Court Opinion

ID: 9663074
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:27:09.82585+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:45.362628
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(specially concurring).
True, the majority of courts do not recognize frustration of custody and visitation rights as a defense to a URESA action. *561However, the majority of courts also recognize that the responding court can change the duty of support, i.e., the amount of child support payments, based on the present facts before it. This authority is said to come from the provisions contained in SDCL 25-9A-32 and SDCL 25-9A-2, which are comparable to §§ 31 and 3 of URESA, respectively. An excellent annotation on this very point is contained in 31 A.L.R.4th 347 (1984); on page 352 thereof, it is stated:
In construing § 31 of the Act, several courts have taken the view that a court acting as a responding court in a URESA proceeding is not prevented from entering a child support order different from that previously ordered, on the basis that such an award is' effective prospectively only, and thus the court is not nullifying or superseding the prior order within the meaning of the provision.... In such cases, the courts have reasoned that proceedings under the Act are de novo, in that the responding court has the authority to make an independent determination regarding the duty of support based on presently existing conditions, that the remedies under the Act are in addition to and not in substitution for any other remedies, and that the Act contemplates that more than one order of support may be outstanding at any given time for the same obligation. (Footnotes omitted.)
Hypothetically, I am not suggesting that our sister State of Minnesota,can change the terms of a support decree issued by a court in the State of New York. A trial judge, acting under URESA, has a right to breathe practicality and equity into the situation which confronts him in the courtroom. A URESA hearing judge should be permitted to keep an open mind in the hearing; otherwise, there is no ring of reality to the economic facts brought before him. He has the right and duty to carefully listen to and deliberate upon evidence submitted to him. Then, his obligation is to set a just amount of support considering the needs of the children and the absent parent’s ability to pay. See Olson v. Olson, 534 S.W.2d 526 (Mo.App.1976).