in the Interest of B.M.Y. and J.M.Y., Children

Reverse and Render; Opinion Filed July 26, 2017.
In The
Court of Appeals
Fifth District of Texas at Dallas
No. 05-16-00475-CV
IN THE INTEREST OF B.M.Y. AND J.M.Y., CHILDREN
On Appeal from the 301st Judicial District Court
Dallas County, Texas
Trial Court Cause No. DF-98-16446-T
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Before Justices Bridges, Lang-Miers, and Evans
Opinion by Justice Evans
Appellant G.J.Y. (Father) appeals the judgment which awarded appellee J.B.Y. (Mother)
post-majority expenses of their child. Father contends that the trial court abused its discretion by
awarding post-majority expenses without statutory authority or jurisdiction to do so. Father also
makes two alternative arguments: (1) the trial court abused its discretion by awarding a
judgment for post-majority expenses without sufficient evidence and (2) Mother failed to prove
all the conditions precedent were met to recover the post-majority expenses. We reverse and
render judgment in favor of Father as to the enforcement of post-majority expenses.
BACKGROUND
On November 30, 1998, Mother and Father entered into an Agreed Final Decree of
Divorce and Suit Affecting Parent-Child Relationship (Decree). The Decree contains the
following provision entitled “College Education”:
IT IS ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that [Father] shall pay 60% of
the expenses required for enrollment and attendance of each of the children as a
student at a public or private college, university, or graduate school for so long as
a child remains enrolled in a course of study leading to an undergraduate or
graduate decree. Expenses shall include tuition, books, room and board, and all
incidental fees. [Father] shall make his 60% payments either by paying the school
directly or by reimbursing [Mother] for any payments made over and above her
40% share.
The “College Education” section is an independent section and is not part of either the support or
the property distribution sections. Mother and Father each signed the decree and elsewhere it
provided that they contractually agreed to all of its provisions.
On February 3, 2015, Mother filed a motion to enforce the child support order seeking
reimbursement for medical expenses, health insurance premiums, and college expenses. Mother
subsequently filed several amended motions.
Father filed an answer on April 9, 2015 and an amended answer on June 8, 2015. In the
amended answer, Father asserted that Mother was not entitled to post-majority support because
she did not ask for contractual relief and cited this Court’s opinion, In re W.R.B., No. 05-
12000776-CV, 2014 WL 1008222 (Tex. App.—Dallas Feb. 20, 2014, pet. denied). At the
enforcement hearing on January 8, 2016, Father objected frequently on the basis stated in his
answer: that the only relief sought was enforcement not breach of contract which was the only
relief possible under applicable law based on the text of this decree. The trial court granted
Father a running objection on that matter and Mother complained about the number of times
Father objected on that basis.
Following the hearing, the trial court granted Mother’s motion. On March 31, 2016, the
trial court signed an order awarding Mother $41,358.63 for college tuition and $1,492.74 for
books and supplies and room and board, plus interest at the rate of 5% from the date of the
judgment.
Father then timely filed his appeal.
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ANALYSIS
A. Statutory Authority
In his first issue, Father contends that the trial court abused its discretion by awarding
post-majority expenses without statutory authority or jurisdiction to do so. We agree the trial
court is without statutory authority to award post-majority expenses by enforcement of this
decree.
1) Standard of review
Most appealable issues in a family law case, including a trial court’s award of arrearages,
are evaluated under an abuse of discretion standard. See In re W.R.B., 2014 WL 1008222, at *2.
A trial court abuses its discretion when it acts in an arbitrary or unreasonable manner, or when it
acts without reference to any guiding principles. In re E.A.C., 162 S.W.3d 438, 441 (Tex.
App.—Dallas 2005, no pet.).
In family law cases, the abuse of discretion standard overlaps with the traditional
sufficiency standards of review. See In re A.B.P., 291 S.W.3d 91, 95 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2009,
no pet.). As a result, insufficiency of the evidence is not an independent ground for asserting
error, but is a relevant factor in assessing whether the trial court abused its discretion. See Day v.
Day, 452 S.W.3d 430, 433 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2014, pet. denied). Because of this
overlap between the abuse of discretion and sufficiency of the evidence standards of review, the
courts engage in a two-pronged approach to determine whether the trial court (1) had sufficient
information on which to exercise its discretion and (2) erred in its application of that discretion.
Id.
2) Analysis
A court may order either or both parents to support a child only until the child is eighteen
years of age or has graduated from high school, whichever occurs later. TEX. FAM. CODE ANN.
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§ 154.001(a)(1) (West 2014). While the family code prohibits court-ordered child support once a
child reaches the age of majority, the parties may agree to continued support of a child over
eighteen years of age. See Burtch v. Burtch, 972 S.W.2d 882, 886 (Tex. App.—Austin 1998, no
pet.) (“Absent a contractual agreement, there is no basis for a court to enforce child support for
children who have graduated from high school and are over the age of eighteen.”).
Here, the parties entered into a Decree, which they agreed was a contract. See Seabourne
v. Seabourne, 493 S.W.3d 222, 228 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 2016, no pet.). Mother did not
attempt to enforce the Decree as a contract because she argued that the trial court had authority
under the Texas Family Code to enforce the Decree and award Mother a money judgment. See
TEX. FAM. CODE ANN. §§ 9.001 (West Supp. 2016) (enforcement of decree); 9.006(a) (West
Supp. 2016) (enforcement of division of property); 9.010 (reduction to money judgment) (West
2006). The Texas Supreme Court, however, has stated that the “obvious purpose” of these code
sections is to provide an expeditious procedure for enforcing property divisions. See Brown v.
Fullenweider, 52 S.W.3d 169, 170–71 (Tex. 2001) (“[T]he obvious purpose of former sections
3.70–.77 of the Family Code, currently sections 9.001–.014, was to provide an expeditious
procedure for enforcing and clarifying property divisions in divorce decrees.”). However,
Mother did not bring this action to enforce or clarify a property division. Instead, Mother seeks
reimbursement for post-majority expenses which were not included as part of the property
distribution section.
Mother fails to cite, nor have we located any, case law which permits a party to seek
reimbursement for post-majority expenses pursuant to the enforcement provisions in sections
9.001 to 9.014. Thus, we decline to do so here. Instead, we note that in prior cases a breach of
contract claim is the proper vehicle by which a party may seek reimbursement of post-majority
expenses. See Bartlett v. Bartlett, 465 S.W.3d 745, 751 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2015,
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no pet.) (post-majority college-expense provision not for child support and is enforceable by
contract); In re W.R.B., 2014 WL 1008222, at *4 (trial court had no authority to order
reimbursement for post-majority support because mother failed to seek contractual relief);
Lambourn v. Lambourn, 787 S.W.2d 431, 432 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1990, writ
denied) (even if agreement incident to divorce provided for enforcement as contract, mother’s
only remedy for father’s failure to maintain post-majority life insurance for the benefit of the
child until he reached age 22 would be a common-law breach of contract action, not a motion for
enforcement). Therefore, as Mother failed to seek contractual relief for the post-majority support
issue, the trial court had no authority to order reimbursement of post-majority support. See In re
W.R.B., 2014 WL 1008222, at *4.
Mother also argues that the Decree’s language allowed Mother and Father to enforce
their agreement either by contract or ordinary process of law. Mother specifically argues that she
elected to move for enforcement based upon the Decree’s “decretal language”:
Without affecting the finality of this Decree of Divorce, this Court expressly
reserves the right to make orders necessary to clarify or enforce this Decree.
This clause, however, does not add any jurisdiction to that which the trial court already
possessed because a trial court always has jurisdiction to clarify and enforce its judgments. See
Allen v. Allen, 717 S.W.2d 311, 312 (Tex. 1986); see also, Jobe v. Lapidus, 874 S.W.2d 764, 767
(Tex. App.—Dallas 1994, writ denied). Mother fails to cite any case law in support of her
assertion that this general language remedies her failure to file a breach of contract action.
Accordingly, we find this argument unpersuasive.
Finally, Mother argues that she was not required to use “magic words” and that her
motion should be construed as pleading a breach of contract cause of action if that is the only
way for her to recover. Mother essentially argues that there is no substantive difference between
an enforcement action and a breach of contract claim. We disagree. Father filed an amended
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answer more than six months before trial in which he asserted that Mother was not entitled to
post-majority support because she did not ask for contractual relief. In his pleading, Father even
cited In re W.R.B., 2014 WL 1008222 which we followed in our disposition of Mother’s issue.
In addition, Mother asserted at the final hearing that she had not pleaded breach of contract and
only sought an enforcement action.1 Accordingly, we find no merit in this argument.
Accordingly, the trial court erred in awarding Mother reimbursement expenses and we
sustain Father’s first issue.
CONCLUSION
As we conclude that the trial court abused its discretion in awarding Mother post-
majority expenses when it lacked statutory authority to do so by enforcement of this decree, we
need not address Father’s alternative arguments that the trial court abused its discretion by
awarding a judgment for post-majority expenses without sufficient evidence or that Mother
failed to prove all the conditions precedent were met to recover the post-majority expenses. We
reverse and render judgment in favor of Father that Mother take nothing by her motion for
enforcement regarding the award of post-majority expenses of $41,358.63 for college tuition and
$1,492.74 for books, supplies, room and board. In all other respects the judgment is affirmed.
160475F.P05 /David W. Evans/
DAVID EVANS
JUSTICE
1
At the motion for enforcement hearing, Mother’s attorney made the following statements: (1) “Your Honor, I understand [Father’s
attorney’s] position because he’s told us 47 times, but I am not pursuing this as a contract, I am pursuing this as an order of the Court.” and (2) “I
have said probably eight times today that I did not file a breach of contract.”
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Court of Appeals
Fifth District of Texas at Dallas
JUDGMENT
IN THE INTEREST OF B.M.Y. AND On Appeal from the 301st Judicial District
J.M.Y., CHILDREN Court, Dallas County, Texas
Trial Court Cause No. DF-98-16446-T.
No. 05-16-00475-CV Opinion delivered by Justice Evans.
Justices Bridges and Lang-Miers
participating.
In accordance with this Court’s opinion of this date, the judgment of the trial court is
REVERSED and judgment is RENDERED in favor of appellant Gregory Joseph Yeargan that
appellee Jennifer Bane Yeargan take nothing by her motion for enforcement regarding the award
of post-majority expenses of $41,358.63 for college tuition and $1,492.74 for books, supplies,
room and board. In all other respects the judgment is AFFIRMED.
It is ORDERED that appellant Gregory Joseph Yeargan recover his costs of this appeal
from appellee Jennifer Bane Yeargan.
Judgment entered this 26th day of July, 2017.
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