Case Title: St. Hilaire v. DeBlois

Citation: 168 Vt. 445, 721 A.2d 133

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1998-10-30T00:00:00Z

Document:
St. Hilaire v. DeBlois  (97-227); 168 Vt. 445; 721 A.2d 133

[Filed 30-Oct-1998]

       NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under
  V.R.A.P. 40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont
  Reports.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions,
  Vermont Supreme Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of
  any errors in order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes
  to press.

                                 No. 97-227

                                      
Michael St. Hilaire                                Supreme Court

                                                   On Appeal from
     v.                                            Orleans Superior Court

Lisa St Hilaire DeBlois                            March Term, 1998

Alan W. Cheever, J.

       Colin R. Benjamin of Benjamin & Kazmarski, P.C., Derby, for
  Plaintiff-Appellee.

       Jim Torrisi, Derby Line, for Defendant-Appellant.

PRESENT:  Amestoy, C.J., Dooley, Morse, Johnson and Skoglund, JJ.

       JOHNSON, J.   Defendant Lisa St. Hilaire DeBlois appeals from a
  superior court judgment in favor of her former spouse, plaintiff Michael
  St. Hilaire.  The superior court ruled that DeBlois had fraudulently
  misrepresented the fact that St. Hilaire was the biological father of the
  minor children born during the marriage, and awarded damages of $15,500
  representing the amount of child support that St. Hilaire had previously
  paid under a support order in the divorce decree.  DeBlois contends, and we
  agree, that the civil fraud action was barred as an impermissible
  collateral attack on the parties' divorce judgment.  Accordingly,  we
  reverse.

       The parties were married in 1983.  DeBlois gave birth to a daughter in
  1986, and a second daughter in 1990.  The parties separated in 1992, and a
  final order and decree of divorce was entered in March 1993.  The divorce
  judgment awarded sole physical rights and responsibilities for the children
  to DeBlois, and awarded shared legal rights and responsibilities to DeBlois
  and St. Hilaire. St. Hilaire voluntarily paid child support of $50 per week
  from April to July 1992, and thereafter, by court order, paid child support
  of approximately $97 per week until June of 1995.  In that month, he filed
  a motion for genetic testing with the Orleans Family

 

  Court, alleging by affidavit that he had known or suspected "for  some
  time" prior to the divorce that he was not the children's  biological
  father.  DeBlois filed a responsive affidavit acknowledging that St.
  Hilaire was not the children's biological  father.  In July, based on the
  parties' stipulation, the family  court dismissed the motion for genetic
  testing and vacated all previous child support orders.

       The following month, St. Hilaire filed this separate fraud action in
  the Orleans Superior Court.  Following a bench trial, the court found that
  DeBlois had knowingly and intentionally misrepresented that St. Hilaire was
  the children's  biological father, that St. Hilaire did not have the
  correct information until DeBlois acknowledged his non-paternity in June of
  1995, and that St. Hilaire had relied on the misrepresentations to his
  detriment.  Accordingly, the court ruled that St. Hilaire was entitled to
  recover the previously paid $15,500 in child support.  This appeal
  followed.

       As we observed in Tudhope v. Riehle, ___ Vt. ___,