Court Opinion

ID: 9700671
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:41:21.271868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:13.103248
License: Public Domain

Larson, J.
(dissenting) — I must respectfully dissent from Division II in the majority opinion.
The provisions of the Uniform Support of Dependents Law adopted by the State of Iowa, I feel, go no further than to aid in the laudable purpose of preventing a roving delinquent parent from avoiding his responsibility to provide for his dependents and to lend its courts power of enforcement to a foreign state court which, after due consideration of the circumstances and needs, has decreed the amount of such payments in a divorce or separate-maintenance decree.
I feel sure the provisions of our law in this regard were not intended to interfere with the jurisdiction or power of another state court which has retained, as we do, the right to modify the original support decree for good and sufficient cause shown. If it were not so, the respondent state could reduce the support payments as well as raise them. It could, in effect, modify the original decree. What would be defendant’s status in his home state then?
I would hold the authority granted our courts is to enforce by its processes the orders of the foreign state courts as the circumstances seem to justly require. It would be quite different where no other court had considered or issued a support order or had retained jurisdiction to modify such an order. In such case there would be no conflict of jurisdiction, and only the question of need and ability would be involved.