Court Opinion

ID: 9561497
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:10:39.990963+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:50.249034
License: Public Domain

*389Judge Wynn
concurring:
I concur with the majority opinion that we are bound by the plain meaning of the legislation in question. Nonetheless, I write separately to highlight the apparent inequity under the facts of this case that results from our necessary application of the plain meaning standard to the statutes in question.
In January 1987, following a paternity action brought by respondent against Mr. Davis, the district court adjudged him to be the father of a child born out of wedlock in 1984. The respondent next established, and the court found, that respondent had paid $1,391.00 in public assistance to the child’s mother prior to the judgment of paternity in 1987. Accordingly, the court ordered Mr. Davis to pay:
[T]he sum of $100.00 per month as child support plus the sum of $10.00 per month ($110.00 total) towards Past Public Assistance. Said payments shall commence on February 1, 1987, and shall be due and payable in cash or money order to the Clerk of Superior v. . [for] as long as . . . money continues to be owed for public assistance arrearages or cost recovery.
Thus, the district court order of 1987 established for the first time two essential elements necessary to show a debt for past child support: the legal obligation and the amount. It is undisputed that Mr. Davis timely met this court-ordered support obligation which means conclusively that this “alternate means” of collecting the arrearage which the respondent itself sought was effective. And while it is worthy to note that the Attorney General represents the respondent before this court, the statute, as Judge Lewis points out, permits but does not require the Attorney General to except petitioner from tax refund interception. Moreover, there is no indication that the respondents sought to have the trial court modify its order to allow for an increase in the monthly payment for the arrearage or to provide an additional means of collecting the arrearages.
Our legislature and Congress designed tax interception statutes to assist in the recovery of delinquent child support payments from irresponsible parents who failed to make child support payments. Mr. Davis made every payment in strict accordance with the child support and arrearage order and he continues to do so. Thus, on establishing his obligation and the amount owed by court order in 1987, *390Mr. Davis, a retired military veteran, acted as a responsible parent.1 With the ever increasing number of parents who irresponsibly fail to make child support payments, it would appear to me, that the resources expended by the state against responsible and timely paying parents, like Mr. Davis, could be better directed. In my opinion that represents the intent of legislation aimed at assisting in the collection of delinquent child support. However, because the statutes evidence a plain meaning on its face, we do need to examine the intent of either our legislature or Congress in enacting these statutes. As Judge Lewis astutely points out: “Our job is to interpret not to legislate.”

. The record does not indicate whether during that interim period Mr. Davis made any payments directly to the mother towards the support of this child; but then, neither does the record show that either the mother or the respondent attempted to establish his paternity and more pertinent to this case, collect any amount of child support prior to the 1987 action. Indeed, the birth certificate does not even list Mr. Davis as the child’s father.