Logghe v. Jasmer

686 P.2d 694, 1984 Alas. LEXIS 327
CourtAlaska Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 6, 1984
Docket6897
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 686 P.2d 694 (Logghe v. Jasmer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Alaska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Logghe v. Jasmer, 686 P.2d 694, 1984 Alas. LEXIS 327 (Ala. 1984).

Opinions

OPINION

RABINOWITZ, Justice.

This appeal arose from an action to enforce an Oregon judgment for accrued and unpaid child support. Richard Logghe appeals from the superior court’s interpretation of the Oregon decree. We affirm.

On March 19, 1976, an Oregon Circuit Court issued a Decree of Dissolution, declaring a dissolution of the marriage of Richard Logghe and Twila Jasmer on May 19, 1976. At the time of the dissolution, Logghe and Jasmer both lived in Portland, Oregon. They had one son, Adam Logghe.

The Decree of Dissolution noted that Logghe did not appear in the case, but had “signed the Decree approving it as to form .... ” Logghe’s default was “noted and duly entered on record .... ” The decree awarded custody of Adam to Jasmer. Beginning April 1, 1976, Logghe was to pay $50 per month child support to the Oregon Department of Human Resources. He was awarded visitation rights with Adam each weekend. In the event visitation did not occur, paragraph 8 of the Oregon decree provided:

Respondent [Logghe] shall pay to petitioner [Jasmer] $25.00 for each weekend without visitation, said payment to be for the benefit of a third person for child care expenses, unless that lack of visitation is by request of petitioner ....

There was no order that this $25.00 be paid to the Department of Human Resources nor was there any similar provision for monitoring payment. Logghe testified at trial that he and Jasmer understood that the purpose of paragraph 8 was to provide money to Jasmer’s parents, who cared for Adam on weekends when both parents were busy. The decree also provided that [696]*696Logghe and Jasmer could arrange other times for visitation by agreement.

In March 1976, shortly after the divorce, Logghe moved to Alaska. Jasmer left Oregon some time later. The court did not enter a finding of fact as to the actual year of her departure.1 Jasmer returned to Portland the December before she departed for Kodiak, Alaska. By June 1979 she had moved to Kodiak. She remarried in 1981 and presently resides in Kodiak with her husband. Adam, who was eleven years old at the time of the Alaska trial, lives with Jasmer and her husband. Logghe also remarried in Alaska and he and his wife have two children. The family lives in Ketchi-kan.

Logghe exercised his visitation rights during the brief period between the divorce and his departure from Portland. On two or three occasions he paid Jasmer $25.00 for weekends that he did not visit with Adam. He traveled to Minnesota to see Adam for Thanksgiving in 1976 or 1977. Adam also spent three to five weeks with Logghe each summer from 1976 through 1980. Logghe substantially complied with the $50.00 per month child support provision until June or July 1978. Since that time, Jasmer has received nothing. Although Jasmer testified to making frequent demands for money, she said Logghe insisted both that he could not afford the payments and that she did not need them. Logghe testified that he stopped paying, and that visitation became impossible, because his ex-wife and son were often out of contact with him for months at a time. Logghe also testified that before he moved to Alaska, he and Jasmer agreed that thereafter weekend visitation would be impractical and they would attempt to arrange other visitation.

Jasmer filed suit to enforce the Oregon support decree in February 1980. In her complaint she sought to recover arrearages in child support based on the Oregon judgment, and requested an increase in Logghe’s child support obligation. The complaint specifically alleged that Logghe owed child support of $25.00 per weekend for those weekends that he had failed to visit Adam. Although Logghe’s motion for a change of venue from Kodiak to Ketchi-kan was denied, the superior court permitted Logghe to testify telephonically at the trial.

At the close of Jasmer’s case, Logghe moved to dismiss the claims seeking payment for weekend child care. He claimed that weekend visitation had become impractical and asserted that Jasmer was required to prove actual weekend babysitting expenses to be entitled to $25.00 per weekend. The court denied the motion, construing the language in paragraph 8 as requiring payments for nonvisitation.

The superior court in its findings of fact and conclusions of law found that the termination of weekend visitation was due to impracticality resulting from Logghe’s voluntary move to Alaska. Although the court did not find exactly when Jasmer left Oregon, it found she remained in Portland for “some time” after Logghe’s permanent departure from Oregon. The superior court found that Adam visited Logghe a total of twenty-one weeks and two weekends, or twenty-three weekends. It found Logghe in contempt of the Oregon decree and sentenced him to twenty days in jail, but suspended the sentence on condition that he pay $50.00 per month towards the arrearage. The court concluded that the arrearage totalled $9,049.21, including prejudgment interest.2 The judgment was based upon findings that Logghe was $1,900.00 in arrears on the $50.00 per month support obligation and $5,682.90 in arrears on the $25.00 per weekend provision of paragraph 8 of the decree, less credit for weekends Logghe actually spent [697]*697with Adam. The superior court then modified the Oregon decree, increasing Logghe’s child support obligation to $150.00 per month. The sole portion of the judgment Logghe challenges in this appeal is the arrearage which the superior court found had accrued under paragraph 8 of the decree.

II.

Logghe and Jasmer agree that under the full faith and credit clause of the United States Constitution,3 an Alaska court must enforce the Oregon decree according to its terms.4 They differ, however, on the interpretation to be given to the term stated in paragraph 8. Logghe argues that the superior court erred in treating paragraph 8 as a child support provision. He contends that it was merely a contingent provision for reimbursement of actual child care expenses incurred when, at his own request, he did not exercise weekend visitation. He argues that he should not be held responsible for “arrearages” under paragraph 8, as Jasmer presented no evidence that such expenses were actually incurred, or that weekend visitation was practical.

The superior court construed paragraph 8 to require Logghe to pay child support for weekends when he did not care for Adam in the absence of a request by Jasmer that such visitation not take place. We agree with this interpretation of the Oregon decree, and affirm.

As noted above, paragraph 8 required Logghe to pay Jasmer

$25.00 for each weekend without visitation, said payment to be for the benefit of a third person for child care expenses

While Logghe did not appear in the dissolution action in Oregon, he approved the judgment as to form in advance of the default hearing. Thus, the Oregon dissolution decree amounted to a consent judgment between Logghe and Jasmer. Such a judgment is in the nature of a contract that has been approved by the court. Dowsett v. Cashman, 2 Hawaii App.

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Logghe v. Jasmer
686 P.2d 694 (Alaska Supreme Court, 1984)

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Bluebook (online)
686 P.2d 694, 1984 Alas. LEXIS 327, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/logghe-v-jasmer-alaska-1984.