Court Opinion

ID: 9606590
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:51:09.308632+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:59.097239
License: Public Domain

Hunstein, Presiding Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent to the majority’s reversal of the June 2005 order in which the trial court denied appellant Curtis Smith II’s motion to vacate or set aside the January 2005 ex parte order for his arrest and incarceration. That ex parte order was based on a May 2001 order, from which appellant did not appeal, that held appellant to be $13,500 in arrears in child support; required appellant to pay $100 per month toward the arrearage and $900 per month as current child support to the Carroll County Clerk of Superior Court; and provided that
in the event that [appellant] fails to make a payment of $1,000.00 per month, on the first of the month the money is due, an affidavit shall issue to the effect, and the Judge of this Honorable Court shall execute an Order directing the Sheriff to arrest and incarcerate [appellant] until the balance of the arrearage is paid in full.
Pursuant to the May 2001 order appellant made one payment instanter. However, 43 months later, the Carroll County Clerk of Supe*623rior Court executed an affidavit reflecting that “there were no payments made by or on behalf of” appellant from June 2001 to the current date. Appellant was thereafter ordered arrested and incarcerated by the January 2005 ex parte order that reiterated the provisions of the May 2001 order2 and directed the Sheriff to arrest and incarcerate appellant “until he pays the entire balance of child support arrearage of $13,400.” This Court subsequently granted appellant’s application for interlocutory appeal of the trial court’s denial of his motion to vacate or set aside this ex parte order.
The majority holds that because the payment appellant was required to make included $900 a month for future child support, appellant’s arrest and incarceration were improper under case law recognizing that “a trial court cannot order incarceration pursuant to a self-effectuating order, regarding future acts, without benefit of a hearing. [Cits.]” Burke v. Burke, 263 Ga. 141, 142 (2) (429 SE2d 85) (1993). While the May 2001 order inartfully referenced the $1,000 per month payment, it is clear that appellant’s arrest and incarceration were premised not on his failure to pay the future child support amount of $900 per month, but on his failure to pay the $100 for the already established past due child support arrearage, given the order’s explicit provision that appellant’s arrest and incarceration would continue “until the balance of the arrearage is paid in full.” At the time of the May 2001 order the only arrearage was the $13,500 amount stated in the order. The awkwardness of the wording in the May 2001 order did not prevent the trial court from understanding its clear meaning in January 2005, when it entered the ex parte order that undeniably distinguished between the $100 monthly amount for the past-due arrearage and the $900 monthly amount for future child support when it expressly recognized the payment required of appellant to purge himself was $13,400, rather than the $43,000 that would have been due if the future child support payments had been included. Appellant was not required to pay the $38,700 in child support representing the $900 monthly payments due after May 2001 in order to avoid arrest and incarceration. Rather, it would seem that his obligation to pay that amount was the subject of the trial court’s order, contained within the denial of appellant’s motion to vacate, *624that appellant be brought to court on the first non-jury day following his arrest for a hearing on the child support issue.
Decided June 12, 2006.
Jacquelyn F. Luther, for appellant.
Sanders, Haugen & Sears, Walter S. Haugen, for appellee.
The record thus does not support the majority’s position that appellant was arrested and incarcerated as the result of a self-effectuating order regarding future acts. Rather, appellant was properly arrested and incarcerated for his failure to pay the amount for which he was adjudicated as being in arrears in May 2001. See Floyd v. Floyd, 247 Ga. 551 (2) (277 SE2d 658) (1981). Accordingly, I cannot agree with the majority’s reversal of the trial court’s order properly denying appellant’s motion to vacate or set aside the ex parte order for his arrest and incarceration.3

 The ex parte order provided, in pertinent part, that the May 2001 order required appellant to
continue to pay his regular child support of $900.00 per month and $100.00 per month towards the arrearage of $13,400.00, that said funds should be paid through the Carroll County Clerk of Superior Court, and if [appellant] failed to make these payments, upon the Clerk’s issuance of an affidavit attesting to this fact, this Court should execute an Order directing the Sheriff to arrest and incarcerate [appellant] until the balance of the arrearage is paid in full.

 Although, the majority does not expressly reverse the trial court on any other ground, as to the two items it “notes” in its opinion regarding the affidavit issue, see Majority Opinion, p. 621,1 see no problem in the lack of precise identification of the person authorized to make the affidavit required by the May 2001 order, given that the order specifically directed appellant to make his payments “to the Carroll County Clerk of Superior Court” and the affidavit in this case was provided by the individual occupying that position. The majority provides no explanation why it is pertinent to this appeal that “the record is devoid of any information as to what prompted the clerk of the court to issue his affidavit three and one-half years after” the May 2001 order, id., and I can discern no reason why that fact would require reversal of the trial court’s denial of appellant’s motion.