Court Opinion

ID: 9730498
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:14:14.146826+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:06.926250
License: Public Domain

HARRIS, Associate Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I agree with the majority’s basic holding that the trial court erred in concluding that it lacked authority to handle this proceeding under the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act as it has been adopted in the District of Columbia. Beyond that, I fear, my Brothers have sown seeds of confusion in a field which sorely needs the light of more comprehensive reasoning.
This is an area of the law which presents a considerable number of problems. See, e. g., Note, The Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act, 13 Stan.L.Rev. 901 (1961). It affects many people in a most critical way, /. e., their very ability to survive economically. The importance of the issues presented by this case is illustrated by the vigor with which the Corporation Counsel of the District of Columbia has represented the interests of the dependent former wife and the remaining dependent child in this proceeding, asserting in part that a money judgment should have been entered for the arrearages which existed in payments of both alimony and child support.
The issues confronting us are complex and potentially far-reaching from a prece-dential standpoint. I express these views, albeit somewhat briefly, because of my inability to agree with the majority’s disposition — or lack thereof — of significant aspects of this case.
I first state what I believe this court should do. In my opinion, we should hold that the trial court erred in failing to apply the provisions of URESA (as enacted in the District of Columbia), and remand the case for a proper application of those provisions in the normal course of the adversary process. That, in my view, should conclude our disposition of this controversy (or, at least, of this phase of it). Much of the majority opinion, however, unfortunately goes beyond such a disposition in a basically advisory fashion which bewilders rather than enlightens the reader. This leads me to my areas of concern with the majority opinion.
I start with the proposition that the original Colorado decree, as subsequently adopted by the Maryland court, constituted an unquestioned “duty of support” as defined by D.C.Code 1973, § 30-302(e). When appellant filed her URESA petition in Maryland, alleging that her former husband had moved to the District of Columbia and was delinquent in his support obligations, the proceeding properly was transferred to this *580jurisdiction and docketed in the Superior Court pursuant to § 30-314(a). Then, once the Superior Court satisfied itself that there was a duty of support as defined by the Act, it was authorized under § 30-315 to “order the defendant to pay such amounts under such terms and conditions as the court may deem proper.”1
I recognize that this court has stated that:
When [the URESA] petition was forwarded here, the responding court had to determine under our local statute whether [the obligor] owed a duty of support and, if so, the amount he should be required to pay for that purpose. [Prager v. Smith, D.C.App., 195 A.2d 257, 258-59 (1963) (footnote omitted).]
However, in Prager v. Smith, the District of. Columbia trial court ordered the URESA defendant to pay the identical sum which the initiating New York court had directed him to pay. Hence, this court has not yet resolved definitively the question of what precise effect the support order of the initiating court has when the District of Columbia is the responding jurisdiction. That is an issue on which there is a split of authority. Compare Craft v. Hertz, 182 N.W.2d 293 (N.D.1970) (only originating jurisdiction may modify a support order); Coumans v. Albaugh, 36 N.J.Super. 308, 115 A.2d 641 (1955) (same) and Freeland v. Freeland, 313 S.W.2d 943 (Tex.Civ.App.1958) (same) with Swan v. Shelton, 469 S.W.2d 943 (Mo.App.1971) (responding court may alter initiating court’s support order); Commonwealth ex rel. Byrne v. Byrne, 212 Pa.Super. 566, 243 A.2d 196 (1968) (same) and Davidson v. Davidson, 66 Wash.2d 780, 405 P.2d 261 (1965) (same).
This question remains unanswered here, as the basic ruling by the majority is ambivalent. The majority reverses the trial court’s rejection of URESA applicability, but only after it has affirmed the trial court’s independently arrived at support decree. This, it seems to me, is an example of putting the cart before the horse. The majority thus seems to say that the proceeding should have been treated under the uniform support statutes, but that it matters little that it was not. Except, that is, for the matter of arrearages, which the majority concludes are not recoverable under the District of Columbia Act. I now turn to that aspect of the majority opinion, which I consider to be comparably ambivalent.
The majority correctly notes that § 2(b) of the 1968 Revised Model Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act has not been legislatively adopted in this jurisdiction.2 The first sentence of § 9 of the 1968 revised model act (both § 2(b) and § 9 refer to the duty to pay arrearages) provides that: “All duties of support, including the duty to pay arrearages, are enforceable by a proceeding under this Act including a proceeding for civil contempt.” 9 U.L.A., Matrimonial, Family and Health Laws 805, 832 (1973). While that particular language is not present in our version of the Act, D.C.Code 1973, § 30-303 provides that: “The civil remedies herein provided are in addition to and not in substitution for any other remedies.” Additionally, this court specifically has sanctioned the entry of a money judgment (albeit uncontested) for arrearages in a URESA proceeding. Howze v. Howze, D.C.App., 225 A.2d 477 (1967). Since the propriety of a judgment *581for arrearages has been established in this jurisdiction, I attach no decisional significance to the fact that Congress did not specifically legislate the availability of a money judgment for arrearages as one of the available tools for the enforcement of a support obligation.3 Thus, I would be considerably troubled if the majority here rejected flatly the appropriateness of a judgment for arrearages in any URESA proceeding.
Had the majority simply refused to sanction a judgment for all arrearages under URESA, such a position would have presented three obvious practical problems. First, it would be inconsistent with the basic objective of the overall statutory scheme, which is to permit the expeditious enforcement of a duty of support in another jurisdiction as simply as possible at a minimum cost.4 Second, it would reward an obligor who leaves the original jurisdiction and thereafter defaults on his obligations. Third, it would promote otherwise avoidable litigation. There would be no incentive for even modest tolerance on the part of an obligee if an obligor, for the most understandable of reasons, should run somewhat behind in meeting his support obligations. If a delay which is tolerated should become as a matter of law a payment which is lost forever, then few obligees would tolerate any delay, but rather would hasten to their respective local courthouses to file URESA petitions.5
However, the majority does not rule out all arrearages as a remedy in this proceeding. Rather, it says that arrearages may be recovered from the date of the filing of the original URESA petition in Maryland. Thus, somehow a money judgment for ar-rearages is not proper for the full amount left unpaid by the obligor, but is proper for the amount unpaid after a URESA petition has been filed in the initiating jurisdiction. The majority cites no authority for its ruling on this point, which is not surprising. In my view, such a proposition is contrary to reason as well as being without any support in law.
I conclude by recognizing that an imperfect understanding on my part of the full significance of the majority opinion may be the underlying basis for my unwillingness to concur in other than its basic holding as to the applicability of URESA. Hopefully my fears are groundless, but I dó feel obliged to disassociate myself from the other portions of the majority opinion.

. Also of relevance (although not a model of clarity) is § 30-319 of the Code, which provides:
No order for support entered by the court in any proceeding arising under this chapter shall supersede any previous order of support entered in a divorce . . . action, or any other proceedings, but the amounts for a particular period paid pursuant to either order, when verified, shall be credited against amounts accruing or accrued for the same period under both.

. The majority does not mention the fact that no provision of the 1968 revised model act has been adopted here, 9 U.L.A., Matrimonial, Family and Health Laws 805 (1973), nor was any part of the earlier 1958 revised model act. Our uniform support legislation was enacted in 1957, based upon the original model act of 1950 as it had been amended in 1952. Id., at 885.

. In footnote 7 of the majority opinion, the entry of a money judgment for unpaid obligations is recognized as a potential remedy for one entitled to a duty of support. Nonetheless, the majority implicitly rejects that as a permissible course of action in this case.
The majority also concludes that the principle expressed in Gamble v. Gamble, D.C.App., 258 A.2d 261 (1969) (Maryland order subject to possible retroactive modification not entitled to full faith and credit) is inapplicable to a URESA proceeding. The majority does not discuss the significance (from the standpoint of Gamble) of a factor which may be highly relevant: the Maryland decree merely adopted a valid Colorado decree.

. See footnote 8 of the majority opinion.

.Perhaps the majority is of the unspoken view that the most appropriate way for an obligee such as our appellant to proceed would be to file a URESA petition in Maryland, have it transferred to the District of Columbia and processed without dispositive reference to ar-rearages, then return to Maryland to seek a money judgment for remaining arrearages, and then return to the District of Columbia to enforce the money judgment. If that represents the thrust of the majority’s analysis, URESA would become less than a useless tool for an obligee, who would have to flit from court to court (often not as geographically convenient as Maryland and the District of Columbia); URESA would become a dramatically counterproductive statutory scheme. Surely, this was intended by no one.