Opinion ID: 1295363
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Revision of Child Support Arrearages

Text: ¶9 In 1983, the year Dorian alleges that the parties entered into the extrajudicial agreement, the circuit court had the discretion to revise a child support arrearage upon a showing of cause or justification. Schulz v. Ystad, 155 Wis. 2d 574, 593, 598, 456 N.W.2d 312 (1990) (noting this discretionary power of the circuit courts prior to the enactment of Wis. Stat. § 767.32(1m) in 1987); [3] see Rust v. Rust, 47 Wis. 2d 565, 570-73, 177 N.W.2d 888 (1970) [4] (upholding circuit court's cancellation of arrearages because the findings in the underlying child support order had been incomplete); Foregger v. Foregger, 40 Wis. 2d 632, 641-43, 162 N.W.2d 553 (1968) [5] (upholding offset of duplicative child support payments against arrearages). Subsequent to 1983, when the oral modification of support allegedly occurred, Wisconsin appellate courts addressed whether a child support payer was entitled to credit based on expenditures made on the child's behalf and whether an extrajudicial agreement between a child support payer and payee was enforceable. ¶10 Whether a child support payer is entitled to credit against court-ordered child support was addressed in 1984, in Hirschfield v. Hirschfield, 118 Wis. 2d 468, 347 N.W.2d 627 (Ct. App. 1984), where the court of appeals held that a parent ordered to pay child support is not entitled to credit for voluntary expenditures for the child not made in the manner specifically ordered. Id. at 470-71. However, in 1990, we carved out two exceptions to the Hirschfield rule. Schulz, 155 Wis. 2d at 603-04. We identified two circumstances of an equitable nature, id. at 602, under which the payer's direct expenditures made for a child may be credited: (1) under compulsion of circumstances or (2) with express or implied consent of the custodial parent. Id. at 604. Circuit courts were further instructed to allow credit under these two circumstances only where manifest injustice would otherwise result and where a particularized burden of proof, outlined within the decision, was met. Id. ¶11 It was not until April 1993, in Harms v. Harms, 174 Wis. 2d 780, 498 N.W.2d 229 (1993), that the issue, whether parties' extrajudicial agreement could be enforced against a custodial parent seeking payment of child support arrearages, was addressed by a Wisconsin appellate court. In Harms, the custodial parent sent the child support payer a letter informing him that she had moved the children to the state of Florida and that she no longer expected him to pay child support or hospital insurance, id. at 782, and as a result of the letter, the child support payer stopped paying child support, id. The custodial parent subsequently brought a contempt motion due to the cessation of child support payments, but we determined that the extrajudicial agreement between the parties was enforceable. Id. at 785. Citing the doctrine of equitable estoppel, we held for the child support payer. Id. [6] ¶12 However, later in 1993, Wis. Stat. § 767.32(1r) was created, which provided: In an action . . . to revise a judgment or order with respect to child support or family support, the court may not grant credit to the payer against support due prior to the date on which the action is commenced for payments made by the payer on behalf of the child other than payments made to the clerk of court under s. 767.265 or 767.29 or as otherwise ordered by the court. 1993 Wis. Act 481, § 119 (emphasis added). The same legislative act amended § 767.32(1m), which as amended provided: In an action . . . to revise a judgment or order with respect to child support . . . the court may not revise the amount of child support . . . due, or an amount of arrearages in child support . . . that has accrued, prior to the date that notice of the action is given to the respondent, except to correct previous errors in calculations. 1993 Wis. Act. 481, § 118 (emphasis added). ¶13 Wisconsin Stat. § 767.32(1m) initially was created by 1987 Wis. Act 27, § 2135i, but we construed it to apply only prospectively, so that a child support arrearage that had accrued pursuant to an order entered prior to August 1, 1987 was unaffected by the new statute. Schulz, 155 Wis. 2d at 598-99. [7] However, 1993 Wis. Act. 481 brought an explicit reference to child support arrearages to § 767.32(1m), 1993 Wis. Act. 481, § 118, and also required courts to apply both § 767.32(1m) and (1r) regardless of when the judgment or order under which the arrearages accrued, or the child support . . . payments are owed, was entered, 1993 Wis. Act. 481, § 9326. ¶14 In Douglas County Child Support Enforcement Unit v. Fisher, 200 Wis. 2d 807, 547 N.W.2d 801 (Ct. App. 1996), the court of appeals explained that pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 767.32(1m) and (1r), as respectively amended and created by 1993 Wis. Act. 481, circuit courts cannot grant credit for direct payments for support made in a manner other than that prescribed in the order or judgment providing for support. Id. at 813. The Fisher court further held that this new law applies retroactively, so that as of its effective date, June 11, 1994, a court is without discretion to grant credits against arrearages regardless of when the judgment or order was entered. Id. at 814; accord Monicken, 226 Wis. 2d at 129. ¶15 More latitude to grant a child support payer credit against an arrearage came in 1997, when the legislature amended Wis. Stat. § 767.32(1r). As amended the subsection provided: the court may grant credit to the payer against support due prior to the date on which the petition, motion or order to show cause is served for payments made by the payer other than payments made as provided in s. 767.265 or 767.29, in any of the following circumstances . . . . 1997 Wis. Act 273, § 1 (emphasis added). The legislature then enumerated the circumstances under which such credit could be granted in newly created § 767.32(1r)(b)-(f). [8] 1997 Wis. Act. 273, §§ 3-7. In Monicken, the court of appeals made clear that the revised § 767.32(1r) changed the law regarding the granting of credit to child support payers who were in arrears, superceding the Harms and Schulz holdings on that point. Monicken, 226 Wis. 2d at 130-31. Based on 1997 Wis. Act 273, § 10, [9] the Monicken court also held that the 1997 changes to § 767.32 apply retroactively. Id. at 131-32. Therefore, after the law's effective date, which the legislature set at June 25, 1998, a circuit court is permitted to grant credit against child support arrearages pursuant only to the limited circumstances enumerated in § 767.32(1r)(b)-(f), regardless of when the underlying child support order was entered. Id. at 131-32. ¶16 Dorian does not contest the circuit court's conclusion that none of the circumstances allowing credit against a child support arrearage under Wis. Stat. § 767.32(1r) was met here. [10] Rather, Dorian argues that the retroactive applications of § 767.32(1r) and (1m), which limit a circuit court's power to grant him credit against child support due, violate his right to due process under Article I, § 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. We disagree.