Case Title: Livingston v. Vanderiet

Citation: 

Docket Number: 93-47

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 1993-10-11T00:00:00Z

Document:
Livingston v. Vanderiet1993 WY 131861 P.2d 549Case Number: 93-47Decided: 10/11/1993Supreme Court of Wyoming
Eugene 
L. LIVINGSTON, 

Appellant 
(Defendant-Obligor),

v.

 Janet VANDERIET, 

Appellee 
(Plaintiff-Obligee).

Appeal 
from The District Court, Natrona County, Dan Spangler, J.

Donald 
L. Painter, Casper, for appellant.

Eric 
A. Easton, Natrona County Atty., Casper, for 
appellee.

Before 
MACY, C.J., and THOMAS, CARDINE, GOLDEN and TAYLOR, 
JJ.

THOMAS, 
Justice.

[¶1]      The sole question 
in this case is whether a defendant in a proceeding to enforce payment of child 
support brought under the Revised Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act 
(URESA) is entitled to have paternity established according to the procedures 
set forth in WYO. STAT. § 14-2-109(a) (1986).1 The defendant was married to the 
mother of the child and, in a decree of divorce entered in a Utah court, he was 
ordered to pay the child support. The Utah decree encompassed a finding that the 
child was the minor child of the parties. In this case, the trial court denied 
the defendant's request to reopen the question of paternity. We hold the 
decision of the trial court is justified by the full faith and credit clause of 
the Constitution of the United States, the concept of res judicata, and 
precedent in the state of Wyoming. The trial court's order requiring the 
defendant to pay the child support is affirmed.

[¶2]      Eugene L. 
Livingston (Livingston), the ex-husband, in his Appellant's Brief, stated the 
issue in this way:

1. 
Whether Appellant is entitled to a paternity blood test to determine his 
paternity of the child which is the subject of this 
action.

Janet 
Vanderiet (Vanderiet), the mother and ex-wife, incorporated two issues in her 
Brief of Appellee:

1. 
Whether appellant is entitled to a paternity blood test to determine his 
paternity of the child.

2. 
Whether courts in the state of Wyoming have jurisdiction to determine paternity 
in this matter.

[¶3]      A child was born 
to Vanderiet on May 16, 1979, approximately six and one-half months prior to the 
marriage of Livingston and Vanderiet on November 3, 1979, in Elko, Nevada. They 
subsequently were divorced in the District Court of the Third Judicial District 
of the State of Utah in and for Salt Lake County, with the decree being entered 
on April 20, 1982. The Utah decree of divorce, in awarding custody of the child 
to Vanderiet, described the child as the "minor child of the parties" and 
ordered Livingston to pay child support in the amount of $150 per month 
commencing May 1, 1982.

[¶4]      An action was 
filed in Utah on February 13, 1987 pursuant to URESA. On October 19, 1988, a 
URESA petition was filed in Wyoming where Livingston apparently was residing. 
The Wyoming URESA action remained on the docket until September 9, 1992, when a 
summons and petition were served on Livingston. Livingston then answered the 
petition with a general denial of the allegations, and he specifically denied 
paternity. A hearing was held in that action on January 20, 1993, with both 
parties appearing with counsel. The court entered an order denying Livingston's 
request to reopen the issue of paternity and directing him to pay $150 per month 
in child support as originally decreed by the court in Utah. Livingston has 
taken his appeal from that order.

[¶5]      The URESA statute 
under which this case was instituted is found at WYO. STAT. §§ 20-4-101 to -138 
(1987). WYO. STAT. § 20-4-101 articulates the purpose of this 
legislation:

     The purposes of this 
act [§§ 20-4-101 to 20-4-138] are to improve and extend by reciprocal 
legislation the enforcement of duties of support.

We 
have said in this regard:

The 
mischief the Act was intended to cure was the nonpayment of child support. More 
specifically, the URESA was intended to provide an inexpensive, simplified and 
effective means of enforcing the duty of support owed by the obligor in one 
state to the obligee in another state. Clarkston v. Bridge, 273 Or. 68, 539 P.2d 1094, 81 A.L.R.3d 1166 (1975).

Bjugan 
v. Bjugan, 710 P.2d 213, 218 (Wyo. 1985).

[¶6]      With respect to 
paternity, the Wyoming URESA statutes says:

If 
the obligor asserts as a defense that he is not the father of the child for whom 
support is sought and it appears to the court that the defense is not frivolous, 
and if both of the parties are present at the hearing or the proof required in 
the case indicates that the presence of either or both of the parties is not 
necessary, the court shall adjudicate the paternity issue pursuant to W.S. 
14-2-101 through 14-2-120. Otherwise the court shall continue the hearing until 
the paternity issue has been adjudicated.

Wyo. 
Stat. § 20-4-127 (1987).

Livingston's 
claim is that he is entitled to have paternity established by the procedure set 
forth in WYO. STAT. § 14-2-109(a). He argues that, under the plain and specific 
language of this statute, he is entitled to a blood test in order to establish 
his paternity.

[¶7]      We are satisfied 
that Livingston's contention is foreclosed by the full faith and credit clause 
of the Constitution of the United States of America.2 Furthermore, the argument is 
foreclosed by the doctrine of res judicata. If those two legal hurdles 
were not adequate, the argument is foreclosed in any event by Wyoming 
precedent.

[¶8]      We have held that 
a decree of divorce granted by one state having the jurisdiction to do so is 
entitled to full faith and credit, under the constitutional provision, in every 
other state. Matter of Fray, 721 P.2d 1054 (Wyo. 1986) (citing Johnson v. 
Muelberger, 340 U.S. 581, 71 S. Ct. 474, 95 L. Ed. 552 (1951)). The public policy 
behind the recognition of judicial proceedings, in this case the Utah decree of 
divorce, by another state has been summarized in this way:

The 
Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme 
Court of the United States finally determines the conditions under which the 
decrees of courts in one state are to be recognized in other states. In these 
days of a mobile population it is highly desirable, if not essential, for a 
divorce decree to be unchallengable in all states. For this reason the 
limitation found in the Full Faith and Credit Clause, though it purports only to 
affect recognition in other states, is in practice nearly as effective in 
defining the boundaries of divorce court jurisdiction as the state statutes 
which actually set those boundaries.

Clark, 
The Law of Domestic Relations in the United States, § 11.2, p. 287 
(1968).

Fray, 
721 P.2d  at 1058.

[¶9]      In the court in 
Utah, Livingston and Vanderiet were granted a divorce pursuant to the decree 
entered on April 20, 1982. The decree found that the child for whom support is 
sought is the "minor child of the parties." Livingston has made no effort to 
demonstrate any invalidity in the Utah decree of divorce nor any showing that it 
could be voided. Fray. In the absence of such a showing, we hold that the 
determination of the Utah court must be afforded full faith and credit in the 
URESA proceeding in Wyoming.

[¶10]   Turning to the second justification 
for affirming the trial court, the four criteria used to determine the 
applicability of res judicata are:

(1) 
the parties were identical; (2) the subject matter was identical; (3) the issues 
were the same and related to the subject matter; and (4) the capacities of the 
persons were identical in reference to both the subject matter and the issues 
between them.

CSP 
v. DDC, 842 P.2d 528, 532-33 (Wyo. 1992), and Matter of Paternity of JRW, 814 P.2d 1256, 1265 (Wyo. 1991) (quoting Matter of Estate of Newell, 765 P.2d 1353, 
1355 (Wyo. 1988)). See also Harshfield v. Harshfield, 842 P.2d 535, 537 (Wyo. 
1992).

[¶11]   The criteria are satisfied in this 
case. First, Livingston and Vanderiet are the identical parties who were 
litigating the divorce proceeding. Second, the divorce proceeding ordered 
Livingston to pay child support after finding that the child for whom support is 
sought is the "minor child of the parties." Third, the question of paternity and 
child support were directly involved in the Utah divorce case. Fourth, both 
parties had the same fundamental interests in determination of paternity in the 
divorce proceeding. It follows, ineluctably, that Livingston's claim would be 
foreclosed under the doctrine of res judicata.

[¶12]   Finally, we turn to our Wyoming law 
in this area. In JRW, we interpreted the language of WYO. STAT. § 14-2-109(a), 
in this way:

While 
genetic testing, appointment of a guardian ad litem and an informal hearing are 
mandatory in the case of an initial, contested paternity determination, the Act 
does not mandate that the same procedures be used when paternity has already 
been established with the consent of the parties in a prior adjudication. We 
read nothing in the Parentage Act which requires full procedural compliance with 
the Act before the question of paternity is resolved.

JRW, 
814 P.2d  at 1261.

We 
cited Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U.S. 110, 109 S. Ct. 2333, 105 L. Ed. 2d 91, 
reh'g denied, 492 U.S. 937, 110 S. Ct. 22, 106 L. Ed. 2d 634 (1989), and we 
concluded that the presumption of legitimacy is actually a substantive rule of 
law based on an overriding social policy derived from the relationship of a 
presumed father and the child at the time of birth. We said, 
categorically:

Applying 
the reasoning in Michael H. to this case, if we grant the appellant the right to 
compel genetic testing, we effectively deny the children's protected interests 
in having their legitimacy presumed under the Act. The balance between the 
children's protected right not to be "bastardiz[ed]" outweighs the father's 
interest in ascertaining paternity more than two years after acknowledging the 
same.

JRW, 
814 P.2d  at 1262 (citations omitted).

[¶13]   In JRW, the issue was whether a 
presumed father could raise the question of paternity more than two years after 
his divorce from the child's natural mother. Invoking the doctrines of res 
judicata, collateral estoppel, and judicial estoppel, and because the father 
had failed to bring his paternity contest within a reasonable time, we held the 
father's claim that neither of the two minor children were his was barred. JRW. 
In that case, like this case, one of the children had been born prior to the 
marriage between the mother and the presumed father.

[¶14]   There are certain requirements for 
a presumption of paternity under the Uniform Parentage Act, and they 
include:

(a) 
A man is presumed to be the natural father of a child if:

* 
* * * * *

(iii) 
After the child's birth, he and the child's natural mother married * * *; 
and:

(A) 
He has acknowledged his paternity of the child in writing filed with the state 
office of vital records services; or

(B) 
With his consent, he is named as the child's father on the child's birth 
certificate; or 

(C) 
He is obligated to support the child under a written voluntary promise or by 
court order * * *.

WYO. 
STAT. § 14-2-102 (1986).

This 
record demonstrates that Livingston is the presumed father of the child under 
this statute by virtue of the fact that he married Vanderiet and became 
obligated to pay child support in the Utah divorce decree.

[¶15]   Livingston's rights to contest 
paternity under the Uniform Parentage Act are found in WYO. STAT. § 14-2-104 
(1986):

(a) 
A child, his natural mother or a man presumed to be his father under W.S. 
14-2-102(a)(i), (ii) or (iii) may bring action:

* 
* * * * *

(ii) 
For the purpose of declaring the nonexistence of the father and child 
relationship presumed under W.S. 14-2-102(a)(i), (ii) or (iii) only if the 
action is brought within a reasonable time after obtaining knowledge of relevant 
facts, but in no event later than five (5) years after the child's 
birth.

It 
is clear that not only has Livingston satisfied the statutory requirements for a 
presumption of paternity, but he is barred from the paternity action due to the 
tolling of the statute of limitations.

[¶16]   In JRW, the presumed father brought 
the paternity action within five years of the birth of both children, but he 
waited more than two years after that fact before pursuing the action. We said 
waiting for two years was not a "reasonable time." In this case, Livingston 
denied he was a parent of the subject minor child in his answer dated September 
30, 1992, more than ten years after the divorce decree, when the child was 
approximately thirteen years of age. If Wyoming law were to control the 
resolution of this case, Livingston has no recourse.

[¶17]   We hold that, under the full faith 
and credit clause of the Constitution of the United States, the decision of the 
trial court must be affirmed. For the edification of the bench and bar, we also 
conclude the case could have been resolved under the doctrine of res judicata or 
under appropriate Wyoming precedent. The trial court's order requiring 
Livingston to pay the child support is affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1 WYO. STAT. § 14-2-109(a) (1986) provides:

The court may, and upon request of a party shall, require the child, 
mother or alleged father to submit to blood tests. The tests shall be performed 
by an expert qualified as an examiner of blood types appointed by the 
court.

2 U.S. CONST. art. IV § 1 provides, in pertinent 
part:

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, 
Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other 
State.