Opinion ID: 2585502
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: certiorari previously granted; court of civil appeals opinion vacated; judgment of the trial court affirmed.

Text: WATT, C.J., LAVENDER, KAUGER, SUMMERS, WINCHESTER, JJ., concur. HARGRAVE, J., concurs in result. OPALA, V.C.J., HODGES (who joins OPALA), BOUDREAU, JJ., concur in part; dissent in part. OPALA, V.C.J., dissenting in part. I concur in affirming the trial court's order that exonerates Mother of liability for child support arrearage; I dissent from leaving undisturbed the trial court's order that imposes on Father the liability for payment of Mother's counsel-fee services. I would let each party bear its own expenses for legal representation in the case. BOUDREAU, J., concurring in part; dissenting in part: ¶ 1 I agree with the majority opinion to the extent it allows the mother an equitable credit against her child support obligation, in the amount of social security disability payments which the Social Security Administration paid directly to the child as a consequence of the mother's disability. [1] The majority opinion need not have gone farther than that. Instead, the majority opinion proceeds to make a hyper-global pronouncement by way of obiter dicta that child support judgments are subject to the equitable defenses of waiver, estoppel and laches. ¶ 2 In Hedges v. Hedges, 2002 OK 92, 66 P.3d 364, our most recent decision concerning the availability of equitable defenses to child support judgments, we restrained from making a pronouncement about the availability of equitable defenses to child support judgments because no such pronouncement was necessary to the holding. See also Myers v. Lashley, 2002 OK 14, ¶ 17, 44 P.3d 553, 561 (not making global pronouncements). In exercising this restraint in Hedges, we said: We need not globally address ourselves today to the continued invocability of laches as an equitable defense in arrearage enforcement proceedings. This is so because, on this record, we hold that it does not avail in this case. Hedges, 66 P.3d at 369 (emphasis in original). Contrary to what we did in Hedges, the majority opinion in this case makes an across-the-board pronouncement on an issue that was neither necessary to the holding nor clearly framed by the parties. ¶ 3 If the holding of the majority opinion in this case is indeed that child support judgments are subject to the equitable defenses of waiver, laches and estoppel, then I dissent. In 1987 the Legislature enacted a statute that says a child support obligation becomes a judgment by operation of law on the date it becomes past due. 43 O.S.2001 § 137(A). [2] The result of that statute was to transform an order in equity for the payment of continuing child support into a judgment by operation of law as each installment falls due and remains unpaid. Hedges, 66 P.3d at 373 n. 41. When § 137(A) is viewed in connection with subsequent enactments, I am convinced that the Legislature intended to eliminate the equitable defenses of waiver, laches and estoppel to the enforcement of child support judgments.