Court Opinion

ID: 9707774
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:20:59.719828+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:38.021150
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
dissenting.
The majority holds that the determination made in 1992 is res judicata, in that Larry may not challenge Debbie’s claim as made in that “action.” I would note that the “action” in 1992 was a petition for support modification. To be sure, at issue in that proceeding was the matter of the land contract payments and more particularly whether those payments were a division of property or were in the nature of child support. Accordingly, I would hold that the doctrine here involved is one of issue preclusion rather than claim preclusion. Wedel v. Amer. Elec. Power Serv. Corp. (1997) Ind.App., 681 N.E.2d 1122, 1131, trans. denied.
The implication of the majority decision here is that the “claim,” i.e., support modification, precludes future litigation. To so state, however, is to imply that once there has been a modification of support, there can be no future modification no matter what issues may or may not be involved in the future “claim”. The question is more accurately stated to be whether the land contract payments were support or were a distribution of the marital property.
Be that as it may, whether claim or issue preclusion, the determinative issue is whether the 1996 trial court could rectify the clear error of the 1992 determination, so as to restore the unmistakable validity of the 1982 decree and its categorization of the contract payments as support. I would hold that the 1996 trial court was enabled to do so in that all it did was to give res judicata effect to the 1982 determination.
In actuality, the 1992 determination constituted an invalid attempt to modify the property distribution made in 1982. See I.C. 31-15-7-9.1 (Burns Code Ed. Repl.1997 & Supp. 1998), formerly I.C. 31-1-11.5-9, repealed by Acts 1997, P.L. 1, § 157.1 The order added to the marital estate to the extent that Larry’s land contract payments were deemed to be property and increased Debbie’s equity in the property. Conversely, by denying Larry credit for those payments against support, the 1992 order appears to have been a retroactive modification of support giving Debbie an arguable claim for a sizable support ar-rearage.
The 1992 order purports to change the nature of the contract payment obligation by stating that “those payments were meant to be a division of property.” Record at 2 (emphasis supplied). Whether or not they were meant to be a division of property, the fact remains that they were not a division of property. The 1992 trial court could not transform child support into property divi*1053sion no matter how desirable the court thought such result to be.2
Failure of a party to make a timely procedural challenge to a judicial determination, order or judgment, though perhaps final and/or appealable, is not always fatal to a subsequent challenge. As noted in Murphy v. Murphy (1998) Ind.App., 698 N.E.2d 877, 879, reh’g denied, equitable principles are applicable in dissolution matters. Citing Wabash Valley Coach Co. v. Turner (1943) 221 Ind. 52, 46 N.E.2d 212, 217, the Murphy court said:
“Equity looks beneath rigid rules to find substantial justice and has the power to prevent strict rules from working an injustice.” 698 N.E.2d at 879.
Dissolution actions are creatures of statute and are of a special nature, neither wholly legal nor wholly equitable in nature. 27A C.J.S. Divorce § 5 (1986); see Anderson v. Anderson (1979) Ind.App., 399 N.E.2d 391. They are more in the nature of an equitable action, however, and certainly no one would seriously question that some questions presented are “of purely equitable cognizance.” 27A C.J.S. Divorce § 5 (1986); see Powell v. Powell (1885) 104 Ind. 18, 3 N.E. 639, 645. Matters of property distribution and child support are clearly such questions.
The 1996 order here appealed was, in effect, merely giving a required res judicata effect to the 1982 decree, which the 1992 court simply ignored. Under persuasive principles of equity, it was entitled to do so.
I would affirm the judgment which is the subject of this appeal.

. The General Assembly has specified that orders concerning property distribution may not be re-volced or modified except for fraud.

. Perhaps the trial court, like Humpty Dumpty, was attempting to exercise his mastery of the situation. The character in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass Ch. 6 (1872) said: "When I use a word ... it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”