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323 N.C. 617

374 S.E.2d 275

Pieper v. Pieper

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided December 8, 1988

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1988-12-08

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“[d]uties of support applicable under [URESA] are those imposed or imposable under the laws of any state where the obligor was present during the period or any part of the period for which support is sought. The obligor is presumed to have been present in the responding state during the period for which support is sought until otherwise shown.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including 135 N.C. App. 434 - State of New York/Andrews v. Paugh, 96 N.C. App. 299 - Reynolds v. Motley

“law of the state where the obligor was present during the legally material times provided for in the statute.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 135 N.C. App. 434 - State of New York/Andrews v. Paugh

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1988-12-08

How this case has been cited

Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently September 2016

18 state decisions

1001988199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

PER CURIAM.

¶1 We affirm the result reached by the Court of Appeals but conclude that its supporting reasoning is overly broad. The Court of Appeals reasoned that since the out-of-state (Iowa) enforcement order could not have been rendered in North Carolina it cannot be enforced here under our Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act (URESA). The Court of Appeals said, “Only support decrees that could have been rendered under the laws of our State can be enforced via URESA in North Carolina.” 90 N.C. App. at 407, 368 S.E. 2d at 424.

¶2 North Carolina’s version of URESA provides in part:

Duties of support applicable under this Chapter are those imposed or imposable under the laws of any state where the obligor was present during the period or any part of the period for which support is sought. The obligor is presumed to have been present in the responding state during the period for which support is sought until otherwise shown.

¶3 N.C.G.S. § 52A-8. Under this statute it is the law of the “state where the obligor was present during the period or any part of the period for which support is sought” that controls what duties of support may be enforced in North Carolina. The statute further establishes a presumption that the obligor was present in the responding state.

¶4 In this case petitioner made no allegation or contention at trial regarding respondent obligor’s presence during the legally *619 material times provided for in the statute. The presumption that he was present in North Carolina during these times thus prevails. Further, there is an uncontested finding in the trial court’s order of dismissal that respondent obligor “has been a resident of North Carolina since 1975.” This period of time covers the legally material times provided for in the statute. It is for this reason that only duties of support imposable under North Carolina law may be enforced through our URESA against this respondent obligor. For this reason the decision of the Court of Appeals is

¶5 Affirmed.

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