers and 
duties of the responding tribunal." [WYO. STAT. § 20-4-155 (1997)] In fact, the 
comment to the section makes clear that visitation issues are not to be 
litigated in the context of a support proceeding. See Uniform Interstate Family 
Support Act, 9 Uniform Laws Annot. § 305 comment at 350 (1997 
Supp.).

R.L.H., 942 P.2d  
at 1388-89.

In addition, Uniform 
Interstate Family Support Act, 9 Uniform Laws Annot. § 201 (1997 Supp.), which 
sets forth the bases for jurisdiction over nonresidents, states that "the power 
to assert jurisdiction over support issues under the Act does not extend the 
tribunal's jurisdiction to other matters." See also § 14-5-314(a), C.R.S. (1996 
Cum.Supp.) [WYO. STAT. § 20-4-164(a) (1997)] (providing that participation by a 
petitioner in a UIFSA proceeding before the responding tribunal does not confer 
personal jurisdiction over that party in another 
proceeding).

* * * * * 
*

Moreover, we observe that 
an obligor remains able to establish parenting time in the same proceedings in 
which parentage and child support are sought and determined. The remedies of 
UIFSA, like those of its predecessor acts, are cumulative to remedies available 
under other law. Section 14-5-103, C.R.S. (1996 Cum. Supp.). Thus, for example, 
although such a forum may be less convenient, an obligor can opt to have the 
issues of child support, custody, and parenting time determined in the first 
instance in the child's home state.

Id. at 
1389.

[¶21]   I agree with the Colorado court 
that, under UIFSA, a responding court does not have subject matter jurisdiction 
over any issues other than paternity and child support. If the respondent to a 
UIFSA action wishes to have other issues decided at the same time, the proper 
forum is the child's home state, where determinations as to the child's best 
interests may be properly decided through the use of competent evidence 
concerning the child.

[¶22]   This case provides an excellent 
example of the need to determine other issues involving the child in the child's 
home state. The record is absolutely devoid of any evidence as to the best 
interests of the child. I am, quite frankly, at a loss as to the basis for the 
commissioner's and the district court's rulings concerning custody, visitation, 
the name change and the tax deduction.

[¶23]   Additionally, I am concerned with 
the hand-written, undated, unsigned addition of the State of Wyoming and the 
child on court documents, which appear to be a petition; with the fact that the 
record contains no copy of the petition which is signed by an attorney; and with 
the court commissioner's statement that the State of Wyoming represented the 
child in this matter, yet the State of Wyoming is the appellee in this appeal 
and the child is one of the appellants, along with his mother. The parties to an 
action and their relationship to each other are important matters, as this case 
illustrates through its apparent disregard for appropriate captions on the filed 
petitions and the resulting confusion concerning personal jurisdiction, parties, 
legal representation, and parties on appeal.

[¶24]   Our statutes provide that a child 
must be made a party to paternity actions involving that child and that the 
child must be represented by either a state agency, the child's guardian, or a 
guardian ad litem appointed by the court. WYO. STAT. § 14-2-107 (1997). It is 
unconscionable that decisions on such important issues concerning this child 
were made without any testimony or evidence about the child. The commissioner, 
and hence the district court, relied upon comments from a father who had never 
seen or spoken to his child and attorneys who never had any contact with the 
child. I am convinced that this illustrates the reasoning behind the limited 
subject matter jurisdiction given to a responding tribunal in a UIFSA 
proceeding.