Court Opinion

ID: 9527006
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:26:40.097468+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:23.300100
License: Public Domain

BAKER, Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
Because I believe our court erred in its analysis in Chapman v. Chapman (1987), Ind.App., 512 N.E.2d 414, and because there seems to exist a grave inconsistency in the interpretation applied by the judges in our state, I am compelled to dissent to the majority’s holding that a court is prohibited from using its contempt power against a delinquent parent once a child support arrearage is reduced to a judgment.
I acknowledge that today’s result concerning the order of contempt is mandated by this court’s earlier opinion in Chapman. Under this court’s interpretation of Article 1, Section 22 of the Indiana Constitution, the trial court may use its contempt power to enforce a child support order, but the trial court may not imprison someone for debt. In the present case, the majority holds that the trial court properly found William was in contempt for failing to pay ordered child support and education payments. When the orders were automatically reduced to money judgments, however, the trial court erred when it continued to hold William in contempt.
I write separately because I believe Chapman was wrongly decided. I cannot agree that we should deny the court use of its contempt power when the court seeks to provide custodial parents with the additional security of a money judgment. To strip the court of this power only forces the court to make very difficult choices— *306choices I do not believe represent good public policy. As the law exists today, either the practitioner’s request or the court’s own motion to reduce a support arrearage to a judgment serves as a ticket out of jail for a non-paying, non-custodial parent. This is outrageous. When a parent is held in contempt for failing to pay child support, it should be of no moment that the support arrearage is reduced to a judgment.
For this reason, I would affirm the trial court’s determination that William is in contempt for failing to comply with the orders set forth in the decree of dissolution of January 19, 1982, even though the 1982 orders were reduced to money judgments. In all other respects, I concur.