Court Opinion

ID: 9706020
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:29:49.129107+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:18.463967
License: Public Domain

MONTEMURO, Judge,
dissenting:
I join Judge Johnson’s dissenting opinion. I write separately to elaborate on why Section 401.1(b) of the Divorce Code should be applied to this case.1
Section 401.1(b) provides that “[a] provision of an agreement regarding child support, visitation or custody shall be subject to modification by the court upon a showing of changed circumstances.” The 1988 amendments to the Divorce Code, including Section 401.1(b), became effective immediately upon passage on February 12, 1988.
Section 401.1(b) affects the jurisdiction of a court to modify an agreement pertaining to child support, visitation, or custody. The existence of an agreement is a necessary condition for application of Section 401.1(b). There is no evidence of legislative intent that the date of the child support agreement shall bear on the modifiability of the agreement. Section 401.1(b) contains no language restricting its application to agreements executed after the effective date of the amendment.
Further, in discussing the comprehensive 1988 amendments to the Divorce Code prior to the vote, members of the House of Representatives indicated their understanding that the amendments would be applied to all cases pending before the courts. In response to a proposal by Representative Hagarty that the new reduced 2-year waiting period for a “unilateral” divorce should not be retroactively applied but instead should be applied only to final separations beginning after the effective date of the amendments, the following comments were made:
*539Mr. LASHINGER [in opposition to the Hagarty amendment]: The issue that is in front of us now is whether we are going to take the provisions of SB 409 [the 1988 amendments], which in some cases are procedural changes and some are substantive changes, and have them apply to all of the divorces that are in the mill, where a complaint has been filed.
What we did in the Judiciary Committee was to make the decision, as we made the decision in 1979 in this General Assembly under the 1980 Divorce Code, that parties should be prepared, if a complaint has been filed in a divorce action, to face the realities of what the Divorce Code will hold at that time. We made a decision to say that it should apply to all of those cases that are not just filed subsequent to this but also to those cases that are pending____
Let me point out what I think might be the most important thing, however. You are telling that person who has filed the complaint that all of the other provisions — gifts, permanent alimony, all of the other items that we substantively changed — apply. So in most cases, if a man has filed a complaint, he is going to be bound ... the petitioner will have filed the complaint, the new alimony section will apply to that male petitioner, the new equitable distribution sections will apply to that petitioner; however, what Representative Hagarty is saying is the separation period should not apply____
Mr. FREIND [in support of the Hagarty amendment]:
I think what you have to remember is that the rest of the bill that is retroactive is really dealing only in the financial area____
Legislative Journal-House, January 26, 1988, p. 68-70. While I recognize that, as a general rule, remarks made by individual legislators on the floor of the House or Senate should not be relied upon in ascertaining the meaning of a statute, see McCormick v. Columbus Conveyer Company, 522 Pa. 520, 564 A.2d 907 (1989), I refer to these remarks to show a common understanding among our state legislators *540that the provisions of the Divorce Code are to be applied in both pending and future cases.2
It would be unreasonable to restrict the applicability of Section 401.1(b) to those child support agreements executed after the effective date of the amendment. In enacting Section 401.1(b), our legislature intended to alleviate the confusion in the courts regarding the circumstances in which a child support agreement may be modified. Section 401.1(b) provides a uniform rule to resolve this uncertainty, and, presumably, to ensure that matters regarding children are dealt with in an equitable fashion. To delay application of this clear rule until child-related agreements executed after February 12, 1988 are sought to be modified would prolong the inequity the legislature sought to remedy. Cf. Bacchetta v. Bacchetta, 498 Pa. 227, 445 A.2d 1194 (1982) (holding that definition of marital property set forth in Section 401(e) of the Divorce Code includes property acquired before the effective date of the Code). All of those parties who executed agreements prior to February 12, 1988, and the children who are the subject of the agreements, would be deprived of the benefit of Section 401.1(b).
In light of the remedial purposes of the amendment and the stated objectives of the Divorce Code to “[ejffectuate economic justice between parties who are divorced” and to “insure a fair and just determination ... of their property rights,” I interpret Section 401.1(b) to apply to child support agreements executed both before and after the effective date of the amendment.
I would vacate the order of the trial court and remand this matter for further proceedings consistent with Section 401.1(b) of the Divorce Code.
JOHNSON, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.

. For the reasons stated by Judge Johnson, I believe that the issue of the applicability of Section 401.1(b) is properly before this Court.

. There was no argument or question that the amendments were to be applied immediately in all cases, pending and future. The very reason that Rep. Hagarty proposed her provision which would have made the new 2-year waiting period applicable only in future cases was to avoid this general rule of retroactive application of the Divorce Code amendments.