Court Opinion

ID: 9670253
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:17:34.604127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:03.130690
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring in result).
Obviously, on advice of his own counsel, father should not have reduced his child support $25.00 per month. This is a decision for the judge to make — not a lawyer.
Ex-wife here refused all visitation; father could not see his son. And he did not *615know where the ex-wife and his son were living. She lived a nomadic existence. How could he be expected to send support? Where would he send it? Ex-wife made his obligation to support an impossibility. At one time, the Office of Child Support Enforcement advised him that it would not be an agent for collection.1 Father was sacrificed on an altar of uncertainty, belligerence by his ex-wife, her nomadic lifestyle, and non-cooperation of state officials.
This author wrote Larsgaard, cited in the majority opinion, in 1980. Forgiveness of child support in Larsgaard was based upon the deteriorated economic condition of the father. We there approved of retroactive modification of child support payments.2 Larsgaard also applies to support rights assigned to the state. However, ar-rearages can only be modified upon a substantial and material change of circumstances. Larsgaard, 298 N.W.2d 381.
Here, father made a tactical error. When he was totally frustrated in visitation, he should have gone to the courts for help. See Barrett v. Barrett, 308 N.W.2d 884 (S.D.1981) (for explicit holding on this aspect). He did not. He withheld support.3 In South Dakota, we have highly disapproved of this type of action. We announced in Otten v. Otten, 245 N.W.2d 506 (S.D.1976), that a father may not withhold child support payments as an “extrajudicial method of obtaining visitation privileges.” Otten, 245 N.W.2d at 508.
Father, through his lawyer, should have petitioned the court which adjudicated on the child support matter at the inceptual jurisdiction. We applied the Otten holding in Todd v. Pochop, 365 N.W.2d 559 (S.D.1985), cited in the majority opinion, a URE-SA action. This author concurred specially in Pockop, acting out of caution, and to point out that there are instances (so held by the majority courts of the land) where a responding court can change the obligations of support. This statement is supported by SDCL §§ 25-9A-32, 25-9A-2, and 31 A.L.R.4th 347, 352 (1984). I am suggesting that modifications of child support, which could conceivably include retroactive relief, are favored by many jurisdictions, when the facts so warrant. This includes domestic cases where state government becomes involved via ADC, etc. Our courts cannot/should not say: father (or mother), you did not pay and you absolutely must pay, whatever the given circumstances of the case — rationalizing that a court order is a court order — and it shall remain like the Rock of Gibraltar— steadfast — impenetrable. Such thought is abominable to reason; i.e., let us not harness ourselves in precedent so tightly that we are rigidly fixed to only one conclusion.
In reviewing this record, there is a total void on economic change of circumstances; five findings of fact and two conclusions of law, entered by the same trial judge who inceptually had jurisdiction, seek to, and do, implement retroactive modification (expunging back child support) on a basis of total frustration with the ex-wife’s refusal to abide by visitation orders, i.e., contempt. Tangential to my core thought, I mention that contempt findings were not entered nor was contempt alleged and tried.
On the scales of justice, one ponders on the relative merits of legal positions created by the facts herein: A mother who willfully will not permit a father to see his son, or a frustrated father who finally gives up on trying to find his son and quits paying child support? 4 Without any question in my mind, the patience of this trial judge was exhausted; he was righteously indignant over her contemptuous disregard of his court orders. The holding in Pockop *616was not too extreme for the circumstances of that case, but the language therein contained is far too broad. Under the minority rule, the trial judge in this case could be sustained, but we have long abandoned it. See dissertation of former Chief Justice Fosheim in Pochop, 365 N.W.2d at 560. Thus, I reluctantly join the majority holding, veering from any alignment with absolutism, yet believing that a mother who literally hides a son from the father has, in effect, committed an act against nature. Factum contra naturam, contra deum est (an act against nature is an act against God).

. This statement could easily have led father to believe that child support payments were no longer being sought from him.

. Larsgaard's announcement was later followed by this Court in Hood v. Hood, 335 N.W.2d 349 (S.D.1983).

. Prior to the phone call in question with the Department of Social Services, father diligently made his child support payments and paid off entirely the amount due the State of South Dakota.

.Perhaps her day will come to answer at the Bar as to why this father cannot see, visit, be with his son, via contempt proceedings. Her actions appear to be inhumane. Father's actions are spawned from this inhumanity.