Court Opinion

ID: 9663469
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:39:49.426909+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:50.525345
License: Public Domain

HUSPENI, Presiding Judge
(concurring in part, dissenting in part)
I agree with the majority’s affirmance of the trial court's computation of support arrearages based on the unmodified Nebraska decree which set appellant’s support obligation at $375 per month. It is clear from the record that the three subsequent *489“modifications” obtained by appellant were not modifications at all, but were orders issued in URESA actions initiated by appellant. The orders were ancillary to the judgment and decree and had no effect upon the arrearages accruing under the Nebraska decree. See State of Minnesota ex rel. County of Hennepin v. Erlandson, 380 N.W.2d 578, 580 (Minn.Ct.App.1986).
I also agree with the trial court’s determination that arrearages accruing more than ten years prior to motion for judgment should not be considered. Dent v. Casaga, 296 Minn. 292, 297, 208 N.W.2d 734, 737 (1973).
I respectfully dissent, however, from the trial court’s application of Nebraska law to respondent’s action for arrears and enforcement of the Nebraska decree. I can discern no support in either Minn.Stat. § 518C.22-.25 (1986) or Minn.Stat. § 548.27 (1986) for the trial court’s decision to include interest on the judgment pursuant to Nebraska law. Inclusion of interest would have been proper had respondent reduced the arrears to judgment in Nebraska and then registered that judgment in Minnesota pursuant to Minn.Stat. § 548.27 and sought its enforcement here. Inclusion of interest in the Minnesota judgment for arrears based on the registered Nebraska decree and Nebraska law was, I believe, inappropriate.
Further, I believe respondent’s reliance on Matson I and II is misplaced. In Mat-son I, a URESA action, the obligee obtained a Wisconsin money judgment for arrears under a Wisconsin decree and sought its enforcement after registering that foreign judgment in Minnesota pursuant to the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act (UEFJA) Minn.Stat. §§ 548.26-548.33 (1986).
In Matson I, the supreme court found that:
states are obliged by [the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution] to give full faith and credit to a judgment of a sister state if that judgment is definite and certain and for a specific amount.
Matson v. Matson, 310 N.W.2d 502, 505 (Minn.1981). The court in Matson I then found that because the Wisconsin judgment was for a specific amount, full faith and credit required Minnesota courts to enforce it. Id.
By contrast, respondent in this matter registered the Nebraska decree, not an actual judgment. She sought to collect the amount of arrearages and interest to which she would have been entitled in a Nebraska court. This distinction, I submit, was important to the Matson II court which noted:
[T]he Full Faith and Credit Clause requires that courts of this state recognize and enforce judgments of other states even though they could not be obtained under Minnesota law. See Morris v. Jones, 329 U.S. 545, 551, 67 S.Ct. 451, 455, 91 L.Ed. 488 (1946). In Matson, 310 N.W.2d at 505, this court found that the 1980 money judgment constituted a final foreign judgment and appellant filed the 1980 money judgment, not the 1961 divorce decree, for enforcement in Minnesota. Moreover, in Matson, 310 N.W.2d at 505, this court determined that the 1980 Wisconsin judgment constitutes a foreign judgment within the meaning of Minn.Stat. § 548.26 (1982)
Matson v. Matson, 333 N.W.2d 862, 866 (Minn.1983) (emphasis added).
Finally, although respondent may be assured of continuing support until a child reaches twenty if the child is in secondary school (see Minn.Stat. § 518.54, subd. 2 (1986)), I submit the trial court here erred in applying Nebraska law to continue support until the child reached nineteen. On this issue, too, I believe Minnesota law must be applied.