Court Opinion

ID: 9587446
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:22:08.309165+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:50.175006
License: Public Domain

Hill, Justice,
dissenting.
I agree with the trial judge — the divorce decree requiring the father to pay "reasonable child support. . . in accordance with his financial status” is too vague to be enforceable by contempt. "Before a person may be held in contempt for violating a court order, the order should inform him in definite terms as to the duties thereby imposed upon him, and the command must therefore be express rather than implied. Indefiniteness and uncertainty in a judgment, order, or decree may well constitute a good defense in proceedings for contempt based on violation of the judgment, order, or decree. The very nature of the proceeding in either civil or criminal contempt for an alleged disobedience of a court order requires that the language in the commands be clear and certain.” 17 AmJur2d 54, Contempt, § 52.
Although this decree may be enforceable as a debt as to the past, and may be made definite as to the future, it is not sufficiently definite to incarcerate a person for past *158noncompliance. I therefore dissent.