Court Opinion

ID: 9705189
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:59:14.999539+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:08.642700
License: Public Domain

NAJAM, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Father’s Verified Petition to Set Aside Judgment was made pursuant to Indiana Trial Rules 60(B)(1), 60(B)(2), and 60(B)(8).1 Trial Rule 60(B) states, in pertinent part:
On motion and upon such terms as are just the court may relieve a party or his legal representative from an entry of default, final order, or final judgment, including a judgment by default, for the following reasons:
(1) Mistake, surprise, or excusable neglect [;]
(2) Any ground for a motion to correct error, including without limitation newly discovered evidence, which by due diligence could not have been discovered in time to move for a motion to correct errors under Rule 59;
* * *
(6) The judgment is void;
* * *
(8) Any reason justifying relief from the operation of the judgment, other than those reasons set forth in subparagraphs (1), (2), (3), and (4). The motion shall be filed ... not more than one year after the judgment, order or proceeding was entered or taken for reasons (1), (2), (S), and (⅝). A movant filing a motion for reasons (1), (2), (3), (4), and (8) must allege a meritorious claim or defense.[2]
(Emphases added.)
Here, Father sought relief on the following grounds: (1) “excusable neglect related to lack of actual or written notice of the hearing”; (2) “to hear newly discovered evidence, and to allow discovery”; and (3) Father’s “reason to believe that he is not the biological father of the minor child.” Appellant’s App. at 16. However, Father filed his request for relief in January of 2005, approximately nine years after the trial court’s initial order establishing paternity and Father’s weekly child support. Accordingly, Father’s requests under Rule 60(B)(1), for “excusable neglect,” and Rule 60(B)(2), “to hear newly discovered evidence,” cannot stand. See T.R. 60(B)(8); Appellant’s App. at 16. And, as the majority notes, granting Father’s request for relief under Rule 60(B)(8) — on the grounds that he is not the biological father of the child — here would be outside the discretion of the trial court. See, e.g., In re Paternity of M.M.B., 877 N.E.2d 1239, 1245 (Ind.Ct.App.2007).
Even if one were to assume that Father’s petition was timely under Rule 60(B)(6), the trial court’s order should be affirmed. “[W]here[,]as here, the trial court enters special findings and conclu*705sions pursuant to Indiana Trial Rule 52(A), ... [t]he trial court’s findings and conclusions will be set aside only if they are clearly erroneous.” Stonger v. Sorrell, 776 N.E.2d 353, 358 (Ind.2002). A judgment is clearly erroneous if the evidence does not support the trial court’s findings or if those findings do not support the judgment. See id.
It is well recognized that “[a] person may be estopped from challenging a void judgment if that person has manifested an intention to treat a judgment as valid.” Nickels v. York (In re T.M.Y.), 725 N.E.2d 997, 1003 (Ind.Ct.App.2000) (citing Jennings v. Jennings, 531 N.E.2d 1204, 1206 (Ind.Ct.App.1988)), trams, denied. In Nickels, the trial court entered a paternity judgment declaring the father the biological parent of a child in April of 1982. The father subsequently paid child support for the next two years until October of 1984, when the payments stopped. In February of 1998, the mother sought to have the father held in contempt. And in November of that year, the father filed a Rule 60(B) motion to disestablish paternity. Among other things, the father argued that the paternity order could not stand because he had not been properly served notice of the April 1982 hearing. This court rejected the father’s appeal, noting that he had “voluntarily submitted himself to the trial court’s jurisdiction by failing to contest the court’s jurisdiction over his person and instead complying with the court’s order in paying child support.” Id.
Here, the evidence and the court’s findings are equivalent to those in Nickels. Mother sought a support order against Father, which was granted after Father failed to appear at the January 1996 hearing. Father then paid the first two child support payments without objection, but those payments stopped when Father suddenly moved to Tennessee “for better weather.” Appellant’s App. at 16. Several years later, in 2003, the State began income withholding through Father’s Tennessee employer. Shortly thereafter, Father sought to disestablish his paternity over N.W. Twenty-two months after Father filed his petition, he argued, for the first time, that he was denied proper service of process for the January 1996 hearing.
After recounting those facts, the trial court, relying on Nickels, concluded that Father was estopped from challenging the allegedly void judgment because he had manifested an intention to treat that judgment as valid. Specifically, the court stated as follows:
H. “A person may be estopped from challenging a void judgment if that person has manifested an intention to treat that judgment as valid.”
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I. While [Father] ceased his support payments after only 2 payments and not 2 years [as in Nickels ] (and denies knowing that he did so), the stakes of this case present double the arrearages. And while [Father] apparently changed his theory of relief under Trial Rule 60(B) due to the DNA results, his motion for relief from judgment clearly demonstrates the purpose for which he sought those results....
Id. at 17-18 (citations and alteration omitted). In other words, the trial court found that the original income-withholding from Father’s paychecks gave him actual notice of the support judgment, and Father’s compliance with those withholdings “manifested an intention to treat the judgment as valid.” See Nickels, 725 N.E.2d at 1003. In such circumstances, request for relief from a void judgment cannot stand. See id. at 1002-03. The court’s conclusion that Father treated the judgment as valid is supported by the court’s findings, which *706are, in turn, supported by the evidence. The trial court relied on this court’s opinion in Nickels, which is directly on point. Accordingly, it cannot be said that the court’s judgment was clearly erroneous, and I would hold that the trial court did not err in denying Father’s petition under Rule 60(B)(6).

. Neither the trial court nor the parties specifically identify the subdivisions of Rule 60(B) on which Father’s petition relied. Nonetheless, those subdivisions are apparent from the face of Father's petition.

. The majority focuses on Father's argument that he was denied proper service of process for the initial hearing. But as Father notes, his argument on this point is merely to avoid Ihe "meritorious claim or defense” requirement of Rule 60(B)(8). See Moore v. Terre Haute 1st Nat'l Bank, 582 N.E.2d 474, 477 (Ind.Ct.App.1991) (holding, in the context of Rule 60(B)(1), that "a T.R. 60(B) claimant need not show a meritorious defense or claim” when the claimant alleges faulty process); Appellant's Brief at 8.