Title: Sabers v. Sabers

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

Sabers v. Sabers1999 WY 39976 P.2d 680Case Number: 98-207Decided: 04/14/1999Supreme Court of Wyoming

JOHNNA F. SABERS, Appellant (Plaintiff-Obligee),

v.

RANDY LEE SABERS, 
Appellee (Defendant-Obligor).

 

Appeal from the District 
Court of Natrona County, The Honorable Dan Spangler, 
Judge.

William U. Hill, 
Attorney General; Michael L. Hubbard, Deputy Attorney General; and Harry D. 
Ivey, Special Assistant Attorney General, for 
Appellant.

No appearance, 
representing Appellee.

Before 
LEHMAN, C.J., and THOMAS, MACY, and GOLDEN, JJ., and HARTMAN, 
D.J.

PER 
CURIAM.

[¶1]      The State of 
Wyoming, representing the Natrona County Child Support Authority (Authority) as 
the custodial parent's assignee for the receipt of child support payments, 
appeals the district court's determination that it lacked in personam 
jurisdiction over the supporting parent. Appellee, Randy Lee Sabers, did not 
file a brief. In light of Wyoming law and this court's decision in Hurlbut v. 
Scarbrough, 957 P.2d 839 (Wyo. 1998), we reverse and 
remand.

[¶2]      When the parties 
were divorced in Wyoming in 1987, the decree of divorce awarded custody to 
Johnna Francene Sabers (Mother), and Randy Lee Sabers (Father) was required to 
pay two hundred dollars a month in support. The Mother subsequently assigned the 
child support rights to the Authority.

[¶3]      On February 27, 
1997, the Authority filed a petition to modify the child support payments and to 
collect arrears of unpaid support owed by Father. Father, who had moved out of 
state, was personally served with the petition on March 12, 1997, in Moab, Utah. 
The Father did not answer the petition and, on February 5, 1998, the Authority 
filed, for the second time, a Motion to Compel and Motion for Sanctions/Attorney 
Fees. The defendant was personally served in Moab, Utah with the Authority's 
motions and a notice setting the matter for hearing on February 23, 1998. The 
district court, sua sponte, raised the issue of in personam jurisdiction over 
the Father and issued an order on May 21, 1998, denying the Authority's motions 
pursuant to Duncan v. Duncan, 776 P.2d 758 (Wyo. 1989) (citing Rodgers v. 
Rodgers, 627 P.2d 1381 (Wyo. 1981)). The Authority moved for a reconsideration 
based on this court's decision in Hurlbut, 957 P.2d 839. The district court 
denied the motion for reconsideration on the basis that Hurlbut did not overrule 
Duncan. The Authority, through the State of Wyoming, now 
appeals.

[¶4]      In Hurlbut, the 
parties were married, lived, and subsequently divorced in Platte County, 
Wyoming. 937 P.2d  at 841. On appeal, the father contended that personal service 
made outside of Wyoming was not sufficient to give Wyoming courts personal 
jurisdiction over him and that any continuing and exclusive jurisdiction 
belonging to the Wyoming courts was lost when a Utah court exercised its 
jurisdiction in terminating his parental rights. Id. It will be instructive to 
quote at length from our response to the father's 
contention:

We considered 
this jurisdictional issue in Graham v. Fenno, 734 P.2d 983 (Wyo. 1987). In that 
case, the parties were granted a divorce on November 3, 1971, in Wyoming. 734 P.2d  at 984. The divorce decree required the husband to pay child support for 
the parties' three children. Id. In 1986, the wife petitioned a Wyoming district 
court for an order to show cause why the husband should not be held in contempt 
for failing to pay child support. Id. The district court issued an order to show 
cause, and the order was personally served on the husband in Fort Collins, 
Colorado. Id. The husband filed a motion to dismiss the district court's order, 
claiming that the district court lacked in personam jurisdiction over him. 
Id.

This Court 
acknowledged that the existence of personal jurisdiction "`depends upon the 
presence of reasonable notice to the defendant that an action has been brought, 
and a sufficient connection between the defendant and the forum State to make it 
fair to require defense of the action in the forum.'" 734 P.2d  at 984 (quoting 
Kulko v. Superior Court of California in and for City and County of San 
Francisco, 436 U.S. 84, 91, 98 S. Ct. 1690, 1696, 56 L. Ed. 2d 132 (1978) 
(citations omitted)). We explained that, if this contempt proceeding had been an 
original action, the minimum contacts precedent might have applied, but, because 
the order to show cause stemmed from an earlier proceeding, the jurisdictional 
principle that a defendant must have minimum contacts with the forum state so 
that maintaining a suit would not offend the traditional notions of fair play 
and substantial justice was not applicable. Id. That principle applied only to 
the district court's jurisdiction in the original divorce proceeding. 734 P.2d  
at 985.

We have the same 
situation in the case at bar. We reiterate our rule of law that a court which 
obtains proper jurisdiction over a divorce action retains jurisdiction to modify 
or enforce the support provisions of the decree. Id. "Once jurisdiction 
attaches, the district court's power over [the father's] person continues until 
all matters arising out of that litigation are resolved." 734 P.2d  at 985-86. 
The father, therefore, is still subject to this state's jurisdiction in matters 
which pertain to the original divorce action.

957 P.2d  at 
841-42.

[¶5]      The situation in 
this case is indistinguishable from that in Hurlbut or Graham. The district 
court's reliance on our decisions in Duncan v. Duncan, 776 P.2d 758 and Rodgers 
v. Rodgers, 627 P.2d 1381 was erroneous. In Duncan, we specifically noted in our 
opinion that the district court retained continuing jurisdiction to modify the 
custody and support aspects of the divorce decree. 776 P.2d  at 759. Our 
conclusion in Duncan that the district court lacked personal jurisdiction over 
the wife was based on a determination that service of process had been 
ineffective. 776 P.2d  at 759-60. In Rodgers, we also concluded that the district 
court did not have in personam jurisdiction over the wife since she had been 
served in Florida and the divorce decree setting child support and custody had 
been entered by a court in Alaska. 627 P.2d  at 1382-84. Both of these cases are 
clearly distinguishable from the case at bar and are not relevant to the issue 
at hand.

[¶6]      Pursuant to this 
state's long-standing rule of law that a court which has obtained proper 
jurisdiction over a divorce action retains jurisdiction to modify or enforce the 
support provisions of the decree, we conclude that the district court could 
properly exercise in personam jurisdiction over the Father. We reverse and 
remand this matter to the district court for a consideration of the Authority's 
motions on their merits and for any other action necessary to the resolution of 
the proceedings.