Court Opinion

ID: 9768016
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:38:49.834676+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:35.617798
License: Public Domain

WALLACE, Justice.
This is a motion to reduce past due child support to judgment pursuant to § 14.09(c) of the Texas Family Code. The trial court rendered judgment for Patsy Ann Huff in the amount of $28,098.51, representing unpaid child support for the period from October 9, 1973 to May 1, 1979. The court of appeals affirmed the judgment of the trial court. 634 S.W.2d 5. We affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.
Patsy Ann Huff and Milton Huff were divorced on October 19, 1973. Patsy was named managing conservator of the couple’s four children and Milton was ordered to pay child support through the District Clerk’s office in the amount of $500 per month until the youngest child reached the *287age of 18. No payments were made through the District Clerk’s office. The youngest child reached 18 years of age in May of 1979. In January of 1979, Patsy filed this motion to reduce the unpaid child support to judgment. At all times pertinent to this action, Milton has resided in Arizona. Following a hearing at which the court heard conflicting testimony as to the amount of child support paid directly to Patsy as well as Milton’s contention that he was physically unable to work, the court entered judgment for Patsy. The only point before us is whether the general four-year statute of limitation1 or the ten-year statute of limitation for the renewing and enforcement of judgments2 should apply in this case.
It is Milton’s contention that the four-year statute should apply. He argues that a motion under § 14.09(c) of the Family Code is an independent claim for relief and not an action to enforce a final judgment. He cites as authority Ex Parte Payne, 598 S.W.2d 312 (Tex.Civ.App.—Texarkana, 1980, no writ) and Ex Parte McNemee, 605 S.W.2d 353 (Tex.Civ.App.—El Paso 1980, no writ). The court in Payne found the four-year statute applicable as a matter of policy. Id. at 317-318. See, in contrast, for courts of appeals applying the ten-year statute, Mitchell v. Mitchell, 575 S.W.2d 311 (Tex.Civ.App.—Dallas 1978, no writ); Houtchens v. Matthews, 557 S.W.2d 581 (Tex.Civ.App.—Fort Worth 1977, writ dism’d).
We note at the outset that a divorce decree which awards child support is a final judgment. “This is true even though portions of the judgment with respect to property were to be performed by parties in the future, and even though the trial court has the power under Section 14.08, Texas Family Code, V.T.C.A. ... to modify or change provisions relating to custody and support of minor children under certain circumstances.” Schwartz v. Jefferson, 520 S.W.2d 881, 887 (Tex.1975); see also Curtis v. Gibbs, 511 S.W.2d 263, 266 (Tex.1974); McAfee v. McAfee, 152 Tex. 156, 255 S.W.2d 185, 186 (1953). The only traditional distinction between final divorce decrees and other final judgments has been the remedies available for their enforcement. Since the early periods of Texas jurisprudence, divorce has been treated exclusively as a matter of equity even though Texas has never had a separate equity court. As a judgment in equity, a divorce decree operates only in personam. Prior to enactment of the Family Code in 1973, the sole remedy for the enforcement of a final divorce decree had been an action for contempt brought in the court that issued the decree. See, for discussion, Ex Parte Barnett, 600 S.W.2d 252, 254-255 (Tex.1980).3 Parties to a divorce did not have the additional at-law option of seeking an in rem execution on such a final judgment in equity. This situation often rendered support awards useless because the spouse to whom back payments were owed would be left without a practical means of collecting them if, as in the instant case, the defaulting spouse had left the jurisdiction of the court that had issued the final decree.
In 1973, the Legislature expanded the jurisdiction of the trial court to allow in *288rem enforcements of the support portion of a divorce decree under § 14.09(c) of the “Enforcement of Order” provision of the Texas Family Code. See Acts 1973, 63rd Leg., ch. 543, p. 1426.4 We find that the purpose of this section was to facilitate the enforcement of final decrees providing for child support. If a claim for child support is brought as part of an action for a divorce and is then disposed of by the court as part of the divorce adjudication, we presume that once the period for an appeal has run the claim for child support becomes part and parcel of a final judgment. The claim is precluded from further relitigation by operation of the law of res judicata. We have unequivocally held that the possibility of a prospective modification of support payments under § 14.08(c)(2) does not in any way diminish the nature of a divorce decree as a final judgment in this regard.5 Schwartz v. Jefferson, 520 S.W.2d at 887; see also § 13, Comment c, Restatement (Second) of Judgments.6
A § 14.09(c) motion is an in rem parallel to a motion for constructive contempt under § 14.09(a). Both must be predicated by their pleadings on a valid final judgment. Tex.R.Civ.P. 55. If a claimant seeks to assert either a § 14.09(a) or a § 14.09(c) remedy after the ten-year statute of limitation for reviving and enforcing a dormant final judgment has passed,7 the trial court passing on the motion is without jurisdiction to grant any form of relief because the final judgment will have become void of lawful effect by operation of law. See Art. 5532; § 74(2), Restatement (Second) of Judgments. See also Art. 1911a, § 1 (limiting a court’s contempt powers to the enforcement of lawful orders).
Both the Payne and McNemee courts apparently assumed that Art. 5529, the four-year catchall statute of limitation, would apply in a situation such as this because § 14.09(c) actions, in their opinion, were collateral claims for relief -not covered by any other statute of limitation. See Payne, 598 S.W.2d at 319, and McNemee, 605 S.W.2d at 358. In Adair v. Martin, 595 *289S.W.2d 513 (Tex.1980), however, this Court affirmed a court of appeals analysis of a § 14.09(c) motion as an enforcement remedy to assure the payment of child support previously ordered in a final divorce decree. This case involved a § 14.09(c) motion filed by Ms. Adair in 1975 against her former husband’s estate to collect past due child support he had owed under a divorce decree issued in 1960. In upholding the validity of the motion as an enforcement of the decree, the Court specifically indicated that a § 14.-09(c) remedy was not an independent claim for indebtedness. Id. at 514; see also Smith v. Bramhall, 556 S.W.2d 112 (Tex.Civ. App. Waco 1977) writ ref’d n.r.e. per curiam, 563 S.W.2d 238 (Tex.1978) (making the same distinction between § 14.09(c) and a collateral claim for a debt).
The inference to be drawn from this Court’s writings in Adair and Smith is that a motion under § 14.09(c), like a motion for contempt under § 14.09(a) of the same statute, is but one of several means specifically provided by the Legislature to enforce judgments awarding child support. As a matter of the law of res judicata, such motions are clearly not separate claims that would come under the Art. 5529 catchall statute of limitation because the original divorce decree has precluded any further adjudication of a right to child support.8 For a setting out of the law of res judicata, see Ogletree v. Crates, 363 S.W.2d 431, 435-436 (Tex.1963); Freeman v. McAninch, 87 Tex. 132, 27 S.W. 97, 100 (1894). The fact that a parent facing sanctions under § 14.09(a) or § 14.09(c) has a right to be heard on the issue of arrearages does not mean the claim for child support is being relitigated. To the contrary, we have held that such hearings, as in the charge of contempt, are provided to guarantee due process of law, not a de novo hearing on the right to support. For a discussion of required procedural protections in cases of constructive contempt, see Ex Parte White, 149 Tex. 155, 229 S.W.2d 1002, 1004 (1950); Id. 229 S.W.2d at 1005 (Garwood, J., dissenting).
As motions to revive and enforce portions of a final judgment awarding child support, § 14.09(c) actions come within the direct purview of the statute of limitation governing the revival and enforcement of judgments, Art. 5532, the ten-year statute. Inasmuch as § 14.09(c) motions are included within the prescription of Art. 5532 to deal with the revival and enforcement of judgments, they are excluded from the ambit of Art. 5529 by the very language of that statute which narrows its application to only those “... action[s] ... for which no limitation is otherwise prescribed .... ” (emphasis added).
On the basis of a plain reading of the statutes of limitation, the provision of § 14.09(c) as it appears under the title of “Enforcement of Order,” and our prior holdings in Adair and Smith that interpret § 14.09(c) as an enforcement remedy, it is incumbent upon this Court to follow its own precedent as well as implement the Legislature’s clear plan to augment the remedies available for the effective enforcement of child support orders. The ten-year statute of limitation must therefore apply to § 14.-09(c) motions as it does to motions for contempt under § 14.09(a). We are no more able to limit § 14.09(c) in rem remedies than we would be able to limit the contempt power of the court under § 14.09(a). If we were to do so, we would be opening the door to the wholesale frustration of the ten-year statute of limitation for all final *290judgments in this important area of family law. Such a usurpation of the legislative, function is beyond the jurisdiction of this Court. We therefore disapprove Payne and McNemee and affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.
RAY, J., files a dissenting opinion in which BARROW, CAMPBELL and KIL-GARLIN, JJ., join.

. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5529.

. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5532.

. Barnett expanded the common law remedy of contempt by holding that the legislative intent of an allowance for a transfer of the jurisdiction over a divorce case from the original court to another court under § 11.06 of the Family Code also inferably included an allocation of the contempt power to the transferee court. Our holding in Barnett let a district court in Collin County cite a defaulting spouse for a contempt committed before a Dallas County court prior to the case’s transfer to Collin County. This Court overruled more than half a century of its own precedent on the limitation of the contempt remedy in order to effectuate the inferable intent of the Legislature to expand the remedies for child support ordered in divorce decrees. Id. at 255. Our holding in the instant case follows the policy of Barnett. We are simply giving effect to § 14.09(c) as a new in rem enforcement provision for adjudicated child support claims under divorce decrees as this section has been explicitly so designated by the Legislature in enacting Chapter 14 of the Family Code.

. Section 14.09 of the Texas Family Code provides:
(a) Any order of the court may be enforced by contempt.
(b) A court may enforce an order for support as provided in Rule 308A of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure or any subsequent version of the rule promulgated by the Supreme Court.
(c) On the motion of any party entitled to receive payments for the benefit of a child, the court may render judgment against a defaulting party for any amount unpaid and owing after 10 days’ notice to the defaulting party of his failure or refusal to carry out the terms of the order. The judgment may be enforced by any means available for the enforcement of judgments for debts.
(d) A parent may be compelled to testify fully in regard to his ability to support the child.

. In Gard v. Gard, 150 Tex. 347, 241 S.W.2d 618 (1951), this Court held that support provisions of foreign divorce decrees, although sub-
ject to prospective modification, are enforceable in Texas under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of Art. IV, § 1 of the Constitution. We specifically said that “... [the] petitioner’s judgment in that State [Idaho] was as final as any judgment for debt could be, although it was subject to later modification, as to installments not matured; for changed conditions on application of either party.” Id. 241 S.W.2d at 619; see and compare Sistare v. Sistare, 218 U.S. 1, 16-17, 30 S.Ct. 682, 686, 54 L.Ed. 905 (1910). The Sistare standard for enforcement of orders of a divorce decree pursuant to the Full Faith and Credit Clause was specifically adopted by this Court in Gard. Id. 241 S.W.2d at 619; see also § 21.66 of the Texas Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act (enacted with Chapter 14 of the Family Code).

. Restatement (Second) of Judgments, § 13, Comment c:
Judgments granting or denying continuing relief. A judgment concluding an action is not deprived of finality for purposes of res judicata by reason of the fact that it grants or denies continuing relief, that is, requires the defendant, or holds that the defendant may not be required, to perform acts over a period of time. Judgments of these types are rendered typically in actions for injunctions, specific performance, alimony, separate maintenance, and child support and custody.

. For a discussion of the minimum requirements for reviving dormant final judgments, see, Commerce Trust Co. v. Ramp, 135 Tex. 84, 138 S.W.2d 531, 536 (1940); Hopkins v. Howard, 12 Tex. 7 (1854); Simmons v. Zimmerman Land & Irrigation Co., 292 S.W. 973, 975 (Tex.Civ.App.—El Paso 1927, no writ).

. There is only one final judgment enforceable under Chapter 14, and that is the original divorce decree awarding a right to child support unless it has subsequently been modified under § 14.08(c)(2). Once the claim for child support has been adjudicated in a proceeding where a final divorce decree is subsequently rendered, the adjudication of the claim is merged in that single final judgment and barred from further relitigation as a matter of res judicata. See, for a setting out of the principle of res judicata, Ogletree v. Crates, 363 S.W.2d 431, 435-436 (Tex.1963); Freeman v. McAninch, 87 Tex. 132, 27 S.W. 97, 100 (1894). We therefore disapprove the analysis offered by Houtchens, that each accrued support payment somehow becomes a separate final judgment. Id. at 587. This is incorrect. As support payments accrue, they become immune to modification because the trial court has no jurisdiction to retroactively modify support payments under § 14.-08(c)(2); they are not separate final judgments.