Barrell v. Barrell

Rodowsky, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The Maryland version of the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act is Md. Code (1957, 1979 Repl. Vol.), Art. 89C (hereinafter "URESA”). Sections 31 through ²⁰ 39 inclusive of URESA comprise the subtitle, "Registration of Foreign Support Orders.” In Barrell v. Barrell, 43 Md. App. 298 , 405 A.2d 324 (1979) the Court of Special Appeals held that the registration provisions of URESA were not the exclusive means of initiating in this state the enforcement of a foreign alimony decree.

We granted certiorari to review that decision and shall affirm. The Superior Court for the County of Clayton, State of Georgia, had granted the appellant, John MacMillian Barrell, a "total” divorce from the appellee, Joanna Lee Barrell, on April 27, 1972. The Georgia decree awarded appellee alimony. On February 21,1978 appellee filed in the Circuit Court of Baltimore City her "Bill of Complaint to Declare Foreign Decree Valid and to Enroll a Foreign Decree.” The bill of complaint was not verified.

Nor was there attached to it a certified copy of the Georgia decree. Arrearages of alimony totalling $29,400 as of the date of filing were alleged. The bill of complaint prayed that the trial court adopt the Georgia decree "as its own, and enroll said Decree of Divorce in the records” of the trial court; that judgment be entered against the appellant for $29,400 "or for such amount in excess thereof as may be due on the date of judgment;” that appellant "be ordered to make prompt payment in the future of all amounts required . . . under the provisions of the Decree of Divorce;” that appellant be required to pay reasonable attorney’s fees; and that the appellee have other and further relief. Appellant, a resident of Georgia, was personally served in Maryland.

The trial court granted appellant’s preliminary motion raising jurisdictional objections. The Court of Special Appeals reversed and remanded for further proceedings. To present appellant’s argument requires a brief review of the legal background. A Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act was promulgated in 1950 by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws.

That 1950 version was the basis for Ch. 301 of the 1951 Maryland Laws. The statute, Maryland Code (1951), Art. 89C, title, "Support of Dependents,” was divided into three subtitles, "General Provisions” (§§ 1-4), "Criminal Enforcement” ²¹ (§§ 5 and 6), and "Civil Enforcement” (§§ 7-21). The procedure for civil enforcement involved the filing of a petition by the person entitled to support with a designated court in the initiating state. If that court determined that the respondent owed a duty of support, certain papers were then transmitted to a court in the responding state which might obtain jurisdiction of the person or property of the obligor and enforcement was effected in the responding state.

The 1951 Maryland enactment did not include a separate section, common to uniform laws, relative to uniformity of construction. In 1956 McCabe v. McCabe, 210 Md. 308 , 123 A.2d 447 , was decided. Judge Hammond, writing for the Court, stated the holding. We decide only that in Maryland an equity court can enforce a decree of another state, both as to alimony accrued and to accrue, and may use for its enforcement the same equitable remedies and sanctions it could use to enforce a decree it had duly entered in the first instance, even as the Legislature has said it may use such remedies and sanctions to enforce orders of support under the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act, Code, 1951, Art. 89C, Sections 13 and 15. [Id. at 318, 123 A.2d at 452 .] The quotation was preceded by the statement that "[w]e need not and do not decide now the answer to the various problems that may arise in the enforcement in equity of foreign decrees for alimony and support.” Id. at 317-18 , 123 A.2d at 452 .

In 1958 the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws proposed a new Part IV to the Act. The new sections "provide for the registration in the courts of one state of support orders issued by the courts of another state” and "[t]he support order, so registered, has the same effect and may be enforced as if it had been originally issued by a court of the registering state.” Handbook of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws 242 ²² (1958). Maryland adopted these additional sections as a new subtitle of Art. 89C, "Registration of Foreign Support Orders” by Ch. 295 of the 1965 Maryland Laws, now Code (1957, 1979 Repl. Vol.), Art. 89C, §§ 31-33 and §§ 34-36.

Chapter 295 of the Acts of 1965 also added, as part of the "registration” subtitle, § 38 which provides that "[t]his article shall be so interpreted and construed as to effectuate its general purpose to make uniform the law of those states which enact it.” Appellant sees the 1965 adoption of the "registration” subtitle as the legislative response to some of the "various problems” foreseen in McCabe . Appellant argues that the effect of the 1965 amendments is that an action initiated in Maryland to enforce a foreign support order may proceed only by way of the registration provisions of URESA so that a complaint, like appellee’s,