Court Opinion

ID: 9608502
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:13:54.748209+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:03:32.117150
License: Public Domain

URBIGKIT, Justice, Retired,
dissenting.
Orland P. Glenn committed a murderous assault upon his ex-wife for which he received a life term prison sentence. Additionally, lacking substantial income through trial and subsequent confinement, he has now accumulated $19,085 in delinquent child support. To this burden, an award for restitution of $18,950.65 must be added. Furthermore, Glenn’s ex-wife also obtained a default judgment on November 3, 1988 in the amount of $500,000, which has accrued unpaid interest at a ten percent annual amount. On October 4, 1988, *824Glenn’s ex-wife and mother of his children, Emily M. Glenn, executed an assignment for any child support payments which she might receive to the predecessor of the present Wyoming State Department of Family Services for reimbursement of the “welfare” benefits that she has received.
Appellant, looking at the monumental debt and the accruing numbers which, because of the age of his children, had declined from $550 to $300 per month, filed an application for the remission of the child support obligation. Following a hearing on a petition to modify child support and by this majority opinion, appellant is obligated to pay $100 per month for child support from a $36 monthly military disability payment and a prisoner incentive payment of $67.50. This is, in essence, a further punishment by a 1992 attachment of funds used for personal maintenance at the penitentiary (except $3.50 per month), which will constitute additional retribution beyond the life term confinement sentence entered approximately four years ago.
Maybe that is justice. Maybe it is, as appellant contends, moving numbers on the ledger. First, I find that efforts to obligate a person with a life sentence to provide funds for replacement of state obligations under aid to dependent children programs to be next to totally absurd. Beyond that, however, unless we are just moving numbers without collective purpose, I find clear violation of federal statutes and state laws.
This is true if we really intended to collect something for the Department of Family Services, or perhaps for the mother,1 in addition to the $15 remaining due for the Victim’s Compensation Fund; $18,950.65 restitution; an unpaid judgment which is now approximately $735,000; and unpaid child support accrued through December 1991 of $19,085.
Candidly, we need to consider whether this decision is really intended to involve actual collection or, conversely, is a meaningless exercise in semantics to avoid the possibility of ignorant individuals, with malicious intent, misconstruing the decision for ulterior purpose in some future retention campaign.
I choose to believe that the majority intends some real result in writing the opinion and, consequently, I examine the meaning of a $100 per month child support order entered against a life term prisoner whose income consists of a $36 military disability payment and $67.50 incentive compensation for prison labor.
Starting with state law, we find Wyo. Stat. § 1 — 15—107(b)(ii) (1988), which provides exemptions of income from attachment, including “Veteran’s benefits,” and “[ojther exemptions as provided by law.” Wyo.Stat. § l-15-107(b)(x).
In order to consider the confinement incentive compensation receipts, we find from Wyo.Stat. § 7-16-205 (Cum.Supp. 1992) an established order of priority for prisoner earnings: (i) personal necessities; (ii) victim’s compensation; and (iii) support for dependent relatives of the prisoner. The child support guidelines, Wyo.Stat. § 20-6-304(b) (Cum.Supp.1992), provide: “In the case of an obligor having a monthly net income of less than five hundred dollars ($500.00), the support obligation shall be based on the obligor’s ability to pay, but in no case shall the support obligation be less than fifty dollars ($50.00) per month.” (Emphasis added.)
The income withholding statute, Wyo. Stat. § 20 — 6—210(b)(iii) (Cum.Supp.1992), provides: “That the amount actually withheld for support combined with the fee authorized by W.S. 20-6-212(c) shall not exceed thirty-five percent (35%) of the obli-gor’s disposable income received from that payor[.]”
The majority accurately recognizes that Wyo.Stat. § 40 — 14—505(b) (1977) has, in the Uniform Consumer Credit Code statute, a garnishment limitation proviso which does not apply to child support obligations. The majority should have looked beyond to 15 U.S.C. § 1673(a), where child support is *825recognized as exempt by the UCCC type formula to 15 U.S.C. § 1673(b)(2):
The maximum part of the aggregate disposable earnings of an individual for any workweek which is subject to garnishment to enforce any order for the support of any person shall not exceed—
(A) where such individual is supporting his spouse of dependent child (other than a spouse or child with respect to whose support such order is used), 50 per centum of such individual’s disposable earnings for that week; and
(B) where such individual is not supporting such a spouse or dependent child described in clause (A), 60 per centum of such individual's disposable earnings for that week[.]
Furthermore, it is clear that 42 U.S.C. § 659 does not establish “a right to garnishment of disability benefits.” The McCarty v. McCarty, 453 U.S. 210, 101 S.Ct. 2728, 69 L.Ed.2d 589 (1981) statute, 10 U.S.C. § 1408, provides only a fifty percent exemption to court-ordered lien imposition on military pay:
The total amount of the disposable retired or retainer pay of a member payable under subsection (d) may not exceed 50 percent of such disposable retired or retainer pay.
10 U.S.C. § 1408(e)(1).
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the total amount of the disposable retired or retainer pay of a member payable by the Secretary concerned under all court orders pursuant to this section and all legal processes pursuant to section 459 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 659) with respect to a member may not exceed 65 percent of the disposal retired or retainer pay payable to such member.
10 U.S.C. § 1408(e)(4)(B).
It is certain that McCarty, 453 U.S. 210, 101 S.Ct. 2728 in no regard considered disability benefit payments to the veteran. Id. at 213, 101 S.Ct. at 2731. It is likewise apparent that the Uniformed Services Former Spouse Protection Act, P.L. 97-252, Title X, § 1006, 96 Stat. 737, 10 U.S.C. § 1408, also excluded disability benefits from any attachment authorization. See 10 U.S.C. § 1408(a)(4); and Rose v. Rose, 481 U.S. 619, 644, 107 S.Ct. 2029, 2043, 95 L.Ed.2d 599 (1987), White, J., dissenting. Consequently, if I believe that this case has any meaning, considering the extent of activities already pursued, there has to be something more at stake than increasing the delinquency in the child support account by $100 per month. The reason I dissent is because of the anticipation the majority intent reflects to reduce this life term prisoner to usable income for maintenance of $3.50 a month as further punishment.2
I fail to see reality in this regard considering the fifty percent limitation provided in federal law for both military disability retirement benefits and employment earnings. I find a disregard of fact in denying a real need for funds for someone sentenced to a life term. Beyond that, child support has an inferior position, not only to the necessities of the prisoner, but also to the unpaid $18,950.65 restitution. Further, I question that under the guidelines, the amount of $100 out of $103.50 morally or practically reaches compliance with extensive case law of this court regarding “obli-gor’s ability to pay” as we find in Wyo. Stat. § 20-6-304(b) where the stated minimum is $50 and not everything.
This is not a contempt action, nor does the father in this case, facing a life sentence, have cause to fear contempt confinement punishment from non-payment while imprisoned. Cf. Barbour v. Barbour, 642 S.W.2d 904 (Ky.App.1982), where contempt might be used, but garnishment activities were not considered. See also Elmwood v. Elmwood, 295 N.C. 168, 244 S.E.2d 668 (1978), where the court recognized retirement disability pay was not “remuneration *826for employment.” Further cases have held that disability benefits are exempt from attachment unless specific provisions of federal law are otherwise provided. See Sanchez Dieppa v. Rodriguez Pereira, 580 F.Supp. 735 (D.P.R.1984).
The concepts advanced in Clemans v. Collins, 679 P.2d 1041 (Alaska 1984); Pierce v. Pierce, 162 Mich.App. 367, 412 N.W.2d 291 (1987); Ohler v. Ohler, 220 Neb. 272, 369 N.W.2d 615 (1985); and Foster v. Foster, 99 A.D.2d 284, 471 N.Y.S.2d 867 (1984), relating to reality and reasonableness in assessment of child support against the incarcerated, have, in my opinion, perverse persuasion from that utilized by this majority. The fact is, in this case, that the decision would leave $3.50 for a prisoner to spend on monthly necessities— that is essentially nothing. See Morehead v. Morehead, 811 P.2d 721 (Wyo.1991); Booker v. Booker, 626 P.2d 561 (Wyo.1981); and Lonabaugh v. Lonabaugh, 46 Wyo. 23, 22 P.2d 199 (1933).
This dissent just touches the surface of the complexities involved in any collection effort for child support in this case from the sources of funds to which, attention is directed. Addressing reality and reason, I would consider that if this effort is to really seek a way to provide money for the inmate’s family in some amount and not just to create collection litigation for the courts, reason, statutes, and perhaps even some modest justice would determine that a maximum order should have been entered for the lesser of $50, or fifty percent of the prisoner’s earnings and disability retirement benefits. This, in itself, would only be proper if both the inmate and the ex-wife first waived the priority requirement for payment on the restitution obligation.
This decision, by incomplete examination of a complex composite of statutes and case law, violates maximum assessment on collection provisions in both state and federal law and, in text, totally fails in reasoned analysis.
Consequently, I dissent.

. The issue of who receives the recovered funds — the state in repayment or the family for additional support — is directly involved in the standard of need controversies currently before this court in Davidson v. Sherman, Wyoming Supreme Court, Docket No. 92-63.

. I find it ludicrous and absurd to include gifts from friends in computation of funds for a prisoner’s necessities. If he had excessive funds in his account, those gifts would not be made. Conversely, if the donors wanted to subsidize the Wyoming Department of Family Services, AFDC accounts, by gifts, they could have done that. We should confine this decision by analysis of whether a very modest disability payment and statutorily created confinement employment compensation can be taken essentially in full, leaving the prisoner virtually without any money for his penitentiary existence.