Rebecca Evans v. Robert Randall Sires, Sr.

Opinion issued November 26, 2013.
In The
Court of Appeals
For The
First District of Texas
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NO. 01-12-00991-CV
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REBECCA EVANS, Appellant
V.
ROBERT RANDALL SIRES, SR., Appellee
On Appeal from the 311th District Court
Harris County, Texas
Trial Court Case No. 2011-67562
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Rebecca Evans challenges the trial court’s dismissal of her bill of review
proceeding, by which she sought to set aside the trial court’s 2004 Final Order in
the underlying SAPCR. Evans contends the trial court erred by dismissing her bill
of review without a hearing on the merits, and she also complains that the trial
court, in the 2004 Final Order (1) improperly calculated the amount of child
support payments and arrearages she owed, and (2) improperly ordered that her
visitation with the child be conducted through the Harris County SAFE program.
Because Evans entered into an MSA in which she agreed to dismiss the bill of
review and agreed to the terms of a 2012 order modifying the 2004 order, we
conclude that the trial court committed no error, and, accordingly, we affirm.
Background
On June 7, 2004, the trial court entered a default judgment in a SAPCR case
against Evans (“2004 Final Order”). The 2004 Final Order appointed Robert
Randal Sires, Sr., the child’s father, as Sole Managing Conservator and Evans as
Possessory Conservator of their child. It restricted Evans’s possession and access
to the child, reciting that Evans’s access to the child would take place “under such
terms and conditions as are mutually agreed to, in writing, in advance, by the
parent Sole Managing Conservator . . . [and] in the parent Sole Managing
Conservator’s sole discretion, may be under the supervision of the SAFE
supervised visitation program.” The 2004 Final Order required Evans to pay child
support in the amount of $575 per month and arrearages in the amount of
$3,162.50, which she was required to pay in installments of $100 per month.
Evans made no payments for the next seven years, but did make 22 payments
between September 2011 and September 2012.
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On November 8, 2011, Evans filed a petition for bill of review of the 2004
Final Order. In it, Evans requested that the trial court vacate the 2004 Final Order,
on the basis that she received no notice of the June 7, 2004 trial setting. Sires then
moved to enforce the 2004 Final Order.
On June 4, 2012, the parties entered into an MSA. The MSA reduced the
amount of Evans’s future monthly child support payments to $421.50 per month.
With regard to arrearages, it stated the parties’ agreement to reduce the amount
Evans owed if Evans provided Sires’s attorney, within a specified timeframe, with
certain evidence of Evans’s historical income. The MSA stated:
The parties agree that the amount of the arrearage shall be calculated
to reflect the amount of periodic child support Mother would have
been ordered to pay during the relevant period had she been ordered to
pay based on her actual income, but without calculating amounts for
medical insurance and/or unpaid medical expenses. In this regard,
Mother’s attorney shall provide Father’s attorney with true and correct
copies of Mother’s Federal Income Tax information from the IRS for
the years 2003 through 2011, and the amount of child support due
each year shall be the Texas Family Code Guideline child support
based on Mother’s actual gross income for each year as reflected in
the tax information with the standard deductions for Federal Income
Taxes, Social Security Taxes and FICA as per the TFC child support
tax tables . . . Mother shall provide the referenced tax information
within 75 days of this date. If said tax information is not provided to
Father’s attorney within 75 days of this date, then Father shall have
the option of withdrawing his consent to this agreement regarding
arrearages.
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In exchange, Evans agreed in the MSA to dismiss the bill of review. She
also agreed that provisions of the 2004 Final Order requiring visitation through
SAFE would not be modified.
On August 21, 2012, Sires’s counsel wrote Evans’s counsel, contending that
Evans had failed to provide the required tax information for 2003, 2004, and 2006,
and that this constituted “a breach of the MSA requirement to furnish the Father
true and correct copies of her Federal Income Tax information from the IRS for
years 2003 through 2011.” Accordingly, Sires was “exercise[ing] his option of
withdrawing his consent to the agreement regarding arrearages.”
On September 10, 2012, Sires moved for judgment on the MSA. On
September 17, 2012, the trial court held a hearing on that motion. Sires sought
judgment on the MSA, except for the provision regarding the modification of
arrearages. With regard to that provision, Sires argued that Evans breached by
failing to present tax information for the years 2003 through 2011 and that Sires
was therefore entitled to revoke his agreement to reduce the amount of arrearages
owed.
Evans responded that there was no breach because she provided information
that existed. She claimed that there was no tax information available, “there was
no filing of any type of return,” for the years for which she failed to provide
information to Sires, 2003, 2004, and 2006. Sires introduced an IRS verification of
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non-filing reflecting that the IRS “found no record of a tax return being filed for
year(s) 2004 & 2006.” With regard to 2003, however, the document stated that the
IRS was “unable to verify non-filing for tax year(s) 2003 because a return was
filed.”
The trial court concluded that Evans failed to perform as agreed, giving Sires
the right to exercise his option to withdraw his agreement to reduce the amount of
arrearages owed. It concluded the total amount of arrearages owed under the terms
in the 2004 Final Order was $46,862.50, ordered that arrearages be paid at $100 a
month, as set out in the 2004 Final Order, and “approve[d] all the remaining
provisions of the Mediated Settlement Agreement.” The trial court dismissed the
bill of review proceeding by order dated September 19, 2012, which states that the
case was dismissed because “the parties Mediated Settlement Agreement
contemplates dismissal of the Plaintiff’s Bill of Review.” Evans appealed.
Discussion
A. Standard of Review
Whether a party is entitled to enforcement of an MSA is a legal question,
which we review de novo. Boyd v. Boyd, 67 S.W.3d 398, 404 (Tex. App.—Fort
Worth 2002, no pet.).
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B. Applicable Law
In suits affecting the parent-child relationship, an MSA is binding on the
parties and irrevocable if the agreement (1) provides, in a prominently displayed
statement that is in boldfaced type or capital letters or underlined, that the
agreement is not subject to revocation, (2) is signed by each party to the
agreement, and (3) is signed by the party’s attorney. TEX. FAM. CODE
§ 153.0071(d) (West 2008); In re Lee, No. 11-0732, 2013 WL 5382067, at *6
(Tex. Sept. 27, 2013). If an MSA meets these statutory requirements, “a party is
entitled to judgment on the mediated settlement agreement notwithstanding . . .
another rule of law.” TEX. FAM. CODE § 153.0071(e); In re Lee, 2013 WL
5382067, at *6; In re L.M.M., 247 S.W.3d 809, 811 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2008, pet.
denied). A trial court must enforce an MSA that meets these requirements unless a
party demonstrates that the MSA was illegal or was procured by fraud, duress,
coercion, or other dishonest means. Boyd, 67 S.W.3d at 403.
C. Analysis
Evans appeals from the trial court’s order dismissing her bill of review. In
her brief, Evans argues that the trial court erred by (1) ordering that she pay $575
per month in child support in 2004; 1 (2) ordering visitation be held through the
SAFE program; and (3) failing to reduce the amount of arrearages she owed, as
1
In the trial court’s October 26, 2012 order, the monthly child support obligation
was reduced to $421.50 per month, per the terms of the MSA.
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contemplated by the MSA, despite the fact that she provided Sires with some tax
records to justify the reduction.
But Evans ignores the fact that she agreed, in the MSA, to dismiss the bill of
review and that the MSA gave Sires the option to revoke the agreement to reduce
the arrearages if Evans failed to produce information reflecting her historical
income. Evans’s appeal thus turns on whether the trial court properly entered
judgment on the MSA.
1. The MSA is enforceable.
An MSA affecting the parent-child relationship is binding and a party is
“entitled to judgment” on the MSA if each party and the parties’ attorneys who are
present at the mediation sign it, and the MSA states prominently and in
emphasized type that it is not subject to revocation. TEX. FAM. CODE
§ 153.0071(d)–(e). Here, it is undisputed that the MSA meets these requirements.
Page 4 of the MSA stated in boldfaced, underlined, and capital letters that “THIS
AGREEMENT REACHED IN MEDIATION IS BINDING AND IS NOT
SUBJECT TO REVOCATION.” And the MSA is signed by each party and by
each party’s attorney. Evans does not contend and presents no evidence that the
MSA was illegal or was procured by fraud, duress, coercion, or other dishonest
means. Accordingly, we hold that the trial court did not err in enforcing the MSA.
See TEX. FAM. CODE § 153.0071(d); In re L.M.M., 247 S.W.3d at 811–12
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(concluding MSA met statutory requirements of section 153.0071(d) where MSA
stated in bold, underline, and all capital letters that MSA was binding, not subject
to revocation, and enforceable).
2. The trial court entered judgment in accordance with the MSA.
The bill of review was the vehicle by which Evans sought to challenge the
provisions of the 2004 Final Order requiring (1) payment of child support at $575
per month and (2) visitation under the SAFE program. But, the MSA provided that
Evans’s bill of review would “be dismissed contemporaneously with the signing by
the Court of the Modification Order which contains the agreements reached
herein.” Because Evans is bound by the MSA, and the MSA provides for
dismissal of the bill of review, we conclude the trial court did not err in dismissing
Evans’s bill of review pursuant to the MSA’s terms.
Because she agreed in the MSA to dismiss that proceeding, and, with it, her
challenges to the 2004 Final Order, we do not review the propriety of the child
support and visitation provisions of the 2004 Final Order.
3. Arrearages
Evans also challenges the provision of the 2012 Modified Order that requires
her to pay $46,862.50 in arrearages. She asserts that based on her actual income
from 2003 to 2011, the total amount of arrearages should be $27,634, and that the
trial court erred in failing to hold Sires to his agreement in the MSA to reduce
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arrearages. We construe this as a challenge to the trial court’s finding that Evans
breached the provision of the MSA in which she agreed to provide historical
information regarding her income. 2
At the hearing on Evans’s motion for judgment on the MSA, Evans’s
counsel argued that Evans complied by providing an IRS form stating the IRS had
no records of Evans filing a tax return for 2004 and 2006. But, based on the same
document, which reflected that Evans did file a 2003 return—and the fact that she
failed to provide it to Sires—the trial court could have reasonably concluded that
Evans breached and had no right to enforce the contemplated reduction in
arrearages, and thus remained liable for arrearages in the amount set forth in the
2004 Final Order, which, by 2012, totaled $46,862.50.
Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court did not err in ordering Evans to
pay arrearages in the amount of $46,862.50.
2
Evans did not file a notice of appeal from the SAPCR case, but we address this
issue because of the significant overlap in the two cases. See P&A Real Estate,
Inc. v. Am. Bank of Texas, 323 S.W.3d 618, 620 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2010, no pet.)
(concluding notice of appeal from default judgment effective when filed under
wrong cause number).
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Conclusion
We affirm the trial court’s judgment.
Rebeca Huddle
Justice
Panel consists of Chief Justice Radack and Justices Bland and Huddle.
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