Court Opinion

ID: 9584914
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:53:52.165007+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:49.721813
License: Public Domain

Deen, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
I.concur fully with all that is said in the majority opinion, and, in overruling Haire v. Branch, 129 Ga. App. 164 (199 SE2d 127) (1973), applicable to intrastate awards but suggest the court go further and overrule Zimmerman v. Zimmerman, 131 Ga. App. 567 (206 SE2d 583) (1974) and Konscol v. Konscol, 151 Ga. App. 696 (261 SE2d 438) (1979) as to modification of support awards obtained in another state establishing a uniform approach. To place the power and prestige of a public prosecutor in a private proceeding on the side of only one party as against another in a civil proceeding coupled with a simultaneous deprivation to the latter of a trial by jury should not and could not be the intent of the legislature. The state has a compelling interest in enforcement of an existing judgment embracing a statutory duty to support dependent children, but this is not true in a civil action to establish, or to modify upward or downward a contract or judgment of support.
There exists presently an anomaly peculiar to and affecting only domestic and family law, i.e., an unelected judge without the right of trial by jury may terminate parental rights of their child; marriage contracts, as opposed to other contracts, may be terminated without *356fault of either party; there is no appeal as a matter of right in domestic relation cases, which does not obtain in all other civil and criminal cases. Elimination of the right of a jury trial as to duties of parents to support children could not be the intent of the legislature and should not be added to the already existing listed limitations affecting individual rights in critical family law areas.