In re the Marriage of Hoffmeyer

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 19-1427
Filed April 15, 2020
IN RE THE MARRIAGE OF CARL E. HOFFMEYER
AND ROBIN MARIE HOFFMEYER
Upon the Petition of
CARL E. HOFFMEYER,
Petitioner-Appellant,
And Concerning
ROBIN MARIE HOFFMEYER,
Respondent-Appellee.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Palo Alto County, Don E. Courtney,
Judge.
Carl Hoffmeyer appeals the district court’s denial of his application seeking
a credit for child support. AFFIRMED.
Sarah A. Reindl, Reindl Law Firm, PLC, Mason City, for appellant.
Jill M. Davis of Montgomery, Barry, Bovee, Steffen & Davis, Spencer, for
appellee.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Jade Havermann, Assistant
Attorney General, for appellee State of Iowa, Child Support Recovery Unit.
Considered by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Doyle and May, JJ.
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DOYLE, Judge.
Carl Hoffmeyer appeals the district court’s denial of his application seeking
a credit for child support. Upon our review, we affirm.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings.
In 1990, Carl Hoffmeyer petitioned the district court to dissolve his marriage
to Robin Hoffmeyer, now known as Robin Glander. The Hoffmeyers had three
minor children; their youngest child was born in 1990. Each parent sought physical
care and custody of the children, with the non-custodial parent paying child
support.
A dissolution trial was held in May 1991. Carl did not appear on the day of
trial and his “attorney moved to continue the trial . . . because of [Carl’s]
unavailability. Apparently, [Carl was] in Texas, where he recently moved to accept
permanent employment.” The court overruled the motion, finding “no good cause
appear[ed] to grant [Carl’s] motion.” The court noted the matter had been pending
since July 1990, and it was clear Carl was aware of the trial date but had “simply
elected to not be present.” So the trial proceeded.
In its decree dissolving the Hoffmeyers’ marriage, the court granted the
parties joint legal custody of the children, with Robin designated as the primary
physical caretaker. The court ordered Carl to pay Robin child support of $668 per
month.
In January 2014, the State, through its Child Support Recovery Unit
(CSRU), moved for declaratory judgment requesting that the amount of child
support arrears be reduced to a court order. Attached to the motion was a
computation of child support due from Carl to Robin from July 1991 to January
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20081—199 months total—at $668 per month less amounts Carl had paid over the
years, leaving a balance due of $110,238.74. In a March 2014 order, the court
affirmed Carl’s child support delinquency was $110,283.74 as of January 8, 2014.
In August 2016, Carl filed an “Application for Credit for Child Support” in the
dissolution case. Carl’s application referenced the March 2014 order. In his
application, Carl stated that two of his children had come to live with him full-time—
one in 1993 and the other in 1995. He requested he “be given credit for child
support owed for those periods of time that the children were in his control, and for
such other and further relief.”
The CSRU resisted the application, noting the Hoffmeyers’ decree had
neither been modified nor had Carl or Robin requested suspension of Carl’s child
support obligation under Iowa Code section 252B.20 or 252B.20A (2016). The
CSRU argued Carl’s application was, in effect, a request for entry of an order of
satisfaction of the child-support debt, but requirements for such, in section
598.22A, were not met by Carl.
A hearing on Carl’s application was held in October 2018. Carl testified his
oldest child began living with him in 1993, the next oldest began living with him in
1995, and that Robin was aware of this. Carl and Robin’s youngest child remained
in Robin’s care. Carl testified he paid some support over the years, stating the last
time he “sent out a payment was 2012,”2 but he had stopped because he had
trouble finding work. He was unemployed at the time of the 2018 hearing. Carl
1 The child support obligation ended in January 2008 when the youngest child
emancipated.
2 A State’s exhibit shows a payment received in 2017.
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was asked why he had not come back “for these hearing or whatever,” and he
answered, “I just never did.” He testified he never knew he “could file an
application to modify.”
Robin also testified that two of their children had lived with Carl, and some
of the back child-support accrued during months when those children were living
with Carl. Robin testified she and Carl had talked about modifying the child-
support obligation over the years. She “had papers drawn and sent down to him”
to sign, but Carl did not sign or send the papers back. Carl asked another time
that she sign the papers again, but she told him he should have papers “drawn up
and send them to [her] and then [she] would gladly sign them. And they never did
show up.”
After the hearing, the court entered a ruling denying Carl’s application. The
court agreed with the CRSU that “section 598.22A provides the exclusive means
to credit child support payments” and therefore the court lacked the authority to
grant Carl’s request. The court advised Carl “should have filed a modification
pursuant to section 598.21C and obtained a court order modifying his child support
order when the children began living with him.”
II. Discussion.
Carl now appeals the district court’s ruling denying his application. On
appeal, he asserts the district court could modify the child-support judgment “when
necessary to do equity and ensure due process.” He also argues he was deprived
of due process when the CSRU “sought and obtained an enforceable judgment
against him.” In response, the State notes Carl did not make any claim or present
any evidence on due process or his alleged lack thereof and submits error was not
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preserved on the claim. The State also argues setting aside the declaratory
judgment would not affect the amount Carl still owes under the dissolution decree,
because neither he nor Robin ever sought to have it modified. Based on the
decree, the State maintains Carl’s obligation to pay monthly child support accrued
until the youngest child turned eighteen and the past-due amount remains under
the existing decree.
Our review is de novo. See Iowa R. App. P. 6.907 (stating equity cases are
to be reviewed de novo, and other types of cases are reviewed for correction of
errors at law).
There is no question Carl did not raise a due process claim before the
district court. “It is a fundamental doctrine of appellate review that issues must
ordinarily be both raised and decided by the district court before we will decide
them on appeal.” Meier v. Senecaut, 641 N.W.2d 532, 537 (Iowa 2002) (explaining
error preservation rules require an issue to be both raised and decided before we
will consider the issue on appeal); see also In re Marriage of Hansen, 886 N.W.2d
868, 871-72 (Iowa App. Ct. 2016). “Even issues implicating constitutional rights
must be presented to and ruled upon by the district court in order to preserve error
for appeal.” Taft v. Iowa Dist. Ct., 828 N.W.2d 309, 322 (Iowa 2013). Because
Carl’s due process argument was not raised or ruled on by the district court, it was
not preserved for our review.
As to the district court’s authority to decide the issue, we note that each
child-support installment becomes a binding final judgment and lien when it comes
due unless the dissolution decree states otherwise. See In re Marriage of
Shepherd, 429 N.W.2d 145, 146 (Iowa 1988) (discussing, among other things,
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Gilliam v. Gilliam, 258 N.W.2d 155, 156 (Iowa 1977), where the Iowa Supreme
Court “stated the court possessed no authority to exonerate liability for any or all
then past-due and accrued decretal support payments”). Additionally, in Iowa,
there is a “policy of protecting the stability of court judgments and the vested
interests of the parties.” Shepherd, 429 N.W.2d at 147. Thus, once the rights of
the parties have been established by decree, those rights, including any child-
support obligations that have accrued, are vested and cannot be taken away by
the court without statutory authority. See Dier v. Peters, 815 N.W.2d 1, 6 (Iowa
2012). Only Iowa Code section 598.21C(5), which allows a child-support
obligation to be retroactively modified three months after the date the opposing
party received notice of the modification petition, provides the district court
authority to modify retroactively an accrued child-support obligation. See also In
re Marriage of Johnson, 781 N.W.2d 553, 559 (Iowa 2010).
Though Carl’s application does not specifically request the court to modify
retroactively the accrued child-support obligation, the effect is the same. To
provide Carl a “credit” for the time the two children lived with him would be the
equivalent of the court rewriting the dissolution decree to state Carl was not
obligated to pay support for certain months while the children were minors and
living with him. There is no authority for the court to rewrite the terms of the decree
now to modify retroactively the amount of support due. Carl was aware of his
support obligation. If he wanted to change the decree, the onus was on him to
seek a modification of the decree when the payments were accruing. He did not.
The district court correctly concluded it was without authority to modify retroactively
the amount of support due.
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III. Conclusion.
Upon our review, we agree with the State that Carl’s due process argument
was not preserved for our review because it was not raised or ruled on by the
district court. We also agree with the State and district court that the court was
without authority to modify retroactively the amount of support due. So we affirm
the district court’s ruling denying Carl’s application.
AFFIRMED.
May, J., concurs; Vaitheswaran, P.J., concurs specially.
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VAITHESWARAN, Presiding Judge (concurring specially).
I specially concur. The inequities of this case are palpable. The district
court filed the dissolution decree in 1991, granting Robin Hoffmeyer physical care
of the three children and ordering Carl Hoffmeyer to pay $668 per month in child
support. One of the three children moved in with Carl in July 1993. A second child
moved in with him in July 1995. Yet, the accruing monthly child support figure—
$668—remained the same.
Shortly after the dissolution decree was filed and well into 1999, the Iowa
Department of Human Services had the entire monthly amount of each support
payment assigned to it by operation of law, based on Robin’s receipt of public
assistance. See Iowa Code § 252A.13. The department periodically terminated
and re-initiated the assignments and periodically obtained income-withholding
orders. In 2014, the child support recovery unit moved for a declaratory judgment
that Carl was “delinquent in the amount of $110,283.74.” The district court entered
a judgment in that amount. To reiterate, the amount reflected a monthly child
support obligation owing to Robin for three children, not one.
At a hearing on Carl’s motion for a credit, Robin testified she told the
department about the change in the physical care arrangement. She also testified
that she mailed Carl documents to amend his child support obligation but received
no response. Yet, in 1999, she notified the court of a “change of address for child
support” without indicating that the two children had been out of her care for several
years. And, at the hearing on Carl’s motion for a credit, she acknowledged that
the State’s exhibit disclosing the child support owed to her was for periods of time
that the two children were not living with her. When asked why she felt she was
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owed the money, she stated, “Because there was a court order stating that he was
to pay child support.”
Equity might dictate relief under these circumstances. See In re Marriage
of Harvey, 523 N.W.2d 755, 755 (Iowa 1994) (concluding “the doctrine of equitable
estoppel bars a mother from recovering for past child support”); In re Marriage of
Yanda, 528 N.W.2d 642, 644–45 (Iowa Ct. App. 1994) (applying the doctrine of
equitable estoppel to preclude a mother from collecting a child support judgment
where the father supported the child “during the time the judgment occurred” and
the mother agreed not to collect support during the period); In re Marriage of
Weidauer, No. 08-1293, 2009 WL 2170219, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. July 22, 2009)
(“The district court should have granted Mark’s request for a credit on his official
support payment record for the $22,750 in child support payments that he made
directly to Karen.”); cf. In re Marriage of Pals, 714 N.W.2d 644, 651 (Iowa 2006)
(“This is not the kind of case in which courts normally grant an exception to the
general no-credit-for-voluntary-overpayment rule to do equity, and we see no
reason to make an exception in this case.”). But, as inequitable as the facts
appear, I agree with the district court and the majority that Carl failed to seek timely
relief. He did not apply for a modification of the decree and, although the child
support recovery unit’s motion for declaratory judgment was served by mail at his
last known address, he did not contest the motion. At the hearing on his motion
for a credit, he testified he “never knew” he could file an application to modify the
child support obligation and he “never knew” Robin might owe him child support,
because he had “never been around . . . the court system to know that.” But
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“ignorance of the law is no excuse.” See Clark v. Iowa Dep’t of Revenue, 644
N.W.2d 310, 319 (Iowa 2002). Equities notwithstanding, I too vote to affirm.