Opinion ID: 1057970
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Merger into the Decree of the 21% Provision

Text: We next turn to the issue of whether the 21% provision may be subject to modification by the trial court. An MDA is a contract that generally is subject to the rules governing construction of contracts. Johnson v. Johnson, 37 S.W.3d 892, 896 (Tenn.2001). Parents, however, have an independent legal duty to support their minor children. See Tenn.Code Ann. § 34-1-102(a), (b) (2001); Hopkins v. Hopkins, 152 S.W.3d 447, 449 (Tenn.2004). An agreement between parties with respect to, dealing with, or within the scope of the legal duty to support their children during minority loses its contractual nature when merged into a divorce decree. Penland v. Penland, 521 S.W.2d 222, 224-25 (Tenn.1975); see Blackburn v. Blackburn, 526 S.W.2d 463, 465 (Tenn.1975). Because the provision merges into the decree, the child support obligation is subject to modification by the trial court. See Penland, 521 S.W.2d at 224; see also Tenn.Code Ann. § 36-5-101(a) (Supp.2003) (authorizing a trial court to modify child support obligations). If the parties agree to extend child support beyond the child's minority, however, that portion of the agreement is not merged into the final decree of divorce, retains its contractual nature, and is subject to the general rules of contract interpretation. See, e.g., Penland, 521 S.W.2d at 224-25 (holding that an agreement to pay all of the child's future educational expenses beyond the high school level was an obligation that continued beyond the child's minority and retained its contractual nature); Pylant v. Spivey, 174 S.W.3d 143, 151 (Tenn.Ct.App.2003) (concluding that an agreement in an MDA regarding the payment of a child's college expenses is outside the parents' legal duty to support their child during minority and retains its contractual nature); Bryan v. Leach, 85 S.W.3d 136, 151-52 (Tenn.Ct. App.2001) (holding that an agreement to pay support until the child reaches the age of twenty-two and college expenses is not modifiable but that the portion of the agreement relating to the child support obligation during the child's minority may be modified by the trial court); Richardson v. Richardson, 969 S.W.2d 931, 934 (Tenn.Ct.App.1997) (concluding that an agreement disbursing the corpus of a trust that the father agreed to fund during the child's minority to the child once the child was past minority retained its contractual nature). Any subsequent modification by a trial court of an agreement that retains its contractual nature would violate the constitutional prohibition against the impairment of contractual obligations. Blackburn, 526 S.W.2d at 465 (citing Tenn. Const. art. 1, § 20). In the present case, the Court of Appeals held that Mr. Kesser's obligation pursuant to the 21% provision was contractual and not subject to modification by the trial court because the parties agreed to a greater child support obligation than required by the Guidelines. This holding ignores the language in Penland that agreements with respect to, within the scope of, or dealing with support during a child's minority are merged into the trial court's decree. See Penland, 521 S.W.2d at 224-25. We are unpersuaded that the advent of the Child Support Guidelines changes this analysis. Parents have always been free to provide more support than may be awarded by a trial court. Similarly, parents may agree to provide more child support than the base amount required under the Guidelines. See Barnett v. Barnett, 27 S.W.3d 904, 906-07 (Tenn.2000) (enforcing a father's agreement to pay for all of his child's private school tuition in addition to the base amount required by the Guidelines). By so doing, an obligor does not pay support that is outside the Guidelines. To the contrary, the additional amount of child support paid by the obligor continues to be with respect to, dealing with, or within the scope of the legal duty to support his children during minority. See, e.g., Wade v. Wade, 115 S.W.3d 917, 921 n. 2 (Tenn. Ct.App.2002) (holding that a court-approved agreement in which the father paid child support exceeding the required Guideline amount was merged into the final decree of divorce, lost its contractual nature, and was subject to modification by the trial court). We conclude that any agreement between the parents regarding the payment of child support of a minor child is within the legal obligation to support the minor child and, therefore, is subject to court modification once the agreement is merged into a divorce decree. In the present case, the 21% provision in the MDA related to the payment of child support for the parties' minor child during the child's minority and, therefore, was within Mr. Kesser's legal obligation to support the minor child. When the trial court approved the agreement and incorporated the MDA into the final decree of divorce, the 21% provision merged into the divorce decree, lost its contractual nature, and became subject to modification by the trial court.