Court Opinion

ID: 9566579
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:41:00.17507+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:38:33.833790
License: Public Domain

CARDINE, Justice,
specially concurring.
In the July 18, 1975 divorce decree, Kim Hart, the father, was awarded custody of the parties’ two-year-old child, the court finding that the mother’s condition of health and irregular employment and the husband’s regular work hour schedule were the pivotal factors in determining that the best interests of the child required custody being awarded to the father. The mother was not required to pay child support. Neither child support nor property settlement was mentioned in the decree of divorce.
On August 21, 1976, the mother, Kathie Warren, formerly Kathie Hart, filed a petition for modification seeking custody of the minor child because of a substantial change *515in circumstances, alleged to be improvement in her condition of health, remarriage, now able to make a home for the child, and the father’s change of condition affecting babysitting for the child. Child support was not mentioned nor requested. On January 21, 1977, an order of modification of divorce decree, without provision for child support, transferred primary custody of the parties’ minor child to Kathie Warren, formerly Kathie Hart, the child’s mother.
Now, by Amended Verified Petition for Modification filed March 4, 1987, the mother, Kathie Warren, formerly Kathie Hart, seeks child support alleging as changed circumstances her divorce from Jess Warren, her need for child support at this time, and the father’s ability to pay. The father Kim Hart’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim was granted by the court.
Two questions are presented. First, does the petition for modification seek modification of the divorce decree previously entered; and if the petition is to modify, does remarriage and later divorce constitute sufficient change in circumstances to permit the court to modify the decree with respect to child support? It was surely upon decision of this issue that the court found the complaint failed to state a claim and granted appellee’s motion to dismiss.
The second question presented is, where no child support at all is awarded in a decree of divorce, is a petition later seeking child support one to modify that decree or does it present something not resolved in the original decree and therefore to be treated not as a modification, but as an addition to the decree? The child support obligation may be discharged by other than monthly payments, e.g., by a lump sum set aside for that purpose or in the property settlement. In this case appellee claims in his affidavit that the child support obligation was satisfied in the property settlement. There is nothing in the record to support that conclusory assertion.
I can agree that, where at the time the divorce decree is entered and nothing is provided or agreed upon with respect to child support, the proceeding is one not for modification but for determination of child support in the first instance.
With the above comments, I concur in the decision of the court.