Dwyer v. Clerk of District Court for Scott County

404 N.W.2d 167, 1987 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 1150

• Court: Supreme Court of Iowa
• Decided: April 15, 1987
• Docket: 86-389
• Status: Published

Opinions

McGIVERIN, Justice.

Plaintiff Eugene F. Dwyer appeals from the denial of a writ of mandamus to compel the clerk of court of the Iowa District Court for Scott County to enter on the judgment docket a satisfaction affidavit executed by Dwyer’s ex-wife for child support payments made directly to her, not through the office of the clerk of court. We reverse and remand the case to district court for the issuance of the requested writ.

I. Background facts and proceedings. In August 1983 a decree was entered dissolving the marriage of Eugene Dwyer and his former wife. The dissolution decree required Dwyer to pay child support in the amount of $212.50 per month for each of the couple’s two children and to pay certain medical and tuition expenses for the children. As required by Iowa Code section 598.22 (1983), the decree directed Dwyer to make these payments through the office of the clerk of the district court. Dwyer and his former wife agreed, however, that he would make the payments directly to his ex-wife, bypassing the clerk of court.

In this action, there has never been an assignment of the child support payments by Dwyer’s ex-wife to the Iowa Department of Human Services. See Iowa Code ch. 252C. The department is not a party to this mandamus proceeding nor was it a party to the underlying dissolution of marriage action.

From 1983 to 1985 Dwyer made the payments, as agreed, directly to his ex-wife. In July 1984 and October 1985 Dwyer filed with the clerk of court sworn affidavits of his ex-wife who acknowledged receipt of the child support payments. The clerk accepted these documents for filing and noted them on the judgment docket. In December 1985 Dwyer sought to file another similar affidavit of satisfaction; however, on this occasion the clerk of court accepted the affidavit for filing but refused to enter the satisfaction affidavit on the dissolution judgment docket. The clerk of court based this refusal on Iowa Code section 598.22, which requires child support payments to be made to the clerk of court, and on a 1985 amendment to that section which specifies that payments to any other person do not satisfy the underlying support obligation. 1985 Iowa Acts ch. 178, § 8 (codified as amended at Iowa Code § 598.22 (Supp.1985)).

Dwyer filed a petition seeking a writ of mandamus to compel the clerk of court to enter the satisfaction affidavit on the judgment docket. See Iowa Code ch. 661 (1985). The district court denied mandamus relief, and Dwyer has appealed. The scope of review of this equity action is de novo. Iowa Code § 661.3; Iowa R.App.P. 4.

Mandamus is a special action under Iowa Code chapter 661 “brought to obtain an order commanding an inferior tribunal, board, corporation, or person to do ... an act, the performance ... of which the law enjoins as a duty resulting from an office, trust, or station.” Iowa Code § 661.1; see Stafford v. Valley Community School Dist., 298 N.W.2d 307, 309 (Iowa 1980). The action seeks to enforce established rights and corresponding duties imposed by law. Stafford, 298 N.W.2d at 309.

In his mandamus action, Dwyer seeks to compel the clerk of court to note the satisfaction affidavit on the dissolution judgment docket. Dwyer argues the clerk of court is under a statutory duty to record or note the satisfaction, and he also claims section 598.22, as amended, is constitutionally infirm. Specifically he argues the section denies equal protection of the law by requiring, child support judgment debtors to make payments through the clerk of court while other judgment debtors can satisfy their obligations privately. This requirement, he asserts, has no rational relationship to the goal of enforcing child support obligations against nonpaying parents. Dwyer also contends the statutory language is unconstitutionally overbroad. Due to our resolution of his first argument, we need not address Dwyer’s constitutional challenges to the statute on its face and as applied to him.

II. Duty of clerk of district court to record the satisfaction of judgment. The general duties the clerk of the district court shall perform are specified in Iowa Code section 602.8102 (Supp.1985). Subsection 602.8102(98) imposes a duty on the clerk of court to carry out duties specified in Iowa Code sections 624.8 through 624.21 and section 624.37. Iowa Code section 624.20 (1985) states, “Where a judgment is set aside or satisfied by execution or otherwise, the clerk shall at once enter a memorandum thereof on the column left for that purpose in the judgment docket.”

The clear duty of Dwyer’s former wife to execute a satisfaction of judgment is imposed on her by statute at Iowa Code section 624.37. That section provides:

When the amount due upon judgment is paid off, or satisfied in full, the party entitled to the proceeds thereof, or those acting for that party, must acknowledge satisfaction thereof upon the record of such judgment, or by the execution of an instrument referring to it, duly acknowledged and filed in the office of the clerk in every county wherein the judgment is a lien. A failure to do so for thirty days after having been requested in writing shall subject the delinquent party to a penalty of fifty dollars, to be recovered in an action therefor by the party aggrieved.

Iowa Code § 624.37 (emphasis added).

The clerk of court, even though aware of these provisions, refused to note on the dissolution judgment docket the December 1985 satisfaction of judgment affidavit executed by Dwyer’s ex-wife and presented for filing by Dwyer. Relying on an Iowa attorney general’s letter opinion, the clerk asserted that the 1985 amendment of Iowa Code section 598.22 prohibited the noting of the satisfaction affidavit on the judgment docket. The amended statute reads in relevant part:

All orders or judgments entered under chapter 252A, chapter 675, or this chapter which provide for temporary or permanent support payments shall direct the payment of such sums to the clerk of the district court for the use of the person for whom the payments have been awarded. Payments to persons other than the clerk of the district court do not satisfy the support obligations created by such orders or judgments....

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An order or judgment entered by the court for temporary or permanent support or for an assignment shall be filed with the clerk. The orders have the same force and effect as judgments when entered in the judgment docket and lien index and are records open to the public. The clerk shall disburse the payments received pursuant to the orders or judgments within ten working days of the receipt of the payments. All moneys received or disbursed under this section shall be entered in a record book kept by the clerk, which shall be open to the public. The clerk shall not enter any moneys paid in the record book if not paid directly to the clerk....

Iowa Code § 598.22 (Supp.1985) (emphasis added).

Our rules of statutory construction direct us to give effect, if possible, to both general and special provisions of the code that apparently conflict. Iowa Code § 4.7 (1985). See generally 2A N. Singer, Sutherland Statutory Construction ch. 51 (Sands 4th ed. 1984) (construing statutes in pari materia).

This mandamus action is directed at a clerk of court’s duty to file and note papers presented by parties to an action, the petitioner and respondent in the underlying dissolution of marriage case. The clerk has a ministerial duty to file and note satisfactions of judgment presented to the clerk. Iowa Code §§ 602.8102(98), 624.20. Section 598.22, as amended, does not relieve the clerk of the duty to file and note satisfactions. Section 598.22 merely puts in question the validity or legal effect of a satisfaction of child support judgment document executed by a recipient former spouse who accepts payments outside the clerk’s office.

Dwyer does not challenge the provision of section 598.22 that prohibits the clerk from entering moneys paid outside the clerk’s office in the clerk’s record book concerning child support. The clerk maintains two sets of books relating to dissolu-tions and child support payments in the clerk’s office. The alimony and child support payment book, referred to in section 598.22, is a ledger of the cash and checks received by the clerk and the disbursement made of those moneys. This is the record book mandated by title 42, subsection 654(10) of the United States Code (1982). Dwyer concedes his payments should not be recorded in this book because the payments were not channeled through the clerk’s office.

The clerk also maintains a dissolution judgment docket that recites the date events occur in the file. See Iowa Code § 602.8104(2)(b) (Supp.1985). The docket notes when a decree ordering the payment of child support has been entered. It also leaves spaces for the notation of executions and satisfactions of judgment. Section 598.22 does not refer to this judgment docket, on which Dwyer seeks to compel the clerk to note his ex-wife’s satisfaction affidavit and to which Iowa Code section 624.20 (1985) specifically refers.

The clerk of the district court is under a duty pursuant to subsection 602.-8102(98) to file and note all documents presented to the clerk for filing. It is not the clerk’s duty or function to rule on the validity or legal effect of the document so received. Cf. Proctor v. Garrett, 378 N.W.2d 298, 299 (Iowa 1985) (county recorder compelled to record common-law lien without regard to legal validity of the lien).

In Proctor v. Garrett, farmers attempting to record common-law liens against their properties sought a writ of mandamus to compel recordation following the county recorder’s refusal to record such liens. 378 N.W.2d at 298. When we considered that case, we had already determined common-law liens had no validity in Iowa. Id. (citing Federal Land Bank v. Boese, 373 N.W.2d 118 (Iowa 1985)). We concluded, however, that the county recorder had a ministerial duty to record those liens, subject to the district court’s determination of the validity of the recorded documents in an appropriate later proceeding. Id. at 299. We concluded it was not the function of the county recorder to determine the proffered document had no legal validity and thus refuse to file it.

The validity and legal effect of a satisfaction of judgment also are properly left to the court in any later proceeding that may challenge the filed and noted satisfaction affidavit. The payor former spouse carries the burden of proving the payee ex-spouse has received valuable consideration for a release and satisfaction of judgment. See Broyles v. Iowa Dep’t of Social Servs., 305 N.W.2d 718, 723 (Iowa 1981).

Iowa Code section 598.22 (Supp.1985) may raise the question whether any satisfaction executed by Dwyer’s ex-wife would have the legal effect of validly satisfying ,the child support judgment entered against him. In the defendant clerk’s view, the provision apparently precludes the crediting of any amounts Dwyer has paid to his ex-wife outside the clerk of court’s office against the child support judgment, even though there is no dispute by the parties or the clerk that the payments were made and Dwyer is current on his child support obligation. The clerk of court in her motion for judgment on the pleadings admitted Dwyer had made all payments due by him to his ex-wife under the decree. Under that view, the section also would seem to preclude Dwyer in a later proceeding, challenging the filed and noted satisfaction or citing him for contempt, from proving the payment of these amounts by cancelled checks and acknowledged satisfactions of judgment; further, the judgment could then be satisfied only by making duplicate payments through the clerk’s office. This could result in unfairness to a person in Dwyer’s position. The question of the legal effect of the affidavit of satisfaction of the judgment signed by Dwyer’s ex-wife, however, is not before us.

We believe the relevant statutes must be reconciled if possible, even though their wording could allow a contrary interpretation. Section 624.37 imposes a clear and specific duty upon a judgment creditor, such as Dwyer’s ex-wife, to satisfy the judgment when paid. Section 598.22, as amended, must be construed, if possible, to permit the judgment creditor former spouse to fulfill this duty and allow the clerk to enter the satisfaction. This can be done if we allow the clerk to enter the satisfaction affidavit of the former spouse on the judgment docket, yet reserve the issue of the validity of the proffered affidavit of satisfaction. This is consistent with Broyles.

In construing section 598.22, as amended, we cannot assume the legislature intended to enact a law that would lead to absurd consequences where, as here, a child support judgment debtor has indisputably paid all sums due under the decree but the clerk refuses even to note the judgment creditor’s affidavit of satisfaction on the judgment docket book.

We only hold that the clerk of the district court had a duty to file the affidavit of satisfaction and enter a memorandum thereof on the judgment docket as required by Iowa Code sections 624.20 and 624.37.

We would encourage the legislature to review section 598.22 with two considerations in mind. First, the laudatory purposes of discouraging fraud and encouraging accurate record keeping concerning child support should be retained. At the same time the legislature should attempt to provide a means by which a payor spouse, who maintains an amicable relationship with the former spouse and who seeks to keep their monetary affairs private, indisputably can prove that payments in the amount specified in the dissolution decree were made to the former spouse, outside the clerk’s office.

We reverse the district court’s denial of the writ of mandamus and remand the case for an appropriate order directing issuance of the writ.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

All Justices concur except REYNOLDSON, C.J., and SCHULTZ, WOLLE, and NEUMAN, JJ„ who dissent.