No. 86-417
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MONTANA
1986
IN RE THE MARRIAGE OF
WILLIAM DEAN HOLLAND,
Petitioner and Appell-ant,
and
PAMELA JOYCE HOLLAND,
Respondent and Respondent.
APPEAL FROM: District Court of the Thirteenth Judicial District,
In and for the County of Big Horn,
The Honorable Charles Luedke, Judge presiding.
COIJNSEL OF RECORD :
For Appellant:
John Houtz, Forsyth, Montana
For Respondent:
Thomas A. Poul-iot, Helena, Montana
Submitted on Briefs: Nov. 20, 1986
Decid-ed: December 29, 1986
Clerk
Mr. Justice John Conway Harrison delivered the Opinion of the
Court.
This appeal arises from the Thirteenth Judicial
District in and for Big Horn County. Faced with an action to
collect past child support payments, appellant moved to
contest paternity. The District Court dismissed. appellant's
motion and this appeal followed. We affirm.
Pamela and William Holland. were married in December,
1980. One child was born during the marriaqe, a daughter
born on January 25, 1982.
Three months after the child's birth, William (Husband)
filed a petition for dissolution of marriage. As to the
issue of paternity, Husband stated and verified in his
petition that the child was a child "of the marriage." And
in its final dissolution decree entered on July 12, 1982, the
District Court found the child to be a "child of the
parties." Husband never moved to modify or appeal this
decree.
The District Court additionally granted custody to
Pamela (Wife) and ordered Husband to pay $100 per month child.
support. Husband, however, has fallen well behind in this
obligation and is currently in arrears in excess of $1,400.
Since February, 1985, Wife has received public
assistance from the State of Idaho. On March 6, 1986, the
Montana Department of Revenue, Child Support Enforcement
Program (Depa.rtment) received from the State of Idaho a
request and authorization to obtain a wage withholding order
against Husband.
Acting pursuant to the Child Support Enforcement Act,
S 40-5-401 et seq., MCA, the Department accordingly served
Husband with a notice of its intent to withhold a portion of
his monthly income necessary to satisfy the monthly
obligation and arrearages. Provoked by the Department's
proceedings, Husband requested an administrative hearing,
contending that he was not the child's natural father and
requesting blood tests to determine paternity.
The Department's hearing officer denied Husband's
request for an administrative hearing on the ground that the
issue of paternity had previously been determined under the
July, 1.982, dissolution decree.
Husband then filed a motion with the District Court
requesting a determination of paternity under the Uniform
Parentage Act, 5 40-6-101 et seq., MCA. The Department
responded with a motion to dismiss.
On July 30, 1986, the District Court granted the
Department's motion and dismissed the action. The court held
that the issue of paternity had previously been adjudicated
during the marriage dissolution proceeding and relitigation
of the issue was therefore barred by the doctrine of res
judicata in its subsidiary form of collateral estoppel. We
agree.
This Court faced a similar situation in Butler v.
Brownlee (1969), 152 Mont. 453, 451 P.2d 836, where a
husband, delinquent in his child support payments, filed a
motion to modify the dissolution decree, alleging that he was
not the children's father. This Court denied that husband's
modification request because it attempted to relitigate ar~
issue which had already been adjudicated in the dissolution
proceeding. We stated:
A judgment not appealed from is
conclusive between the parties as to all
issues raised by pleadings actually
litigated and adjudged as shown on the
face of the judgment .. .
Butler, 451 P.2d at 838.
This holding is entirely consistent with the doctrine
of collateral estoppel. In Aetna Life and Casualty Insurance
Co. v. Johnson (Mont. 1984), 673 P.2d 1277, 1279-80, 41
St.Rep. 40, 42-43, we held that collateral estoppel will bar
litigation of an issue in a civil trial that has previously
been litigated in a criminal trial upon an affirmative answer
to each of the following three questions: (1) Was the issue
decided in the prior adjudication identical with the one
presented in the action in question? (2) Was there a final
judgment on the merits? (3) Was the party against whom the
plea is asserted a party or in privity with a party to the
prior adjudication?
We have since broadened this holding by applying this
test to all cases in which collateral estoppel is at issue.
See e.g., Aetna Life Insurance Co. v. McElvain (Mont. 1986) ,
717 P.2d 1081, 43 St.Rep. 697.
Applying this test to the facts of our case, it is
clear that collateral estoppel bars Husband's motion. The
issue is identical, there was a final judgment rendered on
the merits, and the Husband was a party to the prior
adjudication.
Husband, however, attempts to assert that he has a
statutory right under the Uniform Parentage Act to relitigate
paternity at any time. We are not persuaded. We find
nothing within that Act which authorizes Husband to raise the
issue of paternity subsequent to the resolution of that issue
in the final decree of dissolution.
Husband further attempts to argue that he is now
entitled to raise the issue of paternity under Rorchers v.
McCarter (1979), 181 Mont. 169, 592 P.2d 941. In Borchers,
we held that the issue of paternity in a Uniform Reciprocal
Enforcement of Support Act (URESA) action shall be determined
according to the provisions of the Uniform Parentage Act.
However, this j.s not a URESA action. As mentioned, the
Department sought to collect the past child support payments
under the Child Support Enforcement Act, an act completely
separate from URESA. Further, the facts of Borchers are in
no way comparable to those of the instant case. In Borchers
the mother and purported father were never married and had
not addressed the issue of paternity in a dissolution
proceeding. Borchers is inapplicable to the facts of this
case and we dismiss appellant's argument.
In sum, we hold that adjudication in a dissolution or
annulment action concerning the paternity of a child estops
the husband or wife from raising that issue in any subsequent
action or proceeding.
Affirmed.
We concur: 17