Court Opinion

ID: 9768017
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:38:49.842708+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:35.620950
License: Public Domain

RAY, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The parties to this suit were divorced in October 1973. Milton Huff was ordered to pay $500.00 per month in child support through the district clerk’s office until the youngest child reached the age of eighteen. Prior to January 1979, when this suit was filed, Patsy Huff made no attempt to collect alleged unpaid child support.
In response to Patsy’s motion to reduce the arrearages to judgment under section 14.09(c) of the Texas Family Code, Milton pleaded the four-year statute of limitations. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5529. His plea in bar was to any claim made by his former wife for past due child support accruing prior to January 1975. At the hearing on the motion, the trial court heard conflicting testimony as to the amount of child support paid directly to Patsy, as well as Milton’s ability to work and to make the support payments. I respectfully submit that the courts below and the majority of this Court have incorrectly applied the ten-year statute of limitations regarding the revival and enforcement of judgments. Tex.Rev.Civ. Stat.Ann. art. 5532. I would disapprove those cases which have held the ten-year statute of limitations to be applicable in an action brought under section 14.09(c) to reduce child support payments to a judgment, reverse the judgments of the courts below and remand the cause to the trial court.
Section 14.09 provides two remedies for the collection of unpaid child support ordered by the court:
(a) Any order of the court may be enforced by contempt.
⅜ ⅜ ⅜ ⅝: ⅜ *
(c) On the motion of any party entitled to receive payments for the benefit of a child, the court may render judgment against a defaulting party for any amount, unpaid and owing after 10 days’ notice to the defaulting party of his failure or refusal to carry out the terms of the order. The judgment may be enforced by any means available to the enforcement of judgments for debts. (Emphasis added.)
Milton contends this statute provides two remedies for the single action of collecting past due child support payments. See Ex parte Payne, 598 S.W.2d 312 (Tex.Civ.App.—Texarkana 1980, no writ); Ex parte McNemee, 605 S.W.2d 353 (Tex.Civ.App.—El Paso 1980, no writ). He also asserts the order of child support installments does not constitute a final judgment on which execution can be issued. Since article 5532 only applies to final judgments, Milton urges us to apply the rule as stated in Ex parte Payne, 598 S.W.2d 312 in which the court of civil appeals applied the four-year “catch-all” statute of limitations in article 5529 to a section 14.09(c) action.
The court of appeals in the instant case held the ten-year statute of limitations applied to a motion under section 14.09(c) of the Family Code following the line of cases lead by Houtchens v. Matthews, 557 S.W.2d 581, 585 (Tex.Civ.App.—Fort Worth 1977, writ dism’d) and Martin v. Adair, 601 S.W.2d 543 (Tex.Civ.App.—Beaumont 1980, no writ). These cases held that as each installment payment became delinquent, it also became a final judgment pursuant to section 14.08(c)(2) of the Family Code.1 They further held the intention of the legislature in enacting section 14.09(c) was only to create an additional enforcement mechanism and not a new claim for relief. I disagree with the rationale of those cases construing section 14.09(c).
*291I strongly note that section 14.09(c) permits the court to “render judgment against a defaulting party for any amount unpaid and owing.” The implication is such that the legislature intended to create a separate and distinct remedy to collect unpaid child support. The express language of section 14.09(c) requires a party claiming past due support to acquire a judicial ascertainment and declaration of arrearages before any execution will be available.
Prior to the adoption of the Texas Family Code, an order of child support could not be judicially enforced as other final judgments. See Burger v. Burger, 156 Tex. 584, 298 S.W.2d 119 (1957). Contempt had been the only remedy available to collect unpaid child support.2 Section 14.09 now provides two separate remedies for an action to collect child support. In addition to the contempt remedy permitted under subsection (a), subsection (c) enables any party entitled to payments for child support to collect those arrearages provided the court has rendered judgment against the defaulting party for the amount unpaid. Adair v. Martin, 595 S.W.2d 513 (Tex.1980). Although payments under section 14.08(c)(2) may become vested and unmodifiable as they accrue, the claimant is not relieved of the necessity of bringing an action in accordance with section 14.09(c) to have the arrearages judicially determined. Until the amount is reduced to a judgment, the order to pay child support should only be considered a right to reduce the payment to a judgment and not a final judgment upon which execution can be issued.
The distinction between sections 14.09(a) and 14.09(c) is a subtle one. A defaulting party may be held in contempt of the court’s order to make the payments until he purges himself. Yet it is not until the arrearages have been reduced to judgment that the managing conservator may seek execution for the liquidated sums. The interpretation of the subsections as separate remedies rather than as two means to achieve the same goal is a clearer and more effective construction of the statute. The majority opinion, on the other hand, blurs the substantive distinctions between the two subsections. The practical effect of the majority’s construction creates a redundancy between the subsections since no real purpose would be served by the enactment of subsection (c). Such a construction is therefore improper. See Hunter v. Fort Worth Capital Corp., 620 S.W.2d 547 (Tex.1981).
There is an important distinction to be made between the court’s decree dissolving the marriage bonds of a husband and wife, and the court’s appointment of managing and possessory conservators and order of child support payments. The divorce action is separate and distinct from the suit affecting the parent-child relationship. A divorce action is prosecuted under Title 1 of the Family Code, while child custody and support matters are determined under Title 2 of the Code. Once a court acquires jurisdiction of a suit affecting the parent-child relationship, that court retains continuing jurisdiction of all matters provided for under Title 2 of the Family Code in connection with the child. Tex.Fam.Code Ann. § 11.-05. Thus, the majority’s reliance on the history of divorce judgments is misplaced.3
A divorce decree which includes an order for child support is a final judgment with respect to the dissolution of the marriage and division of marital property, Schwartz v. Jefferson, 520 S.W.2d 881, 887 (Tex.1975), and for purposes of appeal. McAfee v. McAfee, 152 Tex. 156, 255 S.W.2d 185, 186 (1953). Child support installment payments, however, are not considered final judgments for the purposes of the statute of limitations. A provision for child sup*292port payment in the future must be distinguished from an award of a definite lump sum amounting to a final judgment, due and payable upon the date of the decree and upon which execution may issue.
This Court has already decided that child support arrearages are not debts.4 Yet once reduced to judgment, they may be enforced by the same means as a judgment for a debt. Adair v. Martin, supra; Smith v. Bramhall, 556 S.W.2d 112 (Tex.Civ.App.—Waco 1977), writ ref’d n.r.e. per curiam, 563 S.W.2d 238 (Tex.1978). Because orders to pay child support must be reduced to judgment, I would hold the ten-year statute concerning revival and enforcement of judgments5 inapplicable to 14.09(c) actions until a court has actually reduced the past due payments to a judgment. Since no limitations period is specified, the four-year “catch-all” statute must apply. Tex.Rev. Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5529.6 See Ex parte Payne, supra, and Ex parte McNemee, supra. In an action to collect arrearages of child support payments due and payable, the statute would begin to run as each installment became due.
The purpose of statutes of limitations is to compel the exercise of a right of action within a reasonable time, so that the opposing party has a fair opportunity to defend while the evidence upon which the enforcement of the claim or the basis of defense is still fresh in the minds of the parties and their witnesses. Robinson v. Weaver, 550 S.W.2d 18 (Tex.1977). They are in the nature of statutes of repose, requiring diligence in enforcing rights and putting an end to litigation. Moya v. O’Brien, 618 S.W.2d 890 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1981, writ ref’d n.r.e.).
The harmful effects of the majority’s opinion go beyond a misconstruction of the statute, and are well illustrated by the facts of this case. Often in the case of child support orders, side-bar or informal agreements are reached between the parties as to the method, time and/or amount of payment which are not in strict compliance with the court’s order. Uncertainty of proof over a period of years places an intolerable strain upon the judiciary, a burden which the statutes of limitation seek to prevent. Inasmuch as I construe article 5529 to apply to actions brought under section 14.09(c) of the Family Code, I believe it is now within the province of the legislature to correct this Court’s construction of section 14.09 of the Family Code and the statutes of limitations as pronounced by the majority opinion.
BARROW, CAMPBELL and KILGAR-LIN, JJ., join in this dissenting opinion.

. While the Texas Family Code provides that a court may modify an order or portion of a decree, “an order providing for the support of a child may be modified only as to obligations accruing subsequent to the motion to modify.” Tex.Fam.Code Ann. § 14.08(c)(2).

. Ex parte Birkhead, 127 Tex. 556, 95 S.W.2d 953, 955 (1936). See Comment, Enforcement of Unpaid Child Support Payments Against a Decedent’s Estate, 32 Baylor L.Rev. 269, 271 (1980).

. I recognize this Court’s holdings that for jurisdictional purposes on appeal, child custody and support matters are considered as “cases of divorce” within the meaning of Tex.Rev.Civ. Stat.Ann. art. 1821 § 3. Aversa v. Aversa, 407 S.W.2d 769 (Tex.1966); Longoria v. Longoria, 160 Tex. 134, 327 S.W.2d 453 (1959).

. This determination was made in recognition of our constitutional prohibition against imprisonment for debts which would have precluded our use of contempt as a collection remedy.

. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5532.

. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5529 provides: Every action other than the recovery of real estate for which no limitation is otherwise prescribed shall be brought within four years next after the right to bring the same shall have accrued and not afterward. (Emphasis added).