Court Opinion

ID: 9600710
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:30:33.882265+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:18.624645
License: Public Domain

NOYES, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
Faced with a thirteen-year history in which the parties lived as though father was dead insofar as the children were concerned, the trial court found waiver by mother of some child support arrearage. The majority reverses and I would affirm because, in my opinion, the trial court’s findings and conclusions are well-supported by the record, and they produce a more equitable and just re-*31suit than has the majority. The trial court found as follows:
3. After leaving the Navy in 1980, the Petitioner stopped paying his child support obligation, stating that he was not getting visitation with his children. He remarried in 1981.
7. In 1986, the Petitioner received in the mail a Consent to Adopt Form, Exhibit 1, which the Petitioner signed and returned to the Respondent. The Consent to Adopt form was signed by the Petitioner on June 12, 1986. A pertinent part of the form reads:
I understand that this consent is irrevocable and that I cannot change my mind; I am aware that consent to adoption cannot be withdrawn without a court order____I hereby waive, and do not want, any notice of any further adoption and severance proceedings.
9. Petitioner became aware that the adoption was not formalized when a wage assignment initiated by the State of Arizona went into effect in January 1993. After finding out that the children had not been adopted, the Petitioner then made contact with both children, and as a result of that contact, both children have since lived with the Petitioner for a period of time.
14. The Court finds that it is appropriate to apply the equitable defense of laches and/or equitable estoppel in finding that the Respondent waived her right to collect any arrears owing from the time the consent to adopt form was signed by the Petitioner to the time the Petitioner learned that the adoption had not been completed. The Court finds that there was an abandonment of the claim for arrearages by the custodial parent and/or there was prejudice to the party with the support duty. The Court finds that the Respondent initiated the adoption proceedings by having sent to the Petitioner the consent to Adopt form. The Petitioner, having signed the consent to adopt form, and having had no further contact with the Respondent and the children, reasonably assumed that the children had been adopted, and that he no longer was obligated to pay any child support. The Court finds that the Respondent failed to inform the petitioner that the adoption had not been completed and that he was still obligated to pay child support. From June, 1986 to January 1993, the Respondent took no steps to collect any child support. During this time period, the Petitioner, relying on the assumption that he was no longer obligated to pay support, went on to have 4 children with his second wife. Once the wage assignment went into effect, due to financial difficulties, the Petitioner apparently lost his home in foreclosure and was forced to move elsewhere. The Respondent now alleges that the Petitioner owes her approximately $13,400 in child support arrears. 15. The Court finds this to be a similar fact situation as presented in Cordova. There the wife sent the ex-husband a letter stating that she no longer wanted support, and her new husband was going to adopt the children. In this case, the Petitioner signed a consent to adopt. The Court finds it reasonable that the Petitioner would assume that the children were adopted. Indeed, the language contained in the form would lead the Petitioner to assume that he would receive no further notices concerning the adoption. That coupled with the fact that neither the Respondent nor the children contacted the Petitioner, not did the Respondent initiate any court action to enforce and collect child support, the Court finds it reasonable that the Petitioner would rely on his assumption that his children had been adopted.
(Emphasis supplied.)
I am persuaded by the trial court’s analysis. I will not nit-pick the majority’s analysis but will discuss one example as illustrative of our differences. The trial court Finding No. 14, in part, was that “Respondent failed to inform the petitioner that the adoption had not been completed and that he was still *32obligated to pay child support.” The majority finds that: “[Petitioner] could have learned whether the adoption was final.” Supra at page 29, 899 P.2d at page 190. The majority does not discuss the contents of the consent-to-adopt form that Respondent sent to Petitioner, in which Petitioner waived notice of any further adoption and severance proceedings. Thus, Respondent asked for and received Petitioner’s waiver of further notice, but the majority suggests that Petitioner still had the burden of determining that Respondent went ahead with the adoption. Here, as in many other particulars, I think the trial court had a better view of the facts and, more importantly, a view that was supported by clear and compelling evidence.
There are some minor errors in the trial court findings. For example, Petitioner had at least one child before 1986, which means that he did not have four children after 1986. But the fact remains that Petitioner is now supporting four minor children and he has financial distress, as evidenced by losing his home. The money Petitioner now has to pay Respondent for their two now-adult children is to some extent taken away from his four still-minor children. Although the issue is complex, I respectfully suggest that the trial court made the best possible resolution of it.
I also find no error in the trial court’s comparison of this case to In re Cordova v. Lucero, 129 Ariz. 184, 629 P.2d 1020 (App.1981). There, the custodial mother wrote father a nasty letter advising that the children were going to be adopted by the new husband and that mother did not want any of father’s support money and she did not want him near the children. Id. at 185, 629 P.2d at 1021. Father accepted these terms and, three and a half years later, he was sued for child support arrearage. Id. In affirming the trial court’s finding that mother waived her right to the arrearage, this Court found that mother abandoned her claim because she wrote the letter, waited three and a half years while father relied on the waiver and made no payments, and she then “confronted [father] with a $6,000 arrearage claim, all to his financial prejudice.” Id. at 186, 629 P.2d at 1022. In this case, Respondent sent Petitioner a consent-to-adopt letter, then waited six and a half years before making a $13,400 arrearage claim. True, the consent-to-adopt letter did not," as in Cordova, contain nasty language announcing that mother did not want child support, but I agree with the trial court’s implicit finding that the conduct of the parties in this case spoke louder and longer than the letter in Cordova and meant the same thing: clear and compelling evidence of waiver and abandonment of arrearages (following execution and return of the consent-to-adopt letter).
The majority finds support in State v. Dodd, 181 Ariz. 183, 888 P.2d 1370 (App.1994), supra at 29, 899 P.2d at 190. I find that case quite distinguishable because there, “The parties were attempting throughout the time period at issue to resolve the support issue____[T]he delay in pursuing [mother’s] claim reflected her belief that the father was financially unable to make full payment and that she only sought arrearages when she learned of the father’s improved financial circumstances.” Id. at 188, 888 P.2d at 1375. Those facts are very different from the thirteen-year history in this case. I agree with the trial court’s decision to hold father responsible for the first six and a half years of the arrearage; and I also think it fair to consider that long history as additional foundation for the conclusion that mother’s solicitation and receipt of the consent-to-adopt letter, followed by another six and a half years of silence, was her waiver and abandonment of post-consent-letter arrearages.
I would affirm the trial court’s effort to shape a just arrearage judgment out of the abhormal-but-acceptable-to-them way in which these parents dealt with their child support responsibilities for thirteen years.