Court Opinion

ID: 9784725
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 20:52:29.280671+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:58.477077
License: Public Domain

BOUDREAU, J.,
with whom LAVENDER and WINCHESTER, JJ., join, dissenting:
T1 I dissent because there is a major difference between enforcing an agreement between a husband and wife that obligates one or the other to pay child support after a child reaches majority, and enforcing an agreement which attempts to vest the court with jurisdiction to determine a child support obligation after the child reaches majority. Enforcing the latter agreement impermissi-bly allows the parties to confer jurisdiction upon the court to pronounce a particular decision that the Legislature has not currently extended to the court.
T2 In this case, the trial court correctly determined that the parties did not enter into a legally enforceable agreement as to the terms of their obligations after the child reaches majority. They merely agreed that the court would "retain jurisdiction" to decide a post-minority application for child support. Their agreement reads, in pertinent part:
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED by the Court that the Defendant shall pay child support in the amount of Four Hundred Dollars ($400.00), deviated from the child support guidelines, attached hereto as Exhibit "A", as agreed upon by the parties. Due to the special needs of the minor child, the parties have agreed to leave the child support open after the minor child reaches the age of eighteen (18) and/or completes high school, and the Court will retain jurisdiction for either party to file an application for further support based upon the specific needs and requirements of the minor child, if any.
(emphasis added).
T3 While a court may have general jurisdiction of the subject matter of a class of actions, it does not necessarily follow that the court may hear and determine a particular case submitted for its consideration. A court must have the judicial power to decide a particular matter and to render a particular judgment in order to pronounce a valid judgment. Stork v. Stork, 1995 OK 61, 898 P.2d 782, 738 n. 17; Peity v. Roberts, 1989 OK 560, 98 P.2d 602; Isenhower v. Isenhower, 1983 OK CIV APP 12, 666 P.2d 238. The parties may not confer upon the court the jurisdiction to pronounce a particular decision it enters.1
*939T4 "Divorce was not recognized at common law, where divorces were either ecclesiastically or legislatively granted. The right to divorcee is recognized as purely a creature of statute." Chapman v. Parr, 1974 OK 46, 521 P.2d 799; Williams v. Williams, 1975 OK 163, 548 P.2d 1401, 1408. Accordingly, all rights of parties with respect to divorce are fixed by the statutory law of the state.
T5 The relevant statute in this case provides:
Any child shall be entitled to support by the parents until the child reaches eighteen (18) years of age. If a dependent child is regularly and continuously attending high school, said child shall be entitled to support by the parents through the age of eighteen (18) years.
48 O.S. Supp.1998 § 112(D) (eff. June 7, 1993).
T6 In enacting this statute, the Legislature limited the authority of the trial court to issue a child support order. The authority of the trial court comes to an end when a child reaches eighteen years of age (or later, if the child is regularly and continuously attending high school) and the court has no power to make or continue a provision for child support thereafter. Certainly the Legislature can extend the trial court's authority if it so desires, Lookout v. Lookout, 1974 OK CIV APP 21, 526 P.2d 1405, but that power resides only with Legislature, not with the parties.
T7 The concurring opinion goes to great lengths to stress that Oklahoma allows judicial approval of consent decrees that confer upon the parties greater post-marital rights than those defined by statute. This proposition of law cannot be seriously contested. Unquestionably the parties in a divorce action may, by agreement, expand the issues beyond what a trial court could. Whitehead v. Whitehead, 1999 OK 91, 995 P.2d 1098; Kittredge v. Kittredge, 1995 OK 30, 911 P.2d 903. Likewise, there is no doubt that a parent can bind himself or herself by agreement to support a child beyond minority. However, that agreement may be enforced by the court only if the parties intend the agreement to be final and binding and only if the agreement leaves nothing for determination by the court on the question of the terms of the obligation. See Whitehead, 995 P.2d at 1101.2
T8 Before today, we had held that a trial court retains jurisdiction in a divoree action to enforce the parties' agreement that the wife would receive a certain percentage of the husband's future income in lieu of property division. Kittredge, supra. We had also held that a trial court retains jurisdiction to enforce the parties' agreement that the wife would receive "$650.00 per month ... for such period as [the husband] continues to draw employment or retirement income from Burlington Northern and Army retirement." Whitehead, supra. In both Kittredge and Whitehead, the parties entered into a final agreement that left nothing for determination by the court on the question of the terms of the agreement.
T9 Today, the majority opinion seems to say there is no difference between what the parties agreed to in Kittredge and Whitehead and what the parties agreed to in this case. In my view there is a major difference. In the former cases, the parties entered into fully executed agreements which left the trial court with nothing to do but enforce the agreed terms. In this case, the parties left the terms of their post-minority child support obligations open for the court to decide after the child reached majority.
€ 10 While a trial court may approve and enforce any type of issue-expanding agreement offered by the parties in a divorce case, the trial court may not determine issues be-youd the scope of its statutory authority, even when the parties attempt to confer such power on the court.
*94011 The concurring opinion argues that if there is an infirmity in the decree, it would at most constitute legal error rather than a jurisdictional-vitiating defect. I respectfully disagree. The critical clause in the decree, in my opinion, constitutes more than legal error or the erroneous exercise of judicial authority. It attempts to vest the court with a power that is not provided by statute. In this situation, jurisdiction is wanting.
112 The trial court's decision is void for lack of jurisdiction because the face of the judgment roll reveals that at least one of the three elements of jurisdiction is lacking, the judicial power to pronounce the particular decision that was entered. Stork v. Stork, 1995 OK 61, 898 P.2d 732, 738.3 Accordingly, the decision may be attacked at any time in the same case or by an independent action. Halliburton Oil Producing Co. v. Grothaus, 1998 OK 110, 981 P.2d 1244, 1249.
13 In sum, a parent can bind himself or herself by agreement to support a child beyond minority, but the parents cannot confer jurisdiction on a court to decide, after the child has reached majority, the terms of post-minority child support. In the case in controversy, the trial court accurately apprehended that the parties did not enter into an agreement as to the terms of the their obligations after the child reaches majority, but merely agreed that the court could retain jurisdiction to decide their post-minority application for child support. The trial court correctly determined that it had no jurisdiction to decide the issue.
'I 14 I would affirm the trial court.
SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION AFTER REHEARING'S DENIAL

. The jurisdiction necessary to empower a court to render a valid judgment is of three types: (1) jurisdiction of the parties, (2) jurisdiction of the general subject matter and (3) judicial power to decide a particular matter and to render the particular judgment. If any one of these three requisites is lacking, the purported judgment is a nullity and is void. Kittredge v. Kittredge, 1995 OK 30, 911 P.2d 903.

. In arguing that even under pure contract law the lack of the assumed obligation's specificity would not preclude its enforcement, the concurring opinion cites § 2-204(3) of the Oklahoma Uniform Commercial Code, 12A 0.$.2001 §§ 1-101 et seq. Section 2-204(3) applies only to transactions in goods and has no applicability to this case. Rather, this case is governed by the common law of contracts which requires a contract to be sufficiently definite in its significant terms to be enforceable. Edwards v. Board of Education of Oklahoma City, 1946 OK 183, 169 P.2d 1015.

. The concurring opinion argues that we lack a complete judgment roll on appeal and, accordingly, the 1993 decree cannot be attacked for facial invalidity. The judgment roll consists of ''the petition, the process, return, the pleadings subsequent thereto, reports, verdicts, orders, judgments, and all material acts and proceedings of the court." 12 0.$.2001-32.1. While generally this Court will not notice any instrument that is not part of the appellate record, uncontrovert-ed facts outside that record which stand admitted in the parties' briefs may be considered to supplement the deficiently-assembled or incomplete judgment roll. First Federal Savings & Loan Assn. v. Nath, 1992 OK 129, 839 P.2d 1336, 1342 note 32.
Neither party voiced an objection to the trial court's determination of the consent divorce decree's facial invalidity based upon an incomplete judgment roll, nor asserted that any missing documents, if presented there for inspection, would reveal anything legally significant relating to the condition of the decree's judgment roll. Nor was any objection ever raised before this Court on that ground. The record on appeal includes all essential items from the judgment roll of the 1993 decree: the mother's divorce petition, the father's answer, and the journal entry granting the decree. Although it does not contain the process and return, the parties stipulate in their briefs that they entered into and signed a consent divorce decree. The judgment roll of the consent divorce decree (aided by the parties admissions in their briefs) is complete enough to warrant a pronouncement that the decree is facially void.