Opinion ID: 1647534
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: child custody and support

Text: The first summarized assignment of error urges that the district court erred in granting joint custody of the younger daughter, arguing that sole custody should have been granted to the wife, with appropriate child support. We begin our review of this summarized assignment by noting that the district court erroneously concluded that the Alaska decree was effective and binding in regard to child support. We agree with the statement in Schaff v. Schaff, 446 N.W.2d 28, 31 (N.D.1989), that if the parties to a divorce decree remarry each other, they no longer have separate rights of custody and separate obligations for future support; rather, the same joint rights to custody and joint obligations for future support which antedated the divorce are resumed. See, also, Davis v. Davis, 68 Cal.2d 290, 437 P.2d 502, 66 Cal.Rptr. 14 (1968); In re Marriage of Root, 774 S.W.2d 521 (Mo. App.1989); Oliphant v. Oliphant, 177 Ark. 613, 7 S.W.2d 783 (1928); Cain v. Garner, 169 Ky. 633, 185 S.W. 122 (1916); Lockard v. Lockard, 49 Ohio Op. 163, 102 N.E.2d 747 (1951); Jenkins v. Followell, 262 P.2d 880 (Okla.1953); Slape v. Slape, 553 S.W.2d 171 (Tex.Civ.App.1977); Warren v. Warren, 213 Ga. 81, 97 S.E.2d 349 (1957). In In re Marriage of Root, supra , the court wrote at 774 S.W.2d at 523: It would be absurd to hold that once parents remarry each other and the family is again intact and residing in the same household, the former noncustodial parent must pay future installments of child support to the other parent per the past divorce decree. That is to say, the remarriage should terminate the former noncustodial parent's duty to pay any child support that would have become due after the remarriage. (Emphasis in original.) Indeed, Scheibel v. Scheibel, 204 Neb. 653, 284 N.W.2d 572 (1979), implies that child support obligations terminate upon remarriage of the parties. The parties therein were divorced and the decree required the father to pay $25 per month in child support. Six years later, the parties remarried and again divorced, at which time the mother brought suit against the father to collect arrearages for child support claimed to have occurred between the first divorce and the second marriage. This court affirmed the mother's right to collect the delinquent amount, thereby leading to the inference that once parties remarry, the former child support order is moot, while any deficiencies prior to the marriage are collectible. See Annot., 26 A.L.R.4th 325 (1983). When the parties to this action remarried in 1984, all future child support obligations under the Alaska decree were terminated. The fact that $200 continued to be automatically withdrawn from the husband's paycheck and placed into a private account for the wife cannot be interpreted as a continuation of the child support. At the moment of their remarriage, the $200 transfer became simply that, a transfer. It was no longer in satisfaction of any legal or courtenforced obligation. That having been developed, we turn our attention to what should have been done.