Opinion ID: 2549213
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: summary of my views in concurrence

Text: ¶ 21 Constitutional omnicompetence of the district court is not subject to legislative abridgement. The district court's unlimited jurisdiction includes the authority to resolve extra-statutory status- or promise-related issues generated by a decree-approved, on-the-record interparental agreement for post-majority support of a disabled child of the marriage. The issues settled by an interspousal agreement, though expanding the divorce suit's range of cognizable matters, neither defeat the court's subject-matter jurisdiction nor make the suit unqualified for processing upon the family-and-domestic docket as a post-decree dispute. The district court's authority extends to those issues, arising after the divorce decree, which were generated by an approved (and memorialized) mid-divorce agreement imposing on Father a duty to support his disabled adult child. ¶ 22 The parties in a divorce suit may expand the litigation's scope by injecting into the decisional process extra-statutory issues generated by their approved agreement which settles some or all marital rights in controversy. The district court's constitution-derived omnicompetent cognizance that unquestionably includes divorce suits may not be circumscribed by resort to pre 1857 English-law restrictions (once attached to ecclesiastical divorce judicature and to the now-defunct authority of the British Parliament to dissolve marriages by special acts). [49] Nonprecedential pre-statehood jurisprudence that would make the district court impotent to consider any divorce-related issues outside of those specifically sanctioned by legislation cannot be regarded as a correct exposition of present-day Oklahoma law. ¶ 23 Settled common-law contract jurisprudence firmly militates against declaring Father's assumed obligation unenforceable because his promise was not in a definite amount. The case presents no real challenge to the trial judge's jurisdiction over Mother's post-decree child-support quest. The decree-imposed obligation is now invulnerable to any attack for want of jurisdiction other than one pressed on grounds of facial invalidity. The record for this certiorari review presents no facial appearance of any fatal jurisdictional flaw. Even an apparent mistake of law would not taint the judgment roll by an imprint of facial invalidity. If ordinary error were to become a facial jurisdictional infirmity no judgment would be safe from delayed and unwarranted attack. Public policy calls on this court to stabilize judgments and protect them from unauthorized assaults. The district court is not divested of jurisdiction to entertain Mother's quest for enforcement of Father's decree-imposed duty. District courts have jurisdiction of actions that are barred by limitations as well as of those in which enforceability of a decree is sought to be defeated on jurisdictional grounds. ¶ 24 This case is not at all about want of jurisdiction but rather about enforceability of Father's decree-imposed duty to support his disabled adult child. Even if, as Father urges, his decree-imposed duty were jurisdictionally flawed, the district court would have jurisdiction to accept or reject that defense. The trial court's dismissal for want of jurisdiction was clearly erroneous and must be reversed even if the nisi prius court, by its ruling's confusing phraseology, meant to accept Father's jurisdictional challenge. For the latter disposition there is here a total absence of record-supported facial invalidity. ¶ 25 I hence concur in reversing the nisi prius order and remanding the cause for post-remand proceedings to be consistent with today's pronouncement BOUDREAU, J., with whom LAVENDER and WINCHESTER, JJ., join, dissenting: ¶ 1 I dissent because there is a major difference between enforcing an agreement between a husband and wife that obligates one or the other to pay child support after a child reaches majority, and enforcing an agreement which attempts to vest the court with jurisdiction to determine a child support obligation after the child reaches majority. Enforcing the latter agreement impermissibly allows the parties to confer jurisdiction upon the court to pronounce a particular decision that the Legislature has not currently extended to the court. ¶ 2 In this case, the trial court correctly determined that the parties did not enter into a legally enforceable agreement as to the terms of their obligations after the child reaches majority. They merely agreed that the court would retain jurisdiction to decide a post-minority application for child support. Their agreement reads, in pertinent part: IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED by the Court that the Defendant shall pay child support in the amount of Four Hundred Dollars ($400.00), deviated from the child support guidelines, attached hereto as Exhibit A, as agreed upon by the parties. Due to the special needs of the minor child, the parties have agreed to leave the child support open after the minor child reaches the age of eighteen (18) and/or completes high school, and the Court will retain jurisdiction for either party to file an application for further support based upon the specific needs and requirements of the minor child, if any. (emphasis added). ¶ 3 While a court may have general jurisdiction of the subject matter of a class of actions, it does not necessarily follow that the court may hear and determine a particular case submitted for its consideration. A court must have the judicial power to decide a particular matter and to render a particular judgment in order to pronounce a valid judgment. Stork v. Stork, 1995 OK 61, 898 P.2d 732, 738 n. 17; Petty v. Roberts, 1939 OK 560, 98 P.2d 602; Isenhower v. Isenhower, 1983 OK CIV APP 12, 666 P.2d 238. The parties may not confer upon the court the jurisdiction to pronounce a particular decision it enters. [1] ¶ 4 Divorce was not recognized at common law, where divorces were either ecclesiastically or legislatively granted. The right to divorce is recognized as purely a creature of statute. Chapman v. Parr, 1974 OK 46, 521 P.2d 799; Williams v. Williams, 1975 OK 163, 543 P.2d 1401, 1403. Accordingly, all rights of parties with respect to divorce are fixed by the statutory law of the state. ¶ 5 The relevant statute in this case provides: Any child shall be entitled to support by the parents until the child reaches eighteen (18) years of age. If a dependent child is regularly and continuously attending high school, said child shall be entitled to support by the parents through the age of eighteen (18) years. 43 O.S. Supp.1993 § 112(D) (eff. June 7, 1993). ¶ 6 In enacting this statute, the Legislature limited the authority of the trial court to issue a child support order. The authority of the trial court comes to an end when a child reaches eighteen years of age (or later, if the child is regularly and continuously attending high school) and the court has no power to make or continue a provision for child support thereafter. Certainly the Legislature can extend the trial court's authority if it so desires, Lookout v. Lookout, 1974 OK CIV APP 21, 526 P.2d 1405, but that power resides only with Legislature, not with the parties. ¶ 7 The concurring opinion goes to great lengths to stress that Oklahoma allows judicial approval of consent decrees that confer upon the parties greater post-marital rights than those defined by statute. This proposition of law cannot be seriously contested. Unquestionably the parties in a divorce action may, by agreement, expand the issues beyond what a trial court could. Whitehead v. Whitehead, 1999 OK 91, 995 P.2d 1098; Kittredge v. Kittredge, 1995 OK 30, 911 P.2d 903. Likewise, there is no doubt that a parent can bind himself or herself by agreement to support a child beyond minority. However, that agreement may be enforced by the court only if the parties intend the agreement to be final and binding and only if the agreement leaves nothing for determination by the court on the question of the terms of the obligation. See Whitehead, 995 P.2d at 1101. [2] ¶ 8 Before today, we had held that a trial court retains jurisdiction in a divorce action to enforce the parties' agreement that the wife would receive a certain percentage of the husband's future income in lieu of property division. Kittredge, supra . We had also held that a trial court retains jurisdiction to enforce the parties' agreement that the wife would receive $650.00 per month ... for such period as [the husband] continues to draw employment or retirement income from Burlington Northern and Army retirement. Whitehead, supra . In both Kittredge and Whitehead, the parties entered into a final agreement that left nothing for determination by the court on the question of the terms of the agreement. ¶ 9 Today, the majority opinion seems to say there is no difference between what the parties agreed to in Kittredge and Whitehead and what the parties agreed to in this case. In my view there is a major difference. In the former cases, the parties entered into fully executed agreements which left the trial court with nothing to do but enforce the agreed terms. In this case, the parties left the terms of their post-minority child support obligations open for the court to decide after the child reached majority. ¶ 10 While a trial court may approve and enforce any type of issue-expanding agreement offered by the parties in a divorce case, the trial court may not determine issues beyond the scope of its statutory authority, even when the parties attempt to confer such power on the court. ¶ 11 The concurring opinion argues that if there is an infirmity in the decree, it would at most constitute legal error rather than a jurisdictional-vitiating defect. I respectfully disagree. The critical clause in the decree, in my opinion, constitutes more than legal error or the erroneous exercise of judicial authority. It attempts to vest the court with a power that is not provided by statute. In this situation, jurisdiction is wanting. ¶ 12 The trial court's decision is void for lack of jurisdiction because the face of the judgment roll reveals that at least one of the three elements of jurisdiction is lacking, the judicial power to pronounce the particular decision that was entered. Stork v. Stork, 1995 OK 61, 898 P.2d 732, 738. [3] Accordingly, the decision may be attacked at any time in the same case or by an independent action. Halliburton Oil Producing Co. v. Grothaus, 1998 OK 110, 981 P.2d 1244, 1249. ¶ 13 In sum, a parent can bind himself or herself by agreement to support a child beyond minority, but the parents cannot confer jurisdiction on a court to decide, after the child has reached majority, the terms of post-minority child support. In the case in controversy, the trial court accurately apprehended that the parties did not enter into an agreement as to the terms of the their obligations after the child reaches majority, but merely agreed that the court could retain jurisdiction to decide their post-minority application for child support. The trial court correctly determined that it had no jurisdiction to decide the issue. ¶ 14 I would affirm the trial court.