Cramer et al., Appellees, v. Petrie, Appellant.
[Cite as Cramer v. Petrie (1994), Ohio St.3d .]
Domestic relations -- Child support -- Order to pay child
support may be enforced by means of imprisonment through
contempt proceedings even after the child who is the
subject of the order is emancipated.
An obligation to pay child support is not a "debt" within the
meaning of that term in Section 15, Article I of the Ohio
Constitution. Because this obligation does not fall
within the scope of Section 15, Article I, an order to pay
child support may be enforced by means of imprisonment
through contempt proceedings even after the child who is
the subject of the order is emancipated.
(No. 93-1102 -- Submitted April 27, 1994 -- Decided August
31, 1994.)
Certified by the Court of Appeals for Hancock County, No.
5-92-47.
Sandra M. Cramer, appellee, and James R. Petrie, Sr.,
appellant, were granted a divorce by the Hancock County Court
of Common Pleas on July 10, 1974. The court awarded Cramer
custody of the only child born of their marriage. The child,
James R. Petrie, Jr., was born May 3, 1973. The court ordered
Petrie to pay child support of twenty dollars per week, plus
poundage.
In the years after the divorce, Petrie consistently failed
to pay child support despite repeated attempts to recover
payments from him. The court issued numerous orders directing
him to show cause why he should not be held in contempt for
failing to obey the court's orders to pay child support. At
times the court issued order to Petrie's employers directing
them to withhold the support payments from Petrie's pay. On at
least one occasion the court ordered Petrie to voluntarily
execute an agreement to deduct the support payments from his
unemployment compensation during periods of unemployment.
Nevertheless, by August 1989, Petrie was in arrears to the
extent of $9,795.78.
On August 5, 1991, the Hancock County Child Support
Enforcement Agency (the "agency") filed a motion on behalf of
Cramer seeking, among other relief, an order adjudging Petrie
in contempt of court for failing to obey the court's July 10,
1974 order. The parties did not appear before the court but
instead agreed to the following course of action: (1) Petrie
would seek employment (after being unemployed during the entire
year 1991) and report to the agency each Friday on his
progress; (2) Petrie would execute a wage assignment as
appropriate and pay child support in the amount of twenty
dollars per week, plus poundage; and (3) a hearing would be set
in ninety days to review Petrie's employment progress.
The hearing was held on January 7, 1992. By this time
Petrie's son had reached the age of majority. See R.C. 3109.01
(persons of the age of eighteen years or more "are of full age
for all purposes"). Following the hearing, the court of common
pleas found Petrie to be in contempt of court for failing to
make child support payments as previously ordered (including
failing to make any payments since Petrie's earlier agreement
to do so). As a result, the court sentenced Petrie to a term
of sixty days in the Hancock County Justice Center, with fifty
of the days suspended.
Petrie appealed on the grounds that the court of common
pleas had no authority to hold contempt hearings after the
emancipation of his son. Petrie claimed that imposing a jail
sentence for unpaid support for a child who was emancipated
amounted to imprisonment for a debt, which is contrary to
Section 15, Article I of the Ohio Constitution.
The court of appeals affirmed the decision of the court of
common pleas.
The court of appeals, finding its decision to be in
conflict with the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the
Twelfth District in Clermont County in Thompson v. Albers
(1981), 1 Ohio App.3d 139, 1 OBR 446,
439 N.E.2d 955, and the
Court of Appeals for the Tenth District in Franklin County in
Bauer v. Bauer (1987),
39 Ohio App.3d 39,
528 N.E.2d 964;
Crigger v. Crigger (1991),
71 Ohio App.3d 410,
594 N.E.2d 67;
and Martin v. Martin (1992),
76 Ohio App.3d 638,
602 N.E.2d
772, certified the record of this case to this court for review
and final determination.
Sandra M. Cramer, pro se.
John A. Kissh, Jr., for appellee Hancock County Child
Support Enforcement Agency.
Firmin, Sprague & Huffman Co., L.P.A., and Thomas P. Kemp,
for appellant.
Lee Fisher, Attorney General, and Karen Lazorishak,
Assistant Attorney General, urging affirmance for amici curiae,
state of Ohio and Ohio Department of Human Services.
Michael Patterson, urging affirmance for amicus curiae,
Ohio Human Services Directors' Association.
Kimberly C. Newsom, urging affirmance for amicus curiae,
Ohio CSEA Directors' Association.
Wright, J., The sole issue in this case is whether a
court may hold a parent in contempt and impose a jail sentence
for the parent's failure to comply with an order to pay child
support when the child who is the subject of the order is
emancipated. We hold that a court may use its contempt powers
in such a manner even if the child is emancipated.
Accordingly, we affirm the decision of the court of appeals.
Appellant notes that when a child is emancipated, a
parent's legal obligation to support that child ends. See R.C.
3103.03. Appellant argues that when a parent's obligation to
support a child no longer exists, a court may not use contempt
proceedings to enforce an order directing the parent to pay
child support. In this respect, appellant's argument concerns
the court's jurisdiction to hold contempt proceedings.
We hold that a court has jurisdiction to hold contempt
proceedings in such a situation for the reasons that follow.
First, courts have inherent authority -- authority that has
existed since the very beginning of the common law -- to compel
obedience of their lawfully issued orders. Indeed, the phrase
"contemptus curiae" has been a part of English law since the
Twelfth Century. See Borrie & Lowe's Law of Contempt (2
Ed.1983) 1. Fundamentally, the law of contempt is intended to
uphold and ensure the effective administration of justice. Of
equal importance is the need to secure the dignity of the court
and to affirm the supremacy of law.1 For these reasons, a
court's order must be obeyed. Accordingly, when a court finds
that a father is legally obligated to pay an amount for child
support and issues an order directing the father to do so, the
father must either pay the amount due or show cause why he
cannot. The father cannot -- as appellant has apparently done
-- ignore the court's order and follow his own convictions.
Furthermore, we see no reason why a court's inherent
authority to enforce a lawfully issued child support order must
end when the child is emancipated. More is at stake than the
mere nonpayment of support. Also at stake is the court's
strong interest in seeing, as a general matter, that its orders
are not disobeyed with impunity. This interest exists
independently of the child who is the subject of the order
because it concerns the exercise of the court's judicial
functions and ultimately the public's confidence in the
judicial system.
Second, aside from a court's inherent authority to hold
contempt proceedings, the General Assembly has expressly
granted courts jurisdiction to hold contempt proceedings after
the obligation to support a child has ended. R.C. 2705.031
provides:
"(B)(1) Any party who has a legal claim to any support
ordered for a child, spouse, or former spouse may initiate a
contempt action for failure to pay the support.
"…
"(E) … The court shall have jurisdiction to make a
finding of contempt for the failure to pay support and to
impose the penalties set forth in section 2705.05 of the
Revised Code in all cases in which past due support is at issue
even if the duty to pay support has terminated …." (Emphasis
added.)
In addition, R.C. 3113.21(M)(1) provides:
"The termination of a support obligation or a support
order does not abate the power of any court to collect overdue
and unpaid support or to punish any person for a failure to
comply with an order of the court or to pay any support as
ordered in the terminated support order."
It is certainly not surprising that the General Assembly
has codified a court's authority to enforce orders to pay child
support even after the child is emancipated. The state has a
strong interest in improving the enforcement of child support
because the public fisc is at stake. Ohio has elected to
participate in the Aid for Dependent Children ("ADC") program
established by Title IV-A of the Social Security Act, Section
601 et seq., Title 42, U.S. Code. As a condition to receiving
federal funding for ADC, the state is obligated to obtain and
enforce child support orders against noncustodial parents.
In 1975, Congress removed the child support program from
Title IV-A and created a separate child support program in
Title IV-D of the Social Security Act. Section 651 et seq.,
Title 42, U.S. Code (88 Stat. 2351). Title IV-D allows states,
including Ohio, to receive federal financial assistance if they
operate efficient and cost-effective child support enforcement
programs. Ohio is periodically audited by the Secretary of the
United States Department of Health and Human Services to
determine whether it has complied with the numerous
requirements of Title IV-D, requirements that have as their
goal the enforcement of child support orders. If the audit
reveals that Ohio has not met the federal requirements, federal
financial assistance is decreased, thereby indirectly
increasing the state's financial burden.
In addition, Ohio has a direct financial interest in the
enforcement of child support orders. Families receiving ADC
are required to assign their interests in child support to the
state. Section 602(a)(26)(A), Title 42, U.S. Code, and R.C.
5107.07. Such families receive the first fifty dollars in
current support payments collected each month, and the state
keeps the remainder as reimbursement for the ADC payments the
family receives. See R.C. 5107.07(B). In addition, payments
on child support arrearage are used in their entirety to
compensate the state for the ADC payments made to the family.
Section 654(5), Title 42, U.S. Code, R.C. 5107.07(B)(3), and
Ohio Adm. Code 5101:1-3-013. Of course, families that have not
received ADC payments are entitled to the entire amount of
support collected by the state. See Carelli v. Howser (C.A.6,
1991), 923 F.2d 1208, 1210.
Thus, the state has a strong interest in ensuring the
enforcement of child support obligations. If a court's
contempt power ended upon the child's emancipation, a
recalcitrant parent would have a strong incentive to withhold
payment entirely because of the increased difficulty in
enforcing the child support order when the threat of
imprisonment for contempt has been removed. Such a result
would certainly contravene the state's interest in the
aggressive enforcement of child support orders.
We are mindful, however, that the enforcement of child
support orders -- no matter how compelling enforcement might be
-- must not deny noncustodial parents their rights under the
Ohio Constitution. Thus, we turn to the second issue in this
case.
Appellant argues that the use of a court's contempt power
to imprison a parent after the emancipation of the child to
whom support is owed violates the state constitutional
prohibition against imprisonment for a debt. Section 15,
Article I of the Ohio Constitution provides: "No person shall
be imprisoned for debt in any civil action, on mesne or final
process, unless in cases of fraud." The question before us,
then, is whether child support in arrears after the
emancipation of the child is a "debt" within the meaning of
that term in Section 15, Article I of the Ohio Constitution.
We do not view an obligation to pay child support as such
a debt. An obligation to pay child support arises by operation
of law and is a personal duty owed to the former spouse, the
child, and society in general.2 It does not arise out of any
business transaction or contractual agreement, as does an
ordinary debt. Thus, we have consistently held that support
obligations are not debts in the ordinary sense of that word.
For example, in a bankruptcy case arising under federal
law, we held that an order for the maintenance of an
illegitimate child is not a debt and thus may not be discharged
in bankruptcy. Hawes v. Cooksey (1844), 13 Ohio 242. "The
payment of money, compelled by the statute, for the support of
illegitimate children, is an enforcement of moral duty
resulting from a wrongful act of the person charged. Not in
the nature of a debt owing, or due on contract. … The money
… to be paid and secured, is not a debt due to the mother, or
other person, but only a mere charge of maintenance." Id. at
244-245.
Employing similar reasoning, we have specifically held in
previous cases that support obligations are not "debts" within
the meaning of that word in Section 15, Article I of the Ohio
Constitution. In our earliest case addressing the issue, we
held that a decree for alimony is not a debt within the purview
of that provision of the Constitution. State ex rel. Cook v.
Cook (1902), 66 Ohio St. 566,
64 N.E. 567. The obligation to
pay alimony "arises from a duty which the husband owes as well
to the public as to the wife," and, as such, "it is not a debt
in the sense of a pecuniary obligation …." Id. at 572, 64
N.E. at 568. Later, we held that a statute providing for the
imprisonment of a father until he complies with an order to pay
for the "support, maintenance and necessary expenses, caused by
pregnancy and childbirth" does not violate Section 15, Article
I of the Ohio Constitution. Belding v. State ex rel. Heifner
(1929),
121 Ohio St. 393,
8 Ohio Law Abs. 28,
169 N.E. 301.
And, most recently, we held that the provisions in a separation
agreement relating to the division of property do not
constitute the type of debt for which imprisonment is
prohibited. Harris v. Harris (1979),
58 Ohio St.2d 303,
12
O.O.3d 291,
390 N.E.2d 789.
We see no reason to depart from these established
precedents which hold that support obligations arising by
operation of law and moral duty do not come within the scope of
the prohibition against imprisonment. Accordingly, we hold
that an obligation to pay child support is not a "debt" within
the meaning of that term in Section 15, Article I of the Ohio
Constitution. Because this obligation does not fall within the
scope of Section 15, Article I, an order to pay child support
may be enforced by means of imprisonment through contempt
proceedings even after the child who is the subject of the
order is emancipated.
For the foregoing reasons, the decision of the court of
appeals is affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
Moyer, C.J., A.W. Sweeney, Douglas, Resnick, F.E. Sweeney
and Pfeifer, JJ., concur.
FOOTNOTES:
1 On this last point, Chief Justice M'Kean of the Supreme
Court of Pennsylvania responded to a defendant who refused to
answer interrogatories as follows: "Since, however, the
question seems to resolve itself into this, whether you shall
bend to the law, or the law shall bend to you, it is our duty
to determine that the former shall be the case." Respublica v.
Oswald (1788), 1 U.S. (Dall.) 319, 329,
1 L.Ed. 155, 160.
2 The duty to support one's spouse and child is codified
in R.C. 3103.03, which provides in part:
"(A) Each married person must support himself or herself
and his or her spouse out of his or her property or by his or
her labor. If a married person is unable to do so, the spouse
of the married person must assist in the support so far as the
spouse is able. The biological or adoptive parent of a minor
child must support his or her minor children out of his or her
property or by his or her labor.
"(B) Notwithstanding section 3109.01 of the Revised Code,
the parental duty of support to children, including the duty of
a parent to pay support pursuant to a child support order,
shall continue beyond the age of majority as long as the child
continuously attends on a full-time basis any recognized
and accredited high school. That duty of support shall
continue during seasonal vacation periods."
