Ex Parte Rine

603 S.W.2d 268, 1980 Tex. App. LEXIS 3666
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 3, 1980
Docket6246
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 603 S.W.2d 268 (Ex Parte Rine) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ex Parte Rine, 603 S.W.2d 268, 1980 Tex. App. LEXIS 3666 (Tex. Ct. App. 1980).

Opinion

HALL, Justice.

Relator James Bryant Rine initiated this proceeding in this Court by application for writ of habeas corpus to gain relief from an order of the 40th Judicial District Court of Ellis County, Texas, committing him to jail until he purged himself of contempt of court by paying delinquent child support payments, attorney’s fees, and court costs. We have permitted relator to remain out of jail on bail pending our determination of the case.

When relator and his wife Donna Kay, now Mrs. Donna Kay Morris, were divorced in 1971, relator was ordered to pay $50.00 per month support for their son, Jay Brad Rine, who was born in September, 1966. In September, 1979, Mrs. Morris filed a motion for modification of the child support payment. The motion was heard on March 6, 1980. Mrs. Morris and her attorney were present at the hearing, but relator appeared only by his attorney. The hearing resulted in a written order increasing the child support payments to $200.00 per month, payable on the 10th day of each month, beginning March 10,1980. The order recites that it was an agreed judgment based upon the parties’ “settlement of the cause.” It was approved and signed by the attorneys for relator and Mrs. Morris.

*270 On May 22, 1980, Mrs. Morris filed a motion to have relator held in contempt for failing to comply with the order of March, 1980. She alleged the following grounds:

“Movant would show the Court that James Bryant Riñe has failed and refused to pay child support as ordered in the Agreed Order heretofore described and signed by this Court [in March, 1980]. Said respondent, James Bryant Riñe, has paid a total of $100.00 rather than the total of $600.00 due, and is therefore in arrears in the amount of at least $500.00 as of the date of the filing of this Petition.”

In the motion, Mrs. Morris also prayed for reasonable attorney’s fees and costs of court.

Notice was issued to relator to appear in court on June 20, 1980 and show cause why he “should not be held in contempt for disobedience of this Court’s order [and also be required to pay reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs] as alleged in the attached Motion for Contempt.”

The hearing on the show cause order was held on June 20, 1980. The undisputed evidence established that relator had made child support payments of only $50.00 per month in the months of March, April, May, and June, 1980. After the hearing, relator was adjudged to be in contempt of the court’s child support order of March, 1980, by failing to make support payments of $200.00 per month for the months of March, April, May, and June; and he was committed to jail until he purged himself of contempt by paying delinquent child support payments in the sum of $600.00, $250.00 attorney’s fees for Mrs. Morris’s attorney, and $32.00 court costs. Relator then filed this proceeding for his release.

In his petition for writ of habeas corpus relator asserts that he is entitled to release because: (1) his commitment was based upon an oral order and not upon a written decree; (2) the judgment of contempt is void because relator was and is unable to pay the ordered child support; and (3) the contempt judgment is void because it is based in part upon relator’s failure to pay the June, 1980 child support installment, but that violation was not alleged in the motion for contempt nor included in the show cause order.

Relator’s contention that his commitment was based upon an oral decree of contempt is overruled. This complaint was assigned by relator in his original petition filed prior to the time the record reached this Court. The record shows that the Court filed a written order of contempt on the day relator was held in contempt. The applicable rule permits detention of the contemnor for “a short and reasonable time while the judgment of contempt and order of commitment are prepared for the judge’s signature.” Ex parte Barnett, (Tex.1980) 600 S.W.2d 252. Relator has not attempted to show that the written order filed on the day he was adjudged to be in contempt was not timely. He tacitly conceded in oral argument that his first complaint was mer-itless under the record, and it is.

This habeas corpus proceeding is a collateral attack on the contempt decree. We have no jurisdiction to weigh the evidence offered at the hearing to determine whether it preponderates against the judgment; and we may treat the contempt order as void only if the evidence conclusively established relator’s involuntary inability to perform. Ex parte Kollenborn, 154 Tex. 223, 276 S.W.2d 251, 253-254 (1955). In our case, in order to establish his inability to pay the ordered child support, it was relator’s burden to show (1) that he lacked the financial resources to make the payments, and (2) that after diligent effort he knows of no source for obtaining the money for payment. Ex parte Roberts, 582 S.W.2d 910, 912 (Tex.Civ.App.-Waco 1979, original proceeding); Ex parte Hennig, 559 S.W.2d 401, 402 (Tex.Civ.App., original proceeding).

Relator is a farmer and sheep rancher. He has remarried, and he and his wife have an eight-year-old daughter. The essence of his testimony at the contempt hearing was that his farm and ranch operations are wholly subsidized by federal FHA loans; that he owes FHA $205,000.00; that the *271 maximum amount he can borrow from FHA is $250,000.00; that he owns some livestock, “a lot of equipment,” and crops that will be for sale, but if he sold anything the money would go to FHA; that he also owes $75,000.00 on land payments; that he showed a loss on his income tax for 1978 of $35,000.00, a loss on his return for 1979 of $18,000.00, and he expects to break even in 1980, but that the losses included substantial amounts for equipment depreciation; that the loans from FHA are made in September of each year for the coming year; that he borrowed $40,450.00 for 1980; that when he calculated the 1980 loan he included $50.00 per month for child support payments; that he has $6,500.00 remaining to draw on the 1980 loan which must last until November, but that he will have a fuel expense of $4,500.00 and a fertilizer expense of $3,500.00, plus his living expenses; that his wife is employed part-time at a bank and earns $130.00 per month; and that he can pay only $50.00 per month child support, or that he “might can go seventy-five dollars.”

As we previously stated, the record also shows that 3½ months prior to the contempt hearing relator agreed, through his attorney, to increase the support payments to $200.00 per month. Although relator was not present at the modification hearing in March, 1980, the evidence shows that he conversed with his attorney by telephone before the agreement was made. Relator testified, “I told my attorney to take care of it. I was busy. That was kind of a lesser of alternatives. I was terribly busy at the time, just didn’t feel like I could afford to be away from my sheep that much to come down here and I agreed to that kind of to get the problem off my back until we could _ I told [my attorney] to take care of it.

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Bluebook (online)
603 S.W.2d 268, 1980 Tex. App. LEXIS 3666, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ex-parte-rine-texapp-1980.