Mom and Dad divorced in 1969. Dad was ordered to pay $150.00/mo in c/s for three kids. He did not pay. In the early 70's, Dad was held in contempt for failure to pay. In August 2001 Mom filed a motion for a cumulative judgment for c/s arrearage. An order was entered but later set aside in 2004. Dad's current Wife intervened in the case, claiming her interest in community property retirement benefits that Mom had previously attempted to garnish. Before another cumulative arrearage judgment could be entered, Dad and second Wife divorced and Wife was awarded a portion of Dad's retirement benefits. A c/s arrearage judgment was thereafter entered in 2005 for $286,100 plus interest. A receiver was appointed and Dad, along with his new ex, were ordered to turn over all property of their community estate as of the date of their divorce and ordered each of them to pay $2500 to the receiver. Dad was also ordered to turn over all other real and personal property.

On appeal, Dad claimed that he owed no support due to the 1999 version of TFC§157.005(b) (imposing a 4 year limitation on enforcement actions after child turns 18) because the statute gave him a vested right eliminating his liability for c/s arrearages and any amendments to the statute were an impermissible ex post facto law. Alternatively Dad claimed a 10 year limitation under CPRC §34.001, laches, and insufficiency of the evidence. Dad's new ex also appealed challenging the order obligating her to turn-over property to the receiver for Dad's c/s obligation incurred prior to their marriage.

The COA held that TFC §157.005 is not a limitations statute but instead a jurisdictional statute addressing how long a court retains jurisdiction to enforce its own orders and not how long a party has to bring the action before the court. The COA further held that despite Dad's waiver of his laches defense, laches does not apply since a c/s obligee can bring an action for judgment under TFC§157.005 at any time so long as the child support remains owing. Finally, regarding the turnover order, the COA confirmed that new ex-wife's sole management community property would not have been subject to Dad's child support obligation as it was incurred before marriage but new ex-wife failed to present any evidence that would have identified or proven what community property fell into this category. The COA affirmed the judgment and the turnover order in all respects.

Mom and Dad were divorced in 1994 and Dad was ordered to pay child support for their two children. The decree of divorce as it related to the frequency of the payment and the dates they were due was unclear and the decree was never clarified or modified. In 2002 Mom filed a contempt action and after a jury trial Dad was found guilty of criminal contempt for failing to pay a specified amount of c/s for a period of 94 months between 1994 and 2002. He was sentenced to six months in jail for each violation and they were ordered to run consecutively. Dad's sentence was suspended for all but the first violation and the terms of his suspension ordered him to pay support in the amounts as proscribed in the decree. Dad served the initial six month term and was released.

In 2003 Mom filed a motion to revoke and the court issued an order for Dad's arrest pending a revocation hearing. Dad was not arrested until 4 years later in August 2007. Counsel was appointed but no revocation hearing was held. Dad remained in custody until a writ of habeas corpus was filed in November 2007.

The COA determined that as TFC§157.216(b) requires an arrested obligor to be brought promptly before the court for a revocation hearing, Dad's incarceration without such a hearing for more about three months was a deprivation of his liberty without due process of law. The COA also determined that the underlying orders were ambiguous and could not support a contempt or commitment. Further, the commitment order incorrectly recited the terms of the actual order by listing only month and years of payment, instead of actual due dates and attempting to convert a bi-weekly c/s obligation into a monthly amount due. Writ of habeas corpus granted.

Johnny and Kathy began dating in the early 1980's. At that time Kathy was living in a rented residence in Dallas which she later purchased in 1983. Johnny moved in on Easter Sunday that year. Johnny claimed to have contributed money to the down payment and to mortgage payments over the years. Kathy admitted he gave her money for bills but not the mortgage. In 1998 Kathy bought another house allegedly because Johnny had become abusive. Johnny claimed to have contributed to this purchase as well and that he had moved into the new house with Kathy in late 1999 making this his permanent residence. In March 2003 Kathy moved to Wisconsin for her employment and then she moved again to California. Johnny remained in Texas and lived in the first residence.

In August 2005 Johnny filed for divorce claiming an informal marriage and alleging that the parties had separated in December 2004. Kathy filed a suit for declaratory judgment denying the existence of a marriage. The trial court bifurcated the proceedings and conducted a bench trial on the issues of whether a marriage existed and if so when. At the end of Johnny's case in chief, Kathy moved for a directed verdict on the ground that the divorce action had been filed more than two years after separation. The trial court granted Kathy's motion. Johnny filed a MNT which was denied and he appealed.

The COA initially noted the distinction between a motion for directed verdict (appropriate in a jury case) and a motion for judgment (appropriate in a bench trial) because standards of review in each instance are different. Treating Kathy's motion as a motion for judgment he COA acknowledge the trial court's authority to grant judgment at the conclusion of a plaintiff's case and that in doing so the trial court is presumed to have ruled upon the sufficiency of the evidence and the credibility of the witnesses. Analyzing the evidence offered by each party during Johnny's case in chief, the COA found no abuse of discretion as the trial court was permitted to believe Kathy's claim that the parties separated when she moved to Wisconsin in March 2003. As Johnny did not file for divorce until August 2005, there existed a rebuttable presumption that the parties did not agree to be married and the evidence offered by Johnny did not overcome this presumption. Judgment for Kathy was affirmed.

H and W married on 1.10.99. Prior to marriage, H obtained 740.5 shares of stock in BTH Holding, Inc. On 2.15.99 BTH's board of directors, with consent of the shareholders, passed a resolution to dissolve BTH, liquidate its assets, and distribute the assets pursuant to a plan of liquidation which required the payment of all outstanding liabilities, debts and obligations. All remaining assets would then be distributed pro rata to the shareholders in complete cancellation and redemption of all the shares of capital stock. BTH made distributions to H as follows: $4,443,000 in March 99; $1,406,950 in September 99; $444,300 in November 99 and $681,260 in November 01. A certificate of dissolution was issued on 10.31.01. W filed for divorce in October 02. The trial court granted divorce and awarded all amounts of the BTH distribution to H as his separate property. W appealed claiming the trial court had erred in failing to allow testimony from her expert on the characterization of the cash distributions. (LeGrand-Brock v. Brock, No. 10-04-00251-CV, 2005 WL 2578944, Tex. App. - Waco, October 12, 2005).

The Waco court reversed and remanded finding that a fact issue existed regarding whether H's stock had been exchanged or sold for cash or whether the cash payments were dividends and that W's expert testimony on that matter should have been admitted. On remand the W's expert testified that the monies were paid to H from retained earnings, were liquidating dividends, and should be characterized as community property. The trial court founds they were not dividends but instead liquidating distributions in redemption of H's separate property stock and thus separate property. The trial court maintained the exact same division of property and W appealed. On appeal W presented argued that (1) H failed to overcome the c/p presumption; (2) the mischaracterization resulted in an inequitable division; (3) there was no evidence to support a finding or conclusion that the distributions were in cancellation or redemption of the s/p stock; and (4) there was no evidence to support a finding that the cash distributions were not dividends.

The COA rejected W's claim that the distributions had been made from retained earnings and were thus income earned from H's separate property which would become community. The COA held that it was not relevant whether the amounts were paid from retained earnings because there was no dispute that the distributions were made pursuant to a corporate dissolution and W had made no assertions of fraud or attempt to pierce the corporate veil. Further, W offered no evidence that the distributions had been declared as a dividend by the BOD or that the company continued to operate as a business after dissolution.

The COA found that the cash distributions represented an exchange of H's separate property stock for the corporation's cash assets. The COA noted that the opinions of W's expert that the distributions were community property was a conclusion on an issue of law and therefore not controlling citing Greenberg Traurig of N.Y., P.C. v. Moody, 161 S.W.3d 56, 95 (Tex. App. - Houston [14th Dist.] 2004, no pet.) Judgment affirmed.

In a probate proceeding, the court was called upon to determine which of two women was the sole heir of a man killed in an on-the-job accident. Two separate women claimed to be his common law wife. The first, Sara, claimed a marriage from 1990 through 1999. The second, Patricia, claimed a marriage from 1998 through the date of the man's death in 2005.

The COA acknowledged the application of two presumptions to the analysis of the facts. The first, found in TFC§2.401, presumes that if no suit to declare a marriage is brought before two years after separation, it is rebuttably presumed that no marriage existed. The second, found in TFC§1.102, presumes the most recent marriage to be valid as against each marriage preceding it until the one asserting a prior marriage proves it to be valid.

The opinion analyzes extensive evidence offered by each woman in support of her claim of common law marriage. Where evidence supporting marriage was disputed by other evidence disproving marriage, the COA held that the conflicting evidence merely goes to the weight to be given the evidence which is entirely within the discretion of the trial court. The COA found that the conflicting evidence did not negate the existence of a common law marriage. After analyzing all the evidence the COA recognized that the evidence could support a common law marriage with either woman, however because the record established that there had been no divorce between the man and the first "wife", Sara, there could be no subsequent marriage to Patricia. The COA affirmed the trial court's finding that Sara was the man's sole heir.