St. Hilaire v. DeBlois

St. Hilaire v. DeBlois  (97-227); 168 Vt. 445; 721 A.2d 133

[Filed 30-Oct-1998]

       NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under
  V.R.A.P. 40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont
  Reports.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions,
  Vermont Supreme Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of
  any errors in order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes
  to press.

                                 No. 97-227

                                      
Michael St. Hilaire                                Supreme Court

                                                   On Appeal from
     v.                                            Orleans Superior Court

Lisa St Hilaire DeBlois                            March Term, 1998



Alan W. Cheever, J.

       Colin R. Benjamin of Benjamin & Kazmarski, P.C., Derby, for
  Plaintiff-Appellee.

       Jim Torrisi, Derby Line, for Defendant-Appellant.


PRESENT:  Amestoy, C.J., Dooley, Morse, Johnson and Skoglund, JJ.


       JOHNSON, J.   Defendant Lisa St. Hilaire DeBlois appeals from a
  superior court judgment in favor of her former spouse, plaintiff Michael
  St. Hilaire.  The superior court ruled that DeBlois had fraudulently
  misrepresented the fact that St. Hilaire was the biological father of the
  minor children born during the marriage, and awarded damages of $15,500
  representing the amount of child support that St. Hilaire had previously
  paid under a support order in the divorce decree.  DeBlois contends, and we
  agree, that the civil fraud action was barred as an impermissible
  collateral attack on the parties' divorce judgment.  Accordingly,  we
  reverse.

       The parties were married in 1983.  DeBlois gave birth to a daughter in
  1986, and a second daughter in 1990.  The parties separated in 1992, and a
  final order and decree of divorce was entered in March 1993.  The divorce
  judgment awarded sole physical rights and responsibilities for the children
  to DeBlois, and awarded shared legal rights and responsibilities to DeBlois
  and St. Hilaire. St. Hilaire voluntarily paid child support of $50 per week
  from April to July 1992, and thereafter, by court order, paid child support
  of approximately $97 per week until June of 1995.  In that month, he filed
  a motion for genetic testing with the Orleans Family

 

  Court, alleging by affidavit that he had known or suspected "for  some
  time" prior to the divorce that he was not the children's  biological
  father.  DeBlois filed a responsive affidavit acknowledging that St.
  Hilaire was not the children's biological  father.  In July, based on the
  parties' stipulation, the family  court dismissed the motion for genetic
  testing and vacated all previous child support orders.

       The following month, St. Hilaire filed this separate fraud action in
  the Orleans Superior Court.  Following a bench trial, the court found that
  DeBlois had knowingly and intentionally misrepresented that St. Hilaire was
  the children's  biological father, that St. Hilaire did not have the
  correct information until DeBlois acknowledged his non-paternity in June of
  1995, and that St. Hilaire had relied on the misrepresentations to his
  detriment.  Accordingly, the court ruled that St. Hilaire was entitled to
  recover the previously paid $15,500 in child support.  This appeal
  followed.

       As we observed in Tudhope v. Riehle, ___ Vt. ___, 704 A.2d 765, 767
  (1997), the legislation that created the family court simultaneously denied
  the superior court jurisdiction over actions cognizable in the family
  court.  See 4 V.S.A. § 113 (superior court has original and exclusive
  jurisdiction over all original and civil actions "except those made
  cognizable by .  .   .  the family court").  The family court has exclusive 
  jurisdiction over divorce proceedings, which includes the award,
  modification, and enforcement of child support.  See 4 V.S.A. § 454(4); 15
  V.S.A. §§ 606, 650, 660; 33 V.S.A. § 3901(5).  The family court may, on
  motion and a proper showing, "annul, vary or modify a child support order,
  whether or not the order is based upon a stipulation or agreement." 15
  V.S.A. §660(a).  The  court's authority to modify or annul child support,
  however,  extends only to future support installments and installments
  which accrued subsequent to the notice of the motion. See id. § 660(e). 
  Thus, we have held that the family court has no discretion to modify or
  annul previously paid child support installments.  See Isham v. Isham, 152
  Vt. 637, 639, 568 A.2d 421, 423 (1989).  Furthermore, the court must award
  in full any arrearages that have accrued prior to a modification motion or
  petition to enforce.  See

 

  15 V.S.A. § 606(a) ("the family court shall render judgment for  the amount
  due under the judgment or order").  Accordingly, the  family court has no
  authority to relieve the obligor spouse of the duty to pay any accumulated
  child support arrearages. See Callaert v. Callaert, 156 Vt. 265, 267, 591 A.2d 99, 100 (1991).

       In light of the foregoing, it is readily apparent that St. Hilaire's
  fraud action in the superior court amounted to nothing  more than a
  collateral attack on the validity of the child support order in the divorce
  judgment, a subject committed to the exclusive jurisdiction of the family
  court.  See Tudhope, ___ Vt. at ___, 704 A.2d  at 767-68 (holding that
  wife's complaint that  husband had fraudulently induced her to accept
  separation agreement was impermissible collateral attack on divorce
  judgment that should have been directed to family court).  Indeed, prior to
  filing his fraud action, St. Hilaire had readily availed himself of the
  family court's jurisdiction, as evidenced by his successful motion to
  vacate the previously existing support order and thereby relieve himself of
  future support obligations.  The fact that the family court lacked the
  authority to annul the child support obligation retroactively did not
  divest that court of jurisdiction over the subject matter, or somehow vest
  jurisdiction in the superior court.  On the contrary, the statute expressly
  denying the family court such authority underscores the legislative policy
  that previously paid or accrued child support obligations may not be
  retroactively annulled or modified.  See Isham, 152 Vt. at 639, 568 A.2d  at
  423; 15 V.S.A. § 660(e). Accordingly, the superior court was without
  jurisdiction in this matter to modify or annul the previously paid child
  support installments.

       Nevertheless, St. Hilaire argues that it is unfair to deny him
  retroactive relief because DeBlois's fraudulent  mispresentations prevented
  him from contesting paternity and child support in the divorce proceeding. 
  Many courts, including our own, have concluded for reasons of public policy
  that a father who had the opportunity to litigate paternity in a final
  divorce action may not relitigate the issue in a later proceeding. See
  Lerman v. Lerman, 148 Vt. 629, 629, 528 A.2d 1121, 1122 (1987) (mem). 
  Other courts have held to the contrary. See, e.g., Masters v. Worsley,

 

  777 P.2d 499, 503 (Utah Ct. App. 1989).

       That issue is not before us in this case.  Here, DeBlois acknowledged
  St. Hilaire's non-paternity and agreed to relieve  him of future child
  support obligations.  She did not, however, consent to annul St. Hilaire's
  previously paid child support  installments, nor could she have validly
  done so. As noted, a family court does not have the authority to annul or
  modify child support payments retroactively, and a parent may not waive
  such payments on behalf of the dependent children.  As we have explained,
  "such payments are made for the support, maintenance  and education of the
  minor children," and "as such, [a parent] may not be found to have waived
  her child's right to receive support."  Lyon v. Lyon, 143 Vt. 458, 462, 466 A.2d 1186, 1189  (1983).

       Indeed, the underlying policy that courts often invoke to bar
  relitigation of paternity applies with even greater force to preclude later
  actions to modify or annul child support obligations retroactively.  As one
  court has observed, "there is  no area of law requiring more finality and
  stability than family law."  Hackley v. Hackley, 395 N.W.2d 906, 914 (Mich.
  1986).  To  permit former spouses to recoup previously paid or accrued
  child support installments would visit considerable financial instability
  and hardship upon the custodial parent and the dependent children for whose
  benefit such monies have already been expended.  Public policy plainly
  requires that the children of divorce be sheltered from the unsettling
  effects of relitigation over child support payments previously paid or

       In sum, the relief sought by St. Hilaire in this fraud action
  represented a collateral attack on the underlying validity of the child
  support order that should have been brought in the family court in the
  first instance, and, in any case, was barred as a matter of law and public
  policy.

       Reversed.


     FOR THE COURT:

     _______________________________________
     Associate Justice