Gina Noel Henson v. Christopher Robert Henson

Facts

H and W divorced in 1991. They have three children. Their youngest child turned 18 years old in 2009. At the time of their divorce, H, W, and their children lived in Kansas. Kansas issued the original child support orders. The court awarded W primary residential custody of all three children. H was ordered to pay child support in the amount of $226 per month through September 1991 and $300 per month after that. H was also ordered to pay 50% of the children's prescriptions, medications, and medical bills. H moved to California and found a job as a legal assistant. W remained in Kansas. H failed to notify the district court or W of his move or change in income. H continued to make some child support payments. In August 1994, W moved to enforce H's support obligations, so an action commenced under the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act (URESA). By the time W filed her motion, H had an arrearage in past due child support. The case was forwarded to the Child Support Office of the District Attorney in San Francisco. The Kansas support order was registered there in December 1994. H then began paying $300 per month in child support pursuant to an income withholding order issued in the California action. In May 1996, the district court trustee, on W's behalf, asked the California court to modify the child support amount and require payment for medical bills and insurance. It modified the Kansas order by increasing H's child support obligation from $300 to $948 per month; required H to pay an additional $50 per month toward the arrearages; and found each party responsible for half of all unreimbursed or uninsured health expenses. H did not appeal this December 1996 order. H moved to Colorado. H made semi-regular child support payments until 2005. By 2002, H had moved from California to Denver and again failed to notify the district court or W of his move. W remained in Kansas. Because H had moved to Colorado, California stopped collecting support and closed its case. H's child support arrearage was $71,687.87. In October 2002, the Sedgwick County Court trustee sent a notice of intent to issue an income withholding order to H's employer in Colorado. The notice showed a total of $400 per month would be withheld-$300 for the child support obligation and $100 for arrearages. The Department of Child Support Services sent a letter and a copy of the 1996 California order modifying H's child support to the trustee's office. Both documents were filed in the district court. In June 2005, W moved in Kansas to determine that H was in arrears for child support in the sum of $73,276.76 and $10,374.82 in unpaid medical expenses. H failed to appeal and the district court granted W's motion and entered a default judgment against H. It found Chris owed $73,019.59 in child support arrearage and $10,374.82 in unpaid medical expenses. Chris claims he never saw the journal entry until after the time passed for filing a notice of appeal, so he never appealed it. In August 2005, after their oldest child turned 18, the district court trustee sent another notice of intent to issue an income withholding order. It specified that $200 would be collected monthly for child support and an additional $200 would be collected monthly for past-due support. H did not respond to or appeal from this order. In July 2006, the Colorado trustee registered the Kansas support order and the Kansas arrearage judgment of $75,419.59 in Colorado for collection by an income withholding order. H did not object. The accrual of child support ended on June 30, 2009, after their' youngest child had turned 18 years old on April 5, 2009. In May 2010, another withholding order began collecting $800 in past-due child support from H's wages. That continued until January 2014 when H moved to set aside the 2005 default judgment. The district court modified the 2005 default judgment so it could determine the amount of arrears after December 1996 when the California court modified the Kansas support order. H filed a notice of appeal from that order. But this court filed a show cause order, questioning jurisdiction to review the decision. H failed to respond to the show cause order, the court dismissed his appeal in March 2015. H moved to terminate the income withholding order. H claimed he had overpaid his support arrearages by over $75,000 because he was responsible for his child support obligations only until December 1996, when the California court modified the Kansas support order. The district court denied H's motion and left the income withholding order in place. After obtaining the California records, W moved to determine updated arrearage amounts and to adopt the modified California order. H claimed that the district court lacked jurisdiction to enforce the California modified support order, that the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA) provisions prohibited enforcement of the California order, and that he had overpaid his Kansas support obligations. H argued the California court lacked jurisdiction to modify the Kansas support order under the Full Faith in Credit for Child Support Orders Act (FFCCSOA) and UIFSA because Kansas had maintained exclusive and continuing jurisdiction over the case since its initiation in 1991. The district court found that H had waived his FFCCSOA defense by failing to assert it at the 2014 hearing on his motion to set aside the default judgment. It held that H owed: $88,631.88 in child support arrearage; $24,007.05 for the 2005 medical expenses judgment; and $7,486.75 on outstanding judgments for attorney fees. H now appeals the district court's 2014 decision.

Issues

Rule of Law

Holding and Decision

Legal Analysis

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