Court Opinion

ID: 9583792
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:42:08.430759+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:52.332894
License: Public Domain

Judge Greene
concurring.
I agree with the majority, for the reasons herein given, that the trial court did not err in denying the plaintiff’s motion to dismiss the contempt motion. Otherwise I fully concur with the majority.
The law is well established that the parties to an action cannot “by consent, give a court jurisdiction over the subject matter of which it would not otherwise have jurisdiction.” DeGree v. DeGree, 72 N.C. App. 668, 670, 325 S.E.2d 36, 37, cert. denied, 313 N.C. 598, 330 S.E.2d *420607 (1985). The trial court does not have jurisdiction, with some exceptions not here relevant, to enter an order directing the plaintiff to pay child support beyond the eighteenth birthday of a child. N.C.G.S. § 50-13.4(c) (1995). It would appear to follow, therefore, that the parties cannot confer jurisdiction upon the trial court to enter a consent decree extending child support obligations beyond the eighteenth birthday of a child and that any violation of that portion of the order would not be enforceable by contempt. See Harding v. Harding, 46 N.C. App. 62, 64, 264 S.E.2d 131, 132 (1980) (“[I]t is not contempt to disobey an order entered by a court without jurisdiction.” (citing 17 Am. Jin’. 2d Contempt § 42)). Nonetheless, our Supreme Court has held that such an order is enforceable by contempt “notwithstanding that . . . [it] could not have been lawfully entered without [the parties’] consent.” White v. White, 289 N.C. 592, 596, 223 S.E.2d 377, 380 (1976). The public policy supporting the White holding is stated in the earlier opinion from this Court:
It is entirely possible, perhaps probable, that a wife may be willing to give up, by way of agreement with her husband, much to which she would be entitled in consideration of the husband doing more than he might be required to do for their children. To disregard such agreements when incorporated in a divorce decree, at least so far as the power of the court to enforce them is concerned, would discourage the settlement of differences between husbánd and wife or reduce such agreements, when made, to cloaks to be put on or shed at will.
White v. White, 25 N.C. App. 150, 156, 212 S.E.2d 511, 515 (quoting Robrock v. Robrock, 150 N.E.2d 421, 427-428 (Ohio 1958)), aff’d, 289 N.C. 592, 595, 223 S.E.2d 377, 379 (1975) (“We approve not only the decision of the Court of Appeals but also the careful research and reasoning upon which it is based.”).