State ex rel. Walker v. Walker

58 So. 3d 823, 2010 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 280, 2010 WL 3722635
CourtCourt of Civil Appeals of Alabama
DecidedSeptember 24, 2010
Docket2090442
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 58 So. 3d 823 (State ex rel. Walker v. Walker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State ex rel. Walker v. Walker, 58 So. 3d 823, 2010 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 280, 2010 WL 3722635 (Ala. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

BRYAN, Judge.

The State of Alabama, acting through the Department of Human Resources (“DHR”) and on behalf of Annette Marie Walker (“the mother”), appeals from a judgment of the Montgomery Circuit Court (“the trial court”) that waived the interest due on the child-support arrear-age owed by Woodrow Walker (“the father”) and that ordered DHR to remove a lien on the father’s worker’s compensation benefits.

The mother and the father were divorced by the trial court in June 1982. Pursuant to that judgment, the mother was awarded custody of the parties’ child and the father was ordered to pay $150 a month in child support beginning in June 1982. On January 12, 2009, DHR filed a child-support-modification petition on behalf of the mother alleging that the parties’ child was emancipated and that the father owed child-support arrears.

[825]*825The trial court conducted an ore tenus hearing in June 2009. The father testified that he did not know that he owed child support to the mother until the State of Alabama placed a lien on his worker’s compensation benefits. The attorney representing DHR at the hearing stated that DHR had filed a lien on the father’s worker’s compensation benefits in September 2008 and that, pursuant to that lien, the father had paid monthly payments of $668.68 since October 29, 2008. The mother testified that she had not received any other child-support payments from the father other than what had been collected through the lien placed on the father’s worker’s compensation benefits. Both the trial-court judge and the attorney for DHR made references to a payment summary offered by DHR, but the payment summary was not entered as evidence.

The trial court entered a judgment that stated, in pertinent part:

“The [father] did not pay child support to the [mother] for the period of time that the parties’ child was still a minor (June 1982 through October 1995). The total amount owed in child support to the [mother] is $25,950.
“The [mother] received $5,413 from the State of Alabama in Family Assistance benefits beginning in May 1983 and continuing until March 1986. The State of Alabama, through [DHR] successfully placed a lien on the [father’s] worker’s compensation and other property for the past due amount.
“Based on the foregoing, it is hereby ORDERED as follows:
“1. That the [father] was obligated to pay the [mother] $150 per month for the months of June 1982 through October 1995. Therefore, he should have paid $25,950 in child support.
“2. That the [father] has made payments in the amount of $5,666.78 that were obtained through the lien placed on the [father]’s worker’s compensation from October 2008 through March 2009, leaving an unpaid balance of $20,283.22. Therefore, the [mother] is due and is hereby awarded a judgment against the [father] for unpaid child support in the amount of $20,283.22.
“3. That the [father] shall pay to the [mother] $350 per month toward the judgment until such time as the $20,283.22 judgment is satisfied. In the event that the [father] fails to comply, the [mother] shall be entitled to collect said judgment by any lawful means.
“4. ... While child support becomes a judgment when due and unpaid, the court believes that, in equity and in light of facts and circumstances in this case, ... it is equitable to waive interest on this considerable sum of money in an effort to insure that the [father] fully pays the child support obligation for [the parties’ child].... To impose interest at this time would cause an extreme financial hardship to the [father].
“5. That the lien placed on the [fathers property, worker’s compensation, or any other asset shall be immediately removed by [DHR], [DHR] shall file documents -with this court within 14 days evidencing that all liens have been removed.”

The record contains a copy of a letter indicating that DHR terminated the lien it had filed to collect the father’s child-support arrearage. DHR subsequently filed a motion to alter, amend, or vacate the trial court’s judgment pursuant to Rule 59, Ala. R. Civ. P., and that motion was denied by operation of law. See Rule 59.1, Ala. R. Civ. P. DHR timely appealed.

[826]*826DHR presents three issues for review on appeal: (1) whether the trial court erred by waiving the interest due on the father’s child-support arrearage; (2) whether the trial court erred by limiting the mother’s ability to collect the child-support-arrearage judgment; and (3) whether the trial court erred by requiring DHR to terminate the lien it had placed on the father’s worker’s compensation benefits.

“Our standard of review is well settled. A trial court’s judgment based on ore tenus evidence will be presumed correct and will not be reversed on appeal absent a showing that the trial court acted outside its discretion or that the judgment is unsupported by the evidence so as to be plainly and palpably wrong. Scholl v. Parsons, 655 So.2d 1060, 1062 (Ala.Civ.App.1995). However, when an appellate court is presented with an issue of law, we review the judgment of the trial court as to that issue de novo. Ex parte Perkins, 646 So.2d 46 (Ala.1994).”

Henderson v. Henderson, 978 So.2d 36, 39 (Ala.Civ.App.2007).

In its judgment, the trial court found that the father had not paid any child support during the period that the parties’ child was a minor, i.e., from June 1982 through October 1995.1 The trial court applied a credit toward the father’s child-support arrearage in light of the payments that the father had made pursuant to the lien that DHR had placed on his worker’s compensation benefits. However, despite the well settled principle of law that monthly child-support payments become final judgments and accrue interest just as any other judgment, see Hollen v. Conley, 840 So.2d 921, 924 (Ala.Civ.App.2002), the trial court determined that it would be inequitable to require the father to pay the interest that had accrued on his child-support arrearage.

This court has consistently held that a trial court’s failure to impose interest on past-due child-support installments constitutes reversible error. See Corwin v. Corwin, 29 So.3d 913, 914 (Ala.Civ.App.2009)2 (trial court erred by failing to compute the amount of postjudgment interest due on the father’s child-support arrearage); T.L.D. v. C.G., 849 So.2d 200, 204 (Ala.Civ. App.2002) (“By failing to award post-judgment interest on the child-support ar-rearage, the trial court erroneously applied the law to the facts.”); and Walker v. Walker, 828 So.2d 943, 945 (Ala.Civ.App. 2002) (“[A] trial court with jurisdiction over proceedings to enforce an earlier child-support judgment is without authority to waive the imposition of statutorily imposed postjudgment interest upon such payments.”).

The record on appeal does not contain the payment summary that was produced by DHR at the ore tenus hearing, and there is no indication that the payment summary was accepted by the trial court as evidence to support DHR’s claims. However, the trial court’s judgment indicates that the trial court believed the mother’s testimony that the father had not paid any child support since June 1982 [827]

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Bluebook (online)
58 So. 3d 823, 2010 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 280, 2010 WL 3722635, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-walker-v-walker-alacivapp-2010.