Court Opinion

ID: 9538648
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:38:57.41111+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:03.429510
License: Public Domain

SCHAUER, J.
I dissent. The real question in this case appears to be whether to accomplish the practical result of obtaining the funds for support of the allegedly needy obligee, or to instead emphasize the penal aspects of the matter by supporting extradition of the obligor for the purpose of imprisonment. I believe it is better public policy to construe the statute to secure the financial relief for the dependent obligee by leaving the obligor in the position where he is receiving pay which can be made available to that end.
Such a construction, which would permit the procedure here followed by petitioner, appears to be contemplated by *384the provisions of section 1661 of the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act (Code Civ. Proc.), which has its counterpart in Ohio law. As applied here, I believe that from the viewpoint of the Ohio law that section means that “Any obligor contemplated by Section 1660 [which permits extradition], who submits to the jurisdiction of the court of such other state [i.e., California] and complies with the court’s [California’s, which could adopt Ohio’s] order of support, shall be relieved of extradition for desertion or nonsupport entered in the courts of this State [Ohio] during the period of such compliance.” Moreover, the procedure which is spelled out in sections 1670 to 1690 appears to be adaptable to the proceedings here instituted by petitioner, but if not the courts are not powerless to devise a fair and appropriate procedure to be followed and one which would permit the evidence of the obligee (i.e., the obligee’s conditions, circumstances, or needs) to be as fully presented to our courts as would be the ease if the support proceedings are initiated in the obligee’s home state and followed by supplemental proceedings in California.
Further, this seems, as mentioned, the more practical approach to actually attain the economic objective of laying hands upon the support funds. Surely that objective is more likely to be achieved by permitting the obligor to remain in the state where he has become established and gains his livelihood than by the penal action of extradition for imprisonment. The latter procedure lends itself more readily to satisfaction of the desire for vengeance than it does to meeting the support needs of the dependent.
I would approve the procedure followed by petitioner and release him on the writ here sought.