Garrett v. Garrett
Garrett v. Garrett
Opinion of the Court
This is an appeal from a summary judgment granting the ex-wife recovery of past-due unpaid alimony ordered by a foreign judgment. We will affirm.
Marty and Barbara Garrett were married in November, 1951, and divorced in Greene County, Ohio, in February, 1972. The divorce decree ordered Marty to pay Barbara $15.00 per week for as long as she lived or until she remarried. The payments were made until 1974 or 1975 when Marty moved to Texas. In December 1986, the payments were resumed at the rate of $65 per month after Barbara took action to be paid by the Air Force Accounting Center from Marty’s Air Force retirement pay.
On January 17, 1991, Barbara filed suit to recover the alimony, $9,555.00, that was not paid from September, 1974, until December, 1986. Marty answered by a general denial. In response to interrogatories,
At the hearing
It is true I alleged that the statute of limitations was applicable here, but I think the real issue before this court is whether a judgment payable in installments is enforceable in another state under the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution of the United States.
The trial court agreed that this was an action to enforce a judgment and a ten year statute of limitations applied. After Barbara argued that the Uniform Reciprocal Judgment Act made the judgment enforceable, the trial court said:
I’m going to make my ruling in favor of full faith and credit of the Ohio judgment and grant summary judgment. I wouldn’t bet you a dollar ... that that won’t be reversed on appeal....
The trial court granted the summary judgment and Appellant-Marty now brings two points of error; first, the trial court erred “since Appellee failed to plead and prove the elements necessary to maintain her cause of action,” and, second, “[t]he trial court erred in basing its judgment on an unofficial assumption of law.”
“Issues not expressly presented to the trial court by written motion, answer or other response shall not be considered as grounds for a reversal.” Tex.R.Civ.P. 166a(c); see City of Houston v. Clear Creek Basin Authority, 589 S.W.2d 671, 678 (Tex. 1979). Appellant brought two issues to the trial court’s attention, by way of response to the motion for summary judgment. The first issue was that two years had past since the last payment was due and recovery was barred by the two year statute of limitations. The second issue was that Texas did not provide for the payment of alimony, that payment of alimony in arrears was against Texas “public policy,” and that the movant “has failed to prove the opposite, that being that it is not against public policy.” Appellant argues neither of these points on appeal. Thus, Appellant is limited on appeal to the issues he brought before the trial court in the response to the motion for summary judgment or to a general point that there was not proof as a matter of law. See Malooly Bros., Inc. v. Napier, 461 S.W.2d 119, 121 (Tex. 1970). By his first point of error Appellant argues that a foreign judgment should not be given full faith and credit unless the finality of the judgment as to the unpaid installments of alimony was pled and authenticated.
By his second point of error Appellant states “The trial court erred in basing its judgment on an unofficial assumption of law.” He argues that the trial court must have assumed that the Ohio judgment was final without taking judicial notice of the effect of Ohio law; alternatively the trial court must have assumed the law of Ohio was the same as the law of Texas. As we stated before, the trial court did not err in treating the Ohio judgment as final. It was, therefore, unnecessary to assume the laws were the same.
Appellant’s points of error are based on arguments not presented to the trial court and will not be considered here on appeal, therefore, they are overruled.
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
. While the arguments at a hearing on a motion for summary judgment are not evidence which can support or defeat a judgment, they are included here to help explain the subsequent procedural steps of the parties, see McConnell v. Southside Indep. School Dist., 858 S.W.2d 337 (Tex. 1993).
. Appellant cites this court to a case that is unpublished. We remind Appellant that this is not allowed by Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 90(i) and admonish him to refrain from this course in the future.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.