Court Opinion

ID: 9773515
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:48:03.023918+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:54.655505
License: Public Domain

Ward, J., dissenting. The majority opinion leaves in hopeless confusion the law relative to the power of the courts to void accrued installments for child support. Regardless of the strained effort in the majority opinion to avoid doing so, the net result is to overrule the case of Sage v. Sage, 219 Ark. 853, 245 S. W. 2d 398, delivered January 21, 1952. In the Sage case, supra, this court, discussing the power of the courts in this regard, said: “In our opinion the rule that courts have no power to remit accumulated payments under the circumstances here is a sound one and we adopt that view. ’ ’ Following the above we quoted with approval from Yol. 27 C. J. S. at page 1239 the following: “ ‘Payments exacted by the original decree of divorce become vested in the payee as they accrue, and the court, on application to modify such decree, is without authority to reduce the amounts or modify the decree with reference thereto retrospectively, unless some reservation is made in the decree itself; the modifying decree relates to the future only and from the time of its entry.’ ” If this court does not feel bound to follow a precedent so recent and so clearly stated as that laid down in the Sage case, supra, it has the power to do so, but, in such event we should be bold enough to so state, and not attempt to camouflage the result with strained deductions. The strained deductions on the part of the majority, mentioned above, are apparent. After the clear cut announcements in the Sage case, supra, copied above, we referred to the fact that a few states held to the contrary, and we commented on the case of Eberhart v. Eberhart, 153 Minn. 66, 189 N. W. 592. We stated that we agreed with the Minnesota case as we understood it to hold “that payment of accrued installments was only suspended until the child was returned to the jurisdiction of the court. ’ ’ I submit there is no reason for the majority to conclude from the above reference to the Minnesota case that we thereby meant to abrogate the clearly expressed rule which we had just previously announced. The power of the court to suspend payment of accrued installments until a child is returned to the jurisdiction of the court cannot, by the common sense interpretation of plain english, mean that the court has power to forever cancel such payment. Moreover in the Eberhart case, supra, the court stated specifically that it was not passing on the power of the court to void or cancel accrued payments. Justices Holt and George Rose Smith concur in this dissent.