Court Opinion

ID: 9775058
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:42:19.06658+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:19.559733
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The court’s holding imposes upon divorced parents wishing to compromise arrearages in child support a time-consuming and expensive procedure, with little or no corresponding benefit to themselves, their offspring or society. Today’s ruling, despite the lofty rhetoric accompanying it, is but another example of judicially imposed make-work for the bench and bar.
The issue for our determination is whether the law which permits a custodial parent to obtain an automatic judgment for past due child support also prohibits the parents from making their own compromise bargain when support is past due. I find nothing in either the language of the statute or the public policy underlying it to support the court’s affirmative answer to that question.
For many years, a custodial parent’s only remedy for nonpayment of child support obligations was an action for contempt. See Huff v. Huff, 648 S.W.2d 286, 287 (Tex.1983). Beginning in 1973, Section 14.41 and its statutory predecessor gave custodial parents a valuable second remedy, the ability to obtain a money judgment for the amount of arrearage, enforceable by “any means available for the enforcement of judgments for debts.” See Huff 648 S.W.2d at 287-88; Ex parte Payne, 598 S.W.2d 312, 319 (Tex.Civ.App.—Texarkana 1980, no writ); Houtchens v. Matthews, 557 S.W.2d 581, 584 (Tex.Civ.App.—Fort Worth 1977, writ dism’d).1 Today we must determine the full import of this statutory right.
All parties concede that the statute neither expressly allows nor prohibits a compromise settlement of past due child support. To conclude that the custodial parent must reduce all outstanding obligations to judgment before effecting settlement, the *153various opinions rely heavily on the unique role of judicial supervision in family law cases. They emphasize that the trial court must exercise “independent judgment” and “closely supervise” child support proceedings to ensure that the child’s best interest is protected.
As a general proposition, this is undoubtedly true; but it is quite irrelevant to the case at hand. Unlike those provisions of the Family Code on which the majority relies, section 14.41 leaves nothing to the trial court’s independent judgment or supervisory discretion. Under its provisions, the trial court has no independent authority to reduce or modify the amount of child support arrearage. Tex.Fam.Code § 14.-41(d). In fact, the court is directed merely to “confirm” the amount due. Id. § 14.-41(a). The judgment is subject to an offset or counterclaim only after it is rendered. Id. Obviously, there is nothing for the court to judge or supervise; the judge here acts as a mere scrivener.
Moreover, the court concedes that once the trial court has mechanically reduced the past arrearage to judgment, the parents are totally free to settle, compromise or entirely forgive that judgment as they see fit. Thus the court does not deny to parties who want to settle the right to do so; it merely requires them to spend additional legal fees, wait more time, and waste valuable judicial resources in the process. The court justifies this exercise as giving the custodial spouse “additional remedies,” thus placing him or her “on more equal footing with the obligor” when negotiating a settlement. But those rights are available anyway; the provisions of section 14.41 are automatic to those who wish to use them.
No public policy considerations support the court’s strained position. Unlike future child support payments, which are obligations of the noncustodial parent to the child, past due child support payments are owed to the custodial parent as reimbursement for the amounts which have necessarily already been expended for the support of the child. See Maxwell v. Maxwell, 204 S.W.2d 32, 36, 38 (Tex.Civ.App.—Amarillo 1947, writ ref’d n.r.e.) (an action to recover amount expended by wife to support child is treated as an ordinary action for debt). Thus, the custodial parent should have the freedom to settle, release, or waive his or her right to collect this obligation which belongs solely to him or her.2
Most other jurisdictions have drawn a similar distinction between agreements regarding future child support payments and those regarding arrearage. See Lindsey v. Lindsey, 6 Haw.App. 201, 206, 716 P.2d 496, 500 (1986); Andersen v. Andersen, 89 Idaho 551, 557-58, 407 P.2d 304, 307-08 (1965); Rodgers v. Rodgers, 505 S.W.2d 138, 144 (Mo.Ct.App.1974); Cervantes v. Cervantes, 239 Mo.App. 932, 937-38, 203 S.W.2d 143, 146-47 (1947); Brannock v. Brannock, 104 N.M. 385, 386, 722 P.2d 636, 637 (1986); Kissinger v. Kissinger, 692 P.2d 71, 74 (Okla.App.1984); Miller v. Miller, 29 Or.App. 723, 727-28, 565 P.2d 382, 385 (1977); Hartman v. Smith, 100 Wash.2d 766, 768, 674 P.2d 176, 178 (1984); see also McCormick v. Collard, 105 Ind.App. 92, 96, 10 N.E.2d 742, 743 (1937) (en banc) (accrued unpaid child support constitutes a debt owed by obligor to person who supported and maintained child during that period); cf. Linton v. Linton, 166 Ind.App. 409, 422, 336 N.E.2d 687, 695 (1975); Larsen v. Larsen, 5 Utah 2d 224, 227, 300 P.2d 596, 598 (1956). Only Goodpasture v. *154Goodpasture, 7 Va.App. 55, 371 S.E.2d 845 (1988), appears to hold to the contrary. In the other intermediate appellate authority upon which the majority relies, McCool v. State ex rel. State of Tenn., 560 So.2d 772, 774 (Ala.Civ.App.1990), the court stated that agreements to waive child support ar-rearage are a nullity, but then held the parties bound by their stipulation to a lesser amount. Thus the actual holding of that case, if not its language, is contrary to our holding today.
The agreement reached by these parties was an accord and satisfaction. An accord is a contract in which parties agree to discharge an existing obligation by means of a lesser payment; satisfaction is the execution of such agreement. Texas & P. Ry. Co. v. Poe, 131 Tex. 337, 340, 115 S.W.2d 591, 592 (1938); 1 Tex.Jur.3d Accord and Satisfaction § 1 (1979); see also Jenkins v. Henry C. Beck Co., 449 S.W.2d 454, 455 (Tex.1969). Evaluating the validity of the settlement and release agreement under general principles applicable to such agreements, I would hold it to be valid. Williams’s agreement to pay dramatically increased child support in the future was in my opinion sufficient consideration for Patton’s compromise of his past due obligations. While not technically binding on the trial court, a husband’s promise not to oppose a near trebling of monthly child support is virtually certain to meet with judicial favor. Williams’s agreement to forebear from defending a suit is therefore adequate consideration to support a contract. See Restatement (Second) of Contracts §§ 71, 74 (1981); 1 S. Williston, Williston on Contracts § 135B at 585-86 (W. Jaeger ed., 3d ed. 1957); cf. Leonard v. Texaco, Inc., 422 S.W.2d 160, 165 (Tex.1967) (forbearance from bringing suit constitutes adequate consideration).
In reporting on the court of appeals opinion in this case, one commentator acidly noted:
Isn’t this case silly? Rather than the obligor saying “I’ll pay you 50% of the back child support and I’m released,” he now says “I agree to a judgment for 100%, and after the judgment is signed I’ll pay you 50% and the 100% judgment is released.” All the court did was add the time and expense of drawing an agreed judgment for the accrued child support.
D. Gray, Comment, 91-1 St. B. of Tex. Fam.L.Sec.Rep. 27 (1991).
Because I agree with these observations, I dissent.
GONZALEZ and HECHT, JJ., join in this dissenting opinion.

. The original act was former Texas Family Code section 14.09(c). See Act of May 24, 1973, 63rd Leg., R.S., ch. 543, § 1, 1973 Tex.Gen.Laws 1411, 1426. This section provided:
On the motion of any party entitled to receive payments for the benefit of a child, the court may enter judgment against a defaulting party for any amount unpaid and owing.... The judgment may be enforced by any means available for the enforcement of judgments for debts.
This section was repealed in 1985, see Act of May 27, 1985, 69th Leg., R.S., ch. 232, § 14, 1985 Tex.Gen.Laws 1158, 1170, and replaced by new section 14.41(a), see id. § 9, 1985 Tex.Gen. Laws at 1163, which provided:
Judgment for Arrearage. On the motion of an obligee, after notice and hearing, the court shall render judgment against an obligor for any amount of child support unpaid and owing. The judgment may be enforced by any means available for the enforcement of judgments for debts.
Section 14.41(a) was amended to its current form in 1986. See Child Support Enforcement Act of 1986, 69th Leg., 2nd C.S., ch. 10, § 6, 1986 Tex.Gen.Laws 15, 17 (eff. Jan. 1, 1987). The purpose of the new first sentence, "[a] periodic child support payment not timely made shall constitute a final judgment for the amount due and owing," is to provide a legal basis for the issuance of a writ of income withholding as provided in Family Code sections 14.44, 14.45. House Comm, on Judiciary, Bill Analysis, Tex. S.B. 26, 69th Leg., 2nd C.S. 3 (1986).

. The court cites Adair v. Martin, 595 S.W.2d 513, 515 (Tex.1980), for the proposition that past due child support "is still more properly characterized as an unfulfilled duty to the child than a ‘debt’ to the custodial parent.” 821 S.W.2d 145. Although we did state that child support arrear-age are not characterized as a debt prior to their reduction to judgment, we went on to hold that such arrearage could be reduced to judgment after the death of a parent, which judgment would then constitute a "claim" against the deceased parent’s estate. Id. Such a claim would be payable out of the estate just as any other "debt” that accrued prior to the decedent's death. (The Probate Code now expressly provides for the payment of child support arrearage out of the deceased’s estate. See Tex.Prob.Code § 37.) This holding suggests that child support arrearage, while not formally "debts," in most cases may be treated in the same way debts are treated.