Court Opinion

ID: 9791247
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:08:05.555035+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:35.092496
License: Public Domain

ORME, Judge
(dissenting):
I take no serious issue with the majority’s view of the law generally applicable to cases brought under URESA. And I would take no issue with the result my colleagues reach if an independent URESA action had been commenced simply to recover sums paid by California for the support of the subject children. This is not such a case, however, and accordingly I do not join my colleagues in reversing the trial court’s disposition, which I believe was appropriate under the circumstances.
First, it is important to emphasize that relief was not sought in an independent action. On the contrary, a petition bearing the caption and case number of the underlying divorce action was filed in that case on behalf of defendant Blanca Charles-worth. The petition purported to show California as an additional defendant although leave of court was neither requested nor obtained to add an additional defendant to the underlying action. Accordingly, while California no doubt had a claim on any recovery that might be obtained and clearly was the impetus behind the effort to collect *415support, the only defendant properly before the court was defendant Blanca Charlesworth.
Not only did California seek enforcement of a support obligation in a pending divorce action over which the court had continuing jurisdiction as a matter of statutory law, see Utah Code Ann. § 30-3-5(3) (1989), but in addition it chose to pursue the matter in the context of a case where the court’s prior decree had expressly “held in abeyance until the further order of the Court” the issue of child support. This provision seems to have been prompted by defendant’s inappropriate action in concealing her whereabouts and that of the children, as a result of which no meaningful evidence could be obtained about the children’s circumstances and Blanca’s ability to contribute to their support. In addition to being unable to intelligently set a level of support payments to be made by plaintiff, the court no doubt hoped that the lack of support payments from plaintiff might smoke Blanca out, require her to come forward, and permit the court to have access to the information necessary to determine an appropriate level of support.
The trial court remains thwarted in its effort to receive meaningful evidence relative to the children’s circumstances and necessary to its determination of an appropriate level of permanent child support to be paid by plaintiff. It remains thwarted in its ability to enforce the “reasonable visitation” it also decreed in favor of plaintiff. At least in the context of the divorce action over which the court has continuing jurisdiction — and this is the context in which California chose to raise the issue — I think the court has the power and discretion to balance the parties’ respective legal obligations in the way it did: Plaintiff has a legal duty to pay towards the support of his children; defendant has the legal duty to make the children available for reasonable visitation. Moreover, the court is entitled to consider evidence about the children’s circumstances so it can get the question of child support out of “abeyance” and fix as part of its divorce decree an appropriate amount for plaintiffs discharge of his ongoing support obligation. An order directing defendant to make minimal support payments to be held by the clerk, with disbursement to follow when the children are found, best accomplishes these purposes.
California sought to enforce a support obligation which had advisedly been held in abeyance. It sought to do so in the context of a divorce action over which the court has continuing jurisdiction as to a wide range of issues. Whatever might have been appropriate in the context of an independent URESA action, the order entered by the court in this divorce proceeding was appropriate and I would affirm it.