State v. Nelson

842 N.W.2d 433, 2014 WL 551642, 2014 Minn. LEXIS 59
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedFebruary 12, 2014
DocketNo. A12-0071
StatusPublished
Cited by64 cases

This text of 842 N.W.2d 433 (State v. Nelson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Nelson, 842 N.W.2d 433, 2014 WL 551642, 2014 Minn. LEXIS 59 (Mich. 2014).

Opinions

[435]*435OPINION

STRAS, Justice.

Appellant Larry Allen Nelson challenges his felony conviction under Minn.Stat. § 609.375, subds. 1, 2a(l) (2012), which criminalizes a person’s omission and failure “to provide care and support” to a spouse or child when legally obligated to do so. Nelson argues that the record contains insufficient evidence to support his conviction because the State did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he omitted and failed to provide care to his children. Because we conclude that Minn.Stat. § 609.375 (2012) (“the care-and-support statute”) required the State to prove that Nelson omitted and failed to provide both care and support to his children, we reverse Nelson’s conviction.

I.

Nelson and his ex-wife have two. adult children. Beginning in 1993, when the children were minors, the district court ordered Nelson to pay child support. Nelson stopped making child-support payments sometime in 1997. Since then, Olmsted County and Nelson’s ex-wife have repeatedly attempted to recover child support from Nelson, whom the court has held in civil contempt on multiple occasions due to his refusal to pay child support. As of April 2008, Nelson owed $83,470.27 in child support.

The State charged Nelson by complaint in August 2008 with felony-level failure to provide care and support to his children for more than 180 days, a violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.375, subds. 1, 2a(l). The complaint alleged that, “[b]egmning before April 12, 2007 and continuing through April 30, 2008 ... Nelson was legally obligated to provide care and support to his minor children, and knowingly omitted and failed [to do so] without lawful excuse.” During the period covered by the complaint, Nelson was obligated to pay a total of $378 per month, which included his child-support obligation and a payment to defray his arrears. During that period, however, Nelson made only one involuntary payment of $41.10.

Before trial, Nelson moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of probable cause. Nelson argued that the absence of any facts in the complaint alleging that he had omitted and failed to provide both care and support to his children required dismissal of the complaint. The State opposed Nelson’s motion, arguing that a person violates the care-and-support statute if he or she omits and fails to provide either care or support (or both) to a spouse or child. The district court agreed with the State and denied Nelson’s motion.

The State then filed a motion in limine to prohibit Nelson from “making any claim, eliciting or attempting to elicit testimony, or making [any] argument concerning the defendant’s alleged non-monetary care of [his] children as a defense to the current action.” The district court granted the State’s motion. In response, Nelson waived his right to a jury trial and agreed to a trial on stipulated facts to expedite review of the court’s pretrial rulings. See Minn. R.Crim. P. 26.01, subd. 4. Following a bench trial on stipulated facts, the court found:

1. That beginning before April 12, 2007 and continuing through April 30, 2008, Mr. Nelson was legally obligated to provide care and support to his minor children.
2. That during said time frame, Mr. Nelson knowingly omitted and failed without lawful excuse to pay $315 per month as he had been ordered to do by District Court Order dated September 27, 2006.
[436]*4363. That said failure to pay child support continued for a period in excess of one hundred and eighty (180) days, and Mr. Nelson is in arrears in Court-Ordered child support in an amount equal to or greater than nine (9) times his total monthly support obligation.
4. That Mr. Nelson’s nonsupport of his children occurred in Olmsted County, Minnesota.

Based on those facts, the court convicted Nelson of a felony violation of the care- and-support statute.1 The court stayed imposition of Nelson’s sentence and placed him on supervised probation for 2 years.

The court of appeals affirmed Nelson’s conviction. State v. Nelson, 823 N.W.2d 908 (Minn.App.2012). The court concluded that the phrase “care and support” in Minn.Stat. § 609.375, subd. 1, “refers exclusively to a person’s financial obligations to a spouse or child.” Nelson, 823 N.W.2d at 912. The court of appeals also concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it excluded Nelson’s evidence that he had provided nonmonetary care to his children. Id. at 913. We granted Nelson’s petition for further review.

II.

The question presented by this case is whether Nelson’s omission and failure to pay court-ordered child support is sufficient, standing alone, to support his conviction of knowingly omitting and failing “to provide care and support” for his children. See Minn.Stat. § 609.375, subd. 1. Whether Nelson’s conduct violated the care-and-support statute presents a question of statutory interpretation that we review de novo. See State v. Hayes, 826 N.W.2d 799, 803 (Minn.2013). When interpreting a statute, “we give words and phrases their plain and ordinary meaning.” Premier Bank v. Becker Dev., LLC, 785 N.W.2d 753, 759 (Minn.2010) (citing Minn. Stat. § 645.08 (2012)). If a statute has more than one reasonable interpretation, then it is ambiguous and we may resort to the canons of statutory construction to determine its meaning. See Hayes, 826 N.W.2d at 804. On the other hand, if a statute is susceptible to only one reasonable interpretation, “then we must apply the statute’s plain meaning.” Larson v. State, 790 N.W.2d 700, 703 (Minn.2010).

A.

We begin our analysis with the text of the care-and-support statute, Minn.Stat. § 609.375, which states in relevant part as follows:

Subdivision 1. Crime defined. Whoever is legally obligated to provide care and support to a spouse or child, whether or not the child’s custody has been granted to another, and knowingly omits and fails to do so is guilty of a misdemeanor ....

Minn.Stat. § 609.375, subd. 1. Both parties agree that the phrase “care and support” describes two independent legal obligations. The parties disagree, however, about whether the care-and-support statute requires the State to prove a knowing omission and failure to provide both care and support or only a knowing omission and failure to provide either care or support.

Nelson would define the term “care” as nonmonetary assistance and the term “support” as monetary assistance. The State does not advance an alternative defi[437]*437nition of either term, relying instead on its argument that it must prove only the omission and failure to provide one or the other to obtain a conviction under the care-and-support statute. Because the care-and-support statute does not define either term, we give each term its plain and ordinary meaning. See Abrahamson v. St. Louis Cnty. Sch. Dist., 819 N.W.2d 129, 133 (Minn.2012) (citing Minn.Stat. § 645.08(1) (2012)).

The term “care” means “[w]atchful oversight; charge or supervision ... [or] [attentive assistance or treatment to those in need.” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 281 (5th ed.2011); see also Webster’s Third New International Dictionary

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Bluebook (online)
842 N.W.2d 433, 2014 WL 551642, 2014 Minn. LEXIS 59, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-nelson-minn-2014.