State v. Baldwin

No. 607                July 9, 2025                     665

          IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
                  STATE OF OREGON

                  STATE OF OREGON,
                  Petitioner-Respondent,
                             v.
                   Danny D. BALDWIN,
                  Respondent-Appellant,
                            and
                   Jenny L. BALDWIN,
                          Obligee.
              Josephine County Circuit Court
                   23DR06216; A183191

  Sarah E. McGlaughlin, Judge.
  Submitted June 4, 2025.
  Danny D. Baldwin filed the briefs pro se.
   Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General, and Robert C. Hansler, Assistant Attorney
General, filed the brief for respondent.
  Before Ortega, Presiding Judge, Hellman, Judge, and
Armstrong, Senior Judge.
  ORTEGA, P. J.
  Affirmed.
666                                          State v. Baldwin

        ORTEGA, P. J.
         This appeal involves a challenge to the trial court’s
order confirming registration of a support order issued by
a court in Washington state. Appellant, who now lives in
Oregon, contends that the court erred in registering the
Washington support order because, in his view, that order
was obtained by fraud and the trial court here lacked jurisdiction to enter the order of registration. Appellant failed to
make a showing of extrinsic fraud, as is required to establish a defense to registration of the Washington order, and
his arguments regarding jurisdiction are not well taken.
Accordingly, we affirm.
         We briefly summarize the facts necessary to understand our decision. In 2010, as part of a marital dissolution proceeding, a Washington state court ordered appellant
to pay child support and spousal maintenance. Appellant
objected to the use of documents that he believed were misleading “many times” before the Washington court and, at
some point, hired an attorney to “correct the record,” but did
not achieve the results he sought. In 2014, a Washington
court in a different county entered a new order reducing
appellant’s monthly child support obligation significantly,
imputing his income at a lower amount because it found
that appellant was voluntarily unemployed. Appellant made
some payments but did not keep up with his child support
obligation and did not pay any spousal support.
         In October 2022, the Division of Child Support of
the Oregon Department of Justice requested that Josephine
County Circuit Court register the Washington support order.
By then appellant owed a substantial amount in arrearages.
The trial court notified appellant that the Washington support order had been registered and informed him of his right
to contest the validity or enforcement of the order. Appellant
appeared pro se to contest the registration and focused on
the argument that the Washington support order “was
obtained by fraud,” which is one of the allowable defenses
under ORS 110.620(1)(b).
        The crux of appellant’s argument was that the
support obligations ordered by the Washington court were
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 (2025)                            667

based on miscalculations of his income; he challenged the
substance of evidence on which the court based its determinations in various ways. The court denied appellant’s motion
contesting registration of the Washington order via an order
confirming the registration. Appellant appeals that order.
         To the extent that appellant challenges the trial
court’s interpretation of the statute and its exercise of subject matter jurisdiction, we review for legal error. See Rider
v. Carranza, 

, 

 (2020) (statutory interpretation reviewed for errors of law); Peters v. C21
Investments, Inc., 

, 

 (2022),
rev den, 

 (2023) (exercise of subject matter jurisdiction reviewed for errors of law).
         By way of background, the Uniform Interstate
Family Support Act (UIFSA), codified in ORS chapter 110,
governs the procedures for interstate enforcement of support orders. UIFSA was developed, adopted, and amended
in response to federal legislation mandating the adoption
of certain child support guidelines and enforcement procedures and has been adopted in every state. See State of
Oregon DCS v. Anderson, 

, 

, rev den, 

 (2003) (describing the context of
its enactment); see also Vaughn v. Vaughn, 

,
627 n 8, 

 (2021) (citing legislative history for
the proposition that the Oregon legislature “was tasked
with adopting the 2008 version of the UIFSA verbatim, with
minor stylistic changes, in order to maintain federal funding”); Prefatory Note, Uniform Interstate Family Support
Act, at 1-2 (2008); 

(f) (requiring enactment of
UIFSA).
         When a support order is registered in Oregon, the
court must “notify the nonregistering party.” ORS 110.614(1)
(notice requirements). A party may “contest the validity or
enforcement of a registered support order” by requesting a
hearing within 20 days. ORS 110.617(1); ORS 110.614(2)(b).
Among the defenses that may be asserted to vacate the registration of a support order is that “[t]he order was obtained
by fraud ….” ORS 110.620(1)(b). Relying on that defense,
appellant argues (as he did below) that the Washington
support order was obtained by fraud because it was based
668                                           State v. Baldwin

on inaccurate information about his income. However,
as we will explain, appellant’s interpretation of a “fraud”
defense as allowing him to relitigate the factual basis for
the order itself is inconsistent with the UIFSA. To establish
a fraud defense, appellant needed to prove extrinsic fraud—
that is, fraud that he could not have addressed during the
Washington proceedings and that rendered the Washington
order invalid.
          We apply our usual methodology of examining statutory text, in context, and legislative history to determine
the intent of the legislature in including a fraud defense.
State v. Gaines, 

, 

 (2009).
“Fraud” means “[a] knowing misrepresentation of the truth
or concealment of a material fact to induce another to act
to his or her detriment.” Black’s Law Dictionary 731 (9th ed
2009). We have previously recognized that the commentary
to the UIFSA “informs its meaning.” See Vaughn, 

. That commentary characterizes the defenses
allowed under the statute as “narrowly defined” and states
that there is “no defense … to the registration of a valid
foreign support order.” Commentary, Uniform Interstate
Family Support Act, §§ 606, 607 (1996). Allowing a party
to prove a fraud defense by pointing out mere inaccuracies
or errors in the issuing state’s proceedings would make
the fraud defense exceedingly broad and would open many
valid support orders to collateral attack. Moreover, allowing a party to relitigate support orders every time the party
moved to a new state would contravene UIFSA’s purpose
of facilitating interstate enforcement of support orders. We
therefore conclude that ORS 110.620(1)(b) does not permit
an inquiry into the issuing state’s proceedings of the type
urged by appellant.
          We have long held that Oregon courts have “inherent authority to set aside a judgment for extrinsic fraud
only.” See Dept. of Human Services v. M. M. R., 

, 

, rev den, 

 (2019). We likewise understand the reference to a fraud defense in ORS
110.620(1)(b) to require a party to prove extrinsic fraud—
that is, fraud which is “collateral or unrelated to the factfinder’s consideration of the merits” such that “the unsuccessful
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party has been prevented by the fraud from fully trying the
case.” Heritage Properties, LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank, 

, 

 (2022); see also JRD Development
Joint Venture v. Catlin, 

, 

(1992), adh’d to as modified on recons, 

, 

, rev den, 

 (1993) (“Examples of extrinsic fraud include keeping a party in ignorance of an action,
false offers of compromise, an attorney’s betrayal of the client’s interest to an adversary and other acts of a similar
nature.”).
          Intrinsic fraud, on the other hand, “consists of acts
which pertain to the merits” of the case at issue, such as
perjury or the presentation of forged evidence. Johnson v.
Johnson, 

, 

 (1986). As we
have previously explained, the reason courts have inherent
authority to set aside a judgment based on extrinsic fraud
but not intrinsic fraud1 is that, if the fraud was intrinsic,
then “the litigant had an opportunity to refute the representations,” and when that opportunity “is not used, the litigant
is denied relief because of a policy that there must be finality in litigation.” M. M. R., 

 (internal quotation marks omitted). The same is true when the opportunity
is used but the factfinder is unpersuaded—the matter has
been litigated and requires finality.
         The same principle applies in this context. Among
other things, UIFSA ensures that a state’s valid support
order is enforced in all states. Additionally, the federal Full
Faith and Credit for Child Support Orders Act generally
requires each state to “enforce according to its terms a child
support order” made by “a court of another State.” 28 USC
§ 1738B(a)(1); see also US Const, Art IV, § 1 (“Full Faith
and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts,
Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.”).
That purpose would be eroded if a sister state could reopen
factual issues, such as the calculation of a party’s income for
purposes of determining a support obligation.

     1
       Apart from the court’s inherent authority to set aside a judgment for extrinsic fraud, ORCP 71 B(1) provides an avenue for setting aside a judgment based on
intrinsic fraud, but only “within a reasonable time” and “not more than one year
after receipt of notice … of the judgment.” Id.
670                                        State v. Baldwin

         Here, appellant testified that he objected to what
he believed were inaccurate documents “many times” before
the Washington courts. He may not use the fraud defense
to the UIFSA to relitigate that issue. Instead, to establish
a fraud defense, appellant needed to establish fraud that
would have made the Washington order wholly invalid, even
in Washington. He could not make that showing by establishing that the numbers litigated before the Washington
court were inaccurate.
         Appellant’s other arguments, including the argument that the court lacked jurisdiction to register the
Washington order, present no basis for reversal, and we
reject them without further discussion. Because appellant
did not establish a defense to the registration of the order,
the trial court correctly confirmed its registration.
        Affirmed.