Court Opinion

ID: 9774327
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:15:55.433396+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:05.959353
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
CHAPMAN, Justice.
Because this case involves the support of a minor child this writer has given further study to the case since Appellant’s Motion for Rehearing. The majority is still firmly convinced that we properly disposed of the case.
The Dallas Court of Civil Appeals, Freeland v. Freeland, 313 S.W.2d 943 (N.W.H.), in construing Article 2328b-l et seq., V.A. T.S., with respect to a case originating in Indiana as the initiating state has held:
“Since appellant so far as the records show has continued to reside in the State of Texas we believe that the laws of Texas as Responding State are to be applied in this case. State of California v. Copus, Cal., 309 S.W.2d 227; Rosenberg v. Rosenberg, 152 Me. 161, 125 A.2d 863; Daly v. Daly, 21 N.J. 599, 123 A.2d 3.”
In an extradition hearing in Florida, Clarke v. Blackburn, Fla.App., 151 So.2d 325, where North Carolina was seeking to extradite appellant to answer for non-support of an illegitimate child fathered in the latter state, the District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District, after stating the ultimate question was “whether Clarke should be surrendered, under the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Law, to the State of North Carolina for trial on the charge of committing the crime of nonsupport of an illegitimate child,” held:
“Chapter 742 establishes a procedure whereby any unmarried woman who is pregnant or delivered of a bastard child may bring proceedings in the circuit court in chancery to determine the paternity of such child; and if the court (of the responding state) shall find the defendant to be the father of the child, then the court shall order the defendant to pay monthly payments for the care and support of the child. Only after such judicial determination is there a duty imposed by the laws of Florida upon the father to support such a child. The record here does not disclose any such judicial determination. Under the laws of the State of Florida, Clarke did not owe a duty of support. * * * There being no duty of support imposed by law upon Clarke, the provisions of Chapter 88, the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Law, are not applicable and Clarke could not be extradited under the provisions thereof.” (Parenthetical statement ours).
Where the initiating state was Michigan and the responding state Maine the Supreme Court of Maine in Lambrou v. Berna, 154 Me. 352, 148 A.2d 697 held:
“The rights of the parties are determined by the law of this state, our court having jurisdiction of the respondent.”
That same court in Rosenberg v. Rosenberg, 152 Me. 161, 125 A.2d 863, in a case involving their Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act held:
“The laws which govern in a situation such as this, are those of the responding state (Maine) and not the *536laws of the initiating state (New York).”
In Jackson v. Hall, Fla., 97 So.2d 1, the Supreme Court of Florida held:
“And the duty of support enforced under the Act is not necessarily that imposed by the law of the initiating state; it is that ‘imposed or imposable under the laws of any state where the obligor was present during the period for which support is sought’ which is presumed to be the responding state ‘until otherwise shown’. * * * It then becomes the duty of the court of the responding state to examine the petition and if it ‘finds a duty of support, it may order the defendant to furnish support or reimbursement therefor and subject the property of the defendant to such order.’ ”
In passing upon the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act in the State of Nevada as respects the obligation of a husband to support a wife, the Supreme Court of that state, where the initiating state was California held in State ex rel. Lyon v. Lyon, 75 Nev. 495, 346 P.2d 709, as follows:
“In the case of Pfueller v. Pfueller, 37 N.J.Super. 106, 117 A.2d 30, 32, it was pointed out that the initiating state cannot fix the liability of the obligor in the responding state. In this regard the New Jersey court said:
‘In effect it (the finding of the court in the initiating state) amounts merely to a finding that the allegation of the complaint warrants further proceedings; it is in no way evidentiary as to defendant’s liability.’
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“ ‘ * * * it is the obligation, not of the initiating court, but of the court in the responding state, to determine whether or not the defendant spouse is under a duty to support the plaintiff spouse; and such determination may be made by the latter court only upon the basis of evidence adduced before that court * * *.’ Pfueller v. Pfueller, supra.”
In Cobbe v. Cobbe, 163 A.2d 333, the Court of Appeals, District of Columbia, under that jurisdiction’s Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act, in a well-reasoned opinion involving a child seeking support from a father in Florida held:
“The duty of our courts, when the District of Columbia is the initiating jurisdiction, is to ascertain if ‘the defendant owes a duty of support’ in the sense of there being an obligor-obligee relationship like that of husband-wife or parent-child. Thereafter, the applicable law to determine defendant’s liability for the breach of that duty is governed by the law of the responding state.”
That court after quoting the Supreme Court of Florida in Jackson v. Hall, supra, then said:
“Florida has said the law of the responding jurisdiction will be used to determine the duty of support, and it is to be applied by the courts of that state as they interpret it. We think this view commends itself both in logic and practicability.”
A careful study of all these cases convinces the majority that the Uniform Reciprocal Support laws were passed to provide the petitioner with a more convenient remedy, the purpose being to help indigent people who were unable to employ attorneys and travel about the country pursuing their remedies. Such is indicated in Zelek v. Brosseau, 47 N.J.Super. 521, 136 A.2d 416, syl. 13, p. 423. That case cited Pfueller v. Pfueller, 37 N.J.Super. 106, 117 A.2d 30, which holds with respect to the Uniform Enforcement of Support Act that:
“Under the statute it becomes the obligation, not of the initiating court, but the court in the responding state, to *537determine whether or not the defendant is under a duty to support the plaintiff.”
Since the State of Texas does not require the support of an illegitimate child and since all jurisdictions we have studied, including our own, have held the law of the responding state determines the duty of support, the majority believes we reached the correct conclusion in our original opinion and that this case must be reversed and remanded. Accordingly, the motion for rehearing is overruled.