Court Opinion

ID: 9617841
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:02:07.432954+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:03:22.310855
License: Public Domain

BRYNER, Justice,
pro tem., dissenting.
In my view, Michael Dewey made a sufficient showing below to preclude summary denial of his Motion for Relief from Judgment.
In denying Michael’s motion summarily, the superior court expressed the view that the entry of the dissolution decree effectively precluded Michael, from challenging the support obligation. The court stated, in relevant part, that, “with the entry of the order of support, [Michael] lost the right to unilaterally sever” his in loco parentis relationship with Tisha. This conclusion is incorrect as a matter of law: “The mere agreement by an adult to pay money to or for a minor does not, without more, create an in loco parentis relationship.... ” Brown v. Brown, 287 Md. 273, 412 A.2d 396, 403 n. 8 (1980).
As a separate basis for denying relief, the superior court further found, as a factual matter, that Michael had failed to establish the nature of the mistake that formed the basis for his motion for relief from judgment. My review of the record convinces me that the superior court was clearly erroneous in finding Michael’s allegation of mistake inadequate. In his affidavit, Michael asserted that, “[a]t the time of the dissolution, I mistakenly agreed to pay child support for Tisha Melovidov and for Robert Dewey even though Tisha Melovidov is not my child. I did so without legal advice; I did not get an attorney to counsel me.” Reading this statement in a reasonable and common sense manner, I think the core allegation set forth therein is abundantly clear: Michael asserts that, at the time of the dissolution, he mistakenly believed that he was legally obligated to make support payments for Tisha, even though she was not his child and he had never adopted her.1
*631Although this would at first blush appear to be an assertion of unilateral mistake of law, closer examination of the record discloses otherwise. Helen’s response to Michael’s motion provides no information to refute, and in fact does not even specifically deny, Michael’s claim that his agreement to pay support was premised on the mistaken belief that he had a legal duty to provide continuing support for Tisha. In her response, Helen characterizes Michael’s promise to pay support for Tisha as having been voluntarily made; Helen asserts that she had offered to accept fifty dollars per month in support payments for Tisha but that Michael had insisted on paying her two hundred dollars monthly.
Helen’s assertion falls short of the mark. Michael’s offer to pay more for Tisha’s support than Helen demanded certainly establishes that Michael made no mistake about the amount of support he agreed to pay. Yet Michael is not asserting a mistake as to the amount he agreed to pay; he is claiming a mistake as to his legal obligation to pay any money at all. Michael’s commendable willingness to pay a generous amount of child support has no logical bearing on, and wholly fails to negate, Michael’s core claim of mistake: that the source of his generosity lay in his mistaken understanding of his legal duty toward Tisha.
Indeed, Helen’s asserted willingness to accept monthly child support in the amount of fifty dollars for Tisha provides strong corroboration for Michael’s claim of mistake and a strong indication that this mistake was not unilateral — that Michael and Helen shared the view that Michael was legally bound to pay at least some amount for Tisha’s support. Helen presumably would not have proposed even a minimal payment of fifty dollars per month unless she believed that Michael had a legal duty to support Tisha.
Notably, by asserting in her response to Michael’s motion for relief from judgment that the in loco parentis doctrine obligated Michael to provide for Tisha’s continued support upon dissolution of the parties’ marriage, Helen reveals her continuing belief that Michael was legally obligated to provide ongoing support for Tisha by- virtue of his marriage to Helen, and not merely as a result of his willingness to undertake a contractual support obligation. This legal view is correctly rejected by the majority opinion-in this case. And it is precisely the type of mistaken legal belief that, according to Michael, prompted his own decision to agree to pay child support for Tisha.
Scrutiny of the original dissolution paperwork, attached as an exhibit to Michael’s motion for relief from judgment, lends further credence to Michael’s assertion of mistake. In the original Petition for Dissolution of Marriage form that was filed by the parties in this case and certified as true by both Michael and Helen, both Tisha and Robert Dewey are listed as “children born of the marriage or adopted.” The Child Support Order form, which appears to have been filled in and submitted by the parties, lists Michael as the father of Tisha, not as Tisha’s custodian. The Child Support Order purports to require payment of child support based on Michael’s status as father, not based on the existence of an underlying agreement or contract to pay support for a child that was neither fathered nor adopted by Michael. Likewise, the Decree of Dissolution itself describes child support as an obligation of “the father.”
In short, the record, taken as a whole, strongly suggests that the parties in this case entered into an uncounseled child support agreement in the mistaken belief that Michael’s legal status was essentially indistinguishable from that of a natural parent: that the law imposed upon Michael the same duties and obligations upon dissolution that would have been imposed on him had he been Tisha’s biological or adoptive father. The record further suggests that in approving the dissolution and ordering support, the superior court acted upon the mistaken *632premise that Michael was Tisha’s biological father.
Accepting as true those allegations that remain uncontroverted in Michael’s motion for relief from judgment, the record supports the conclusion that “the fundamental, underlying assumption of the dissolution agreement has been destroyed,” Lowe v. Lowe, 817 P.2d 453, 458 (Alaska 1991), and that relief in at least limited form,2 would be appropriate under Alaska Civil Rule 60(b)(1) or (b)(6). Under these circumstances, I believe that summary denial of Michael’s motion for relief from judgment was improper. Absent an affirmative evidentiary showing that the support order in this case was not in fact based on the parties’ mutually mistaken assumptions as to Michael’s legal obligations or on the court’s mistaken assumption that Michael was in fact Tisha’s biological father, I would find error and remand this case for an evi-dentiary hearing to determine the underlying basis for the original support agreement.
I have no quarrel with the majority’s holding that a knowing and voluntary agreement between divorcing parents for child support payments is enforceable on contractual grounds, regardless of the obligor parent’s preexisting legal duty to pay support. A purely contractual duty to pay support, however, could arise only upon the showing of a valid contract — one reflecting the informed agreement of both parties. In my view, a contract based on mutual mistake as to the obligor parent’s preexisting legal duty to pay support could not be deemed a valid contract. In affirming the superior court’s denial of relief, the majority of the court simply assumes that a valid contract was formed in this case. In the face of Michael’s claim of mistake, Helen’s failure to expressly deny the mistake, and the strong suggestion in the original dissolution paperwork that both parties misunderstood the legal duties applicable in their situation, the majority’s willingness to assume the existence of a valid contract seems unrealistic and unjustified.
Accordingly, I dissent from the court’s decision affirming the superior court’s order denying relief.

. The affidavit is admittedly sparse on details and may not be a model of specificity, but few pleadings are drafted so artfully as to be ironclad. I believe that, for purposes of determining whether *631summary disposition of Michael's motion was appropriate, the superior court should have read Michael’s pleadings in a common sense manner and resolved any ambiguity in Michael's favor. At the very least, the court should have called on Michael to submit a supplemental affidavit more particularly describing the mistake that led him to enter into the support agreement.

. I agree with the majority of the court that Michael has failed to allege or prove circumstances sufficient to excuse his delay in seeking relief from the original judgment. This failure, in my view, would at most preclude Michael’s effort to obtain retroactive modification of the support decree. The delay cannot justify denying Michael’s request for relief as to payments that have not yet become due, cf. AS 25.27.225 (court order for support payment becomes a judgment once the payment is due and owing), or that became due within one year of Michael’s motion for relief from judgment — the period of delay deemed presumptively reasonable under Civil Rule 60(b)(1) for motions seeking relief due to a mistake.