Court Opinion

ID: 9719945
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:10:10.997696+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:11.520890
License: Public Domain

NAJAM, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Indiana law does not prohibit trial courts from entering retroactive initial child support orders. As the majority acknowledges, a parent has a common law duty to support his child. That duty begins when a child is born, not when a petition for dissolution of marriage is filed.
Indiana Code Section 31-16-2-2 codifies the common law duty of a parent to support his child and provides that "[a] cause of action for child support is established." This cause of action is unlimited. A husband and father at common law has the duty and obligation to support his children without any court decree or order. Crowe v. Crowe, 247 Ind. 51, 211 N.E.2d 164, 166 *656(1965). "A court order requiring the payment of this support does nothing more than carry out the common law principle involved." Id.
In interpreting a statute, we must consider not only what the statute says but what it does not say. Curley v. Lake County Bd. of Elections & Registration, 896 N.E.2d 24, 37 (Ind.Ct.App.2008) (quotation omitted), trans denied. In construing a statute, we cannot supply missing terms. Uhlman v. Panares, 908 N.E.2d 650, 657 (Ind.Ct.App.2009). The courts cannot extend the plain meaning of a statute by the substitution, or addition, of words or phrases, without encroaching upon the legislative branch of government. See id. (quotation and citation omitted). Neither this statute nor any other related statute prohibits or otherwise limits retroactive initial child support orders. Thus, I cannot agree with the majority's holding that the trial court lacked authority to enter a child support order retroactive to a date preceding the filing of the petition for dissolution when there is no such provision to be found in the child support statutes.
Child support is the right of a child, not of a parent, and a parent holds the child support payments in trust for the child's benefit. See Warsco v. Hambright (In re Hambright), 762 N.E.2d 98, 101 (Ind.2002). A request for child support may be brought whether the parents are, were, or have never been married. See Ind.Code § 31-16-22. And, under Indiana Code Section 31-16-6-1, a request for an order of child support may be filed in a dissolution action, an action for legal separation, or in a separate action for child support. Even while married, Mother could have instituted a separate action for child support under Indiana Code Article 31-16 and, in that case, she could have requested support retroactive to a date preceding that request. The fact that Mother requested retroactive child support within a dissolution proceeding does not bar her request.
It is well-settled that parents have a common law duty to support their children. Mariga v. Flint, 822 N.E.2d 620, 630 (Ind.Ct.App.2005), trans. denied; Bales v. Bales, 801 N.E.2d 196, 199 (Ind.Ct.App.2004) (citing In re S.T., 621 N.E.2d 371, 373 (Ind.Ct.App.1993)) trans. denied. Child support obligations arise out of a natural duty of the parent. Pettit v. Pettit 626 N.E.2d 444, 445 (Ind.1993). The majority agrees that there is no question that Father had a duty to support the Child that predated and is entirely independent of the dissolution proceedings. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the undeniable common law duty and Father's particular duty, the majority concludes that the dissolution court did not have "authority to reach into an intact marriage" to enforce Father's child support obligation. Op. at 653.
According to the majority, until a petition for dissolution has been filed, a marriage is deemed "intact," and the parties to the marriage are not accountable to the courts for their child support obligation. This cannot be. Our courts routinely delve into the facts and circumstances of a marriage as they existed prior to a petition for dissolution when, for example, the courts determine marital income, assets, liabilities, and whether a dissipation of assets has occurred. The majority posits that the Boone marriage was an "intact marriage in the eyes of the law." But the term "intact marriage" is not a defined term in the law, and the term does not appear in our statutes. The plain meaning of the term "intact" is "untouched esp. by anything that harms or diminishes: left complete or entire: uninjured." Webster's 3d New Int'l Dictionary at 1178 (2002). The Boone marriage was not intact for many years, and the trial court found that *657Father had discontinued the support for his child some eighteen months before he filed the petition for dissolution.
The majority opinion immunizes the parent who fails or refuses to support his child from any accountability or consequences if his unpaid child support obligation accrues before a petition for dissolution of marriage is filed. For those child support offenders, the majority ignores the common law duty and nullifies the statutory cause of action and remedy for not supporting a child. As our Supreme Court noted in Pettit, a remedy at law that is ineffective in practice is not an adequate remedy. 626 N.E.2d at 446. The majority's interpretation gives the married parent who fails to support his child a free pass and deprives the child who is not supported of an adequate civil remedy.
In the majority's view, in a dissolution of marriage a parent's legally enforceable obligation to support his child is limited to prospective child support. The majority holds, in effect, that our child support statutes abrogate a married parent's common law child support obligation. That is, it is the majority's interpretation that the statutory eause of action for child support is not in furtherance of but in derogation of the common law duty to support one's child. I cannot agree.
Statutes in derogation of the common law are to be strictly construed. Bartrom v. Adjustment Bureau, Inc., 618 N.E.2d 1, 10 (Ind.1993). This rule has special force when the statute affects a common law right or duty. Id. Our Supreme Court has consistently held that, "[when the legislature enacts a statute in derogation of the common law, this Court presumes that the legislature is aware of the common law [1] and does not intend to make any change therein beyond what it declares in express terms or by unmistakable implication." Id. In cases of doubt, a statute is construed as not changing the common law. Id.; see Dunson v. Dunson, 769 N.E.2d 1120, 1124 (Ind.2002); South Bend Cmty. Sch. Corp. v. Widawski, 622 N.E.2d 160, 162 (Ind.1993). The majority's reasoning violates these rules of statutory construction. Here, there is no statute that expressly or by unmistakable implication restricts a parent's initial child support obligation. And, if there were any doubt, the common law controls.
Mother's failure to have requested child support before Father filed the petition for dissolution does not bar the entry of a support order retroactive to the date Father ceased supporting the child.3 A rule that disallows the award of support retroactive to a date preceding the petition for support punishes the child for the custodial parent's failure to make an earlier request and rewards the recalcitrant parent. And the child loses the right to that support forever, contrary to the lodestar of support issues-the best interests of the child. See Lambert v. Lambert, 861 N.E.2d 1176, 1177 (Ind.2007). The legislature could not have intended that result. Nor can such be the policy of this state. Given the robust approach our legislature has taken to ensure that all children are supported adequately by their parents until the age of majority, I cannot imagine that the legislature intended for married parents to be granted a full reprieve from their child support obligations simply because they *658are married. See id. at 1179 ("we cannot imagine that the legislature intended for incarcerated parents to be granted a full reprieve from their child support obligations while their children are minors").
The majority compares and confuses the retroactive modification of child support with an initial support order. The general rule in Indiana is that the retroactive modification of support payments is erroneous if the modification relates back to a date earlier than the filing of the petition to modify. See Becker v. Becker, 902 N.E.2d 818, 820 (Ind.2009). This rule limiting the retroactivity of child support modifications is necessary to prevent orders inconsistent with the changed cireumstances rule. See Ind.Code § 31-16-8-1(b)(1);, Kruse v. Kruse, 464 N.E.2d 934, 939 (Ind.Ct.App.1984).4 But no change in cireumstances needs to be shown for a court to make an initial child support order. And this case is not about the retroactive modification of child support but about the entry of an initial child support order. The majority opinion also confuses initial child support orders with support orders in paternity actions, which are governed separately by the paternity statutes. See Ind.Code §§ 31-14-11-1 to -24.
The majority's holding cuts against the established common law tradition that has long held parents responsible for the support of their offspring. See Lambert, 861 N.E.2d at 1179. In this state, that tradition extends back a very long time. Id. (citing Haase v. Roehrscheid, 6 Ind. 66, 68 (1854) ("[it] is the duty of a father to support and educate his minor children")). Here, as in Lambert, it makes little sense to choose a path that cuts against the grain of statute, legal tradition, and natural instinct so completely. Id.
In his brief Father asks this court "to set down a bright line rule that the day the petition is filed with the clerk's office is the furthest point a court may order retroactive child support." Appellant's Brief at 7. Again, I cannot agree. The "bright line rule" should be that a parent has both a common law and statutory duty to support his child, that as a matter of law a parent is accountable for his child support obligation from the child's birth until emancipation, and that whether the parent is married, was formerly married, or has never been married to the other parent, an initial child support order to enforce a parent's child support obligation is not limited to the period following the commencement of a cause of action for child support.
Finally, I note that nonsupport of a dependent child is a crime in Indiana. A parent who knowingly or intentionally fails to provide support to his dependent child may be charged with eriminal nonsupport, which is a felony. See Ind.Code § 35-46-1-5. This criminal statute is based entirely on the common law rule that a parent has a duty to support his child. An outstanding child support order is not required for conviction. See State v. Taylor, 625 N.E.2d 1334, 1336 (Ind.Ct.App.1993) (holding that the State may prosecute for the crime of nonsupport even though no Indiana court has issued a support order). Thus, under the majority's holding, a parent in a dissolution proceeding is not subject to a retroactive initial child support order but may be subject to criminal liability arising from the same failure to pay child support. This is, of course, an absurd result. Our legislature could not *659have intended to exelude retroactive child support claims from the civil docket, leaving criminal prosecution of the child support obligor as the only recourse for the pursuit of such claims.
In sum, I have found nothing in our statutes or case law that prohibits a retroactive initial child support order where, as here, there is an undeniable duty to support a child and the dissolution court has determined, as a matter of fact, that the parent stopped supporting the child. We are presented here with cireumstances in which the parties were physically separated for five years before Father instituted this dissolution action. The record supports the judgment that Father first provided and then ceased to provide child support following the separation. On these facts, Father should not be allowed to escape his child support obligation merely because a dissolution proceeding was not initiated until long after the parties had separated. Thus, I do not agree with the majority's holding that the trial court abused its discretion when it ordered Father to pay child support retroactive to the date he ceased paying support, even though that date was before he filed the petition for dissolution.

. The majority states that Mother "applied to an Indiana Title IV-D office for assistance in obtaining child support, but she did not follow through with that endeavor." Op. at 651. Mother initially applied for assistance from the Title IV-D office in Illinois. After she relocated to Indiana, she applied to the Indiana Title IV-D office. At a pretrial hearing, Mother testified that the Indiana Title IVD office "won't do anything about [her application.]" Transcript at 6.

. Former Indiana Code Section 31-1-11.5-17, the predecessor to Indiana Code Section 31-16-8-1, was in effect when we decided Kruse. Like the current statute, the former statute required a showing of a substantial change in circumstances for the modification of a child support order.