Court Opinion

ID: 9548673
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:06:51.072485+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:16.049336
License: Public Domain

BOSSON, Judge, special concurrence. {50} I concur in the remit and in most of the reasoning of the opinion. I write separately for two reasons. I want to emphasize that, on remand, the district court is to apply the child support guidelines to Gregory and award Jeanne the full amount of retroactive child support she is entitled to, regardless of what Tedford may have expended on her behalf during the years before or alter her age of majority. What will happen to Ted-ford’s Claim for reimbursement? That is my second reason for writing specially. {51} The easy answer is that Jeanne can, and likely should, reimburse her putative father from the amount she receives from Gregory for some or all of the money he expended on her behalf over the years, when that money should have been contributed by Gregory. If she does not do so, she may well become the beneficiary of “double recovery.” That does not bother me with respect to Gregory. Equity is not an appropriate defense for Gregory whose unclean hands bear much of the responsibility for Jeanne’s injury. However, in my judgment, the prevention of unjust enrichment would justify a cross-claim by Tedford against Jeanne to recover that amount from the sum she receives from Gregory. The cross-claim would be based upon equitable principles of restitution and unjust enrichment. The Court’s opinion denies Tedford that claim because of collateral estoppel which is also founded upon equitable principles. {52} This is a sensitive subject. We do not wish to encourage embittered parties to a divorce who, for ulterior motives, may later wish to challenge the fidelity of their former spouses by questioning the parentage of their children. As a general proposition, collateral estoppel is appropriate in a case like this, when parents divorce and never question parentage, even in the face of circumstances that should give rise to reasonable suspicion. Having passed on the opportunity to raise the issue in a timely manner, parents should be discouraged from doing so later on, and collateral estoppel, when exercised consistently with sound judicial policy, is one means of accomplishing that end. Indeed, Tedford has conceded that he is barred by collateral estoppel from relitigating paternity. {53} However, I believe that equitable principles should allow Tedford to make such a claim against Jeanne conditional upon her recovery from Gregory. I believe that the same public policy considerations disfavoring Tedford’s relitigation of paternity are not present in a cross-claim against Jeanne, when she is, in effect, recovering child support that has been paid by Tedford. Jeanne has already opened the issue of parentage on her own, as she is entitled to do under the Uniform Parentage Act. Tedford would be merely asserting a conditional claim, similar to a contingent lien, dependent upon the success of Jeanne’s action against Gregory. Essentially, such a course of action would impose a constructive trust on behalf of Ted-ford on a portion of whatever proceeds Jeanne receives from Gregory. I believe this course is justified under traditional principles of equity, restitution, and the prevention of unjust enrichment, and therefore, I would permit Tedford’s claim to that limited extent. {54} Thus, looking beyond this case, I believe that a court could consider the right of a person to be reimbursed for what he has spent when he can demonstrate he was fraudulently deceived into believing he was duty bound to support a child. Under such circumstances, collateral estoppel may not apply. A court would be well-advised to consider such a claim on its own merits and not necessarily as foreclosed by collateral estoppel. As I read the Court’s opinion, it would not categorically preclude such a future claim.