Rogers v. Rogers

1

Christopher Rogers, Appellant v. Amy Rogers, Appellee

No. 03-22-00792-CV

Court of Appeals of Texas, Third District, Austin

October 31, 2023

FROM THE 126TH DISTRICT COURT OF TRAVIS COUNTY NO D-1-FM-11-001785, THE HONORABLE JAN SOIFER, JUDGE PRESIDING

Before Chief Justice Byrne, Justices Triana and Theofanis

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Rosa Lopez Theofanis, Justice

Christopher Rogers, acting pro se, appeals from the trial court's order confirming child support arrears.^[1] See Tex Fam. Code § 157.263 (authorizing trial court to "confirm amount of arrearages and render cumulative money judgments" for accrued child and medical support owed).^[2] In fifteen issues, Christopher does not dispute the cumulative amount of child and medical support that he was court-ordered to pay to Amy but argues that the trial court should have offset the cumulative amounts in their entirety by the value of certain real property that he owned. Id. § 157.263(b-3) (authorizing court to "allow a counterclaim or offset as provided by this title"). For the following reasons including that Christopher did not present sufficient evidence to support an offset, we affirm the trial court's order.

BACKGROUND

The parties were divorced in 2009 and appointed joint managing conservators of their three minor children. See In re Rogers, 370 S.W.3d 443, 444 (Tex. App.-Austin 2012 orig. proceeding) (providing factual background). In 2012, the trial court signed a final modification order that named Amy as the children's managing conservator and Christopher as the possessory conservator and ordered Christopher to pay increased child and medical support. The court found that Christopher was "intentionally underemployed" and that he had "additional resources in the form of land in Maine and other states totaling at least $425,000.00." Christopher appealed the final modification order to this Court, but we dismissed his appeal for want of prosecution. See Rogers v. Rogers, No. 03-13-00010-CV, 2013 Tex.App. LEXIS 10358, at *1-2 (Tex. App.-Austin Aug. 16, 2013, no pet.) (mem. op.).

In 2015, Amy filed a motion for enforcement, alleging that Christopher had failed to pay the court-ordered child support, and Christopher filed a petition to decrease the amount of child support that he was required to pay. Following a hearing in May 2015, the trial court signed an order in February 2016, finding that Christopher had failed to make child and medical support payments; holding him in contempt for failing to make the payments; ordering that "a receiver be appointed over all property owned by Christopher Rogers in the states of Maine, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, and in any other states where she may discover property"; and appointed a named person to be the "receiver of all Christopher Rogers's real estate where-ever located." In the order, the trial court stated that it "heard evidence from Christopher Rogers that he owns real property in the state of Maine but that he does not control it because it is controlled by his brother" and ordered Christopher to revoke his brother's power of attorney over the property.^[3]

In June 2016, the trial court signed an "Appointment of Receiver." The named person was "hereby appointed receiver for all property belonging to Christopher Rogers for the purpose of enforcing the judgments of this court for child support, fees, and attorney's fees." The court authorized the named person "to do all acts concerning real property of Christopher Rogers that he might do himself acting in person or by agent," including that "she may sell the property, lease it, rent it, or encumber it" and "employ agents where any property is located and to do all other acts necessary or convenient to carry out her tasks."

In 2021, the Office of the Attorney General (OAG), representing the State of Texas, filed a motion to confirm arrearage, asking the trial court to enter a judgment confirming the amount of child and medical support arrearages and accrued interest. See Tex. Fam. Code §§ 157.001-.002, .263; see also id. §§ 231.001 (designating attorney general as state's Title IV-D agency), .101(a)(5) (stating services that Title IV-D agency may provide including enforcement of child and medical support orders). Attached to the motion was a financial activity report as of January 2021 showing the accrual of amounts that Christopher owed and payments that he had made. See id. § 157.002(3) (stating that motion for enforcement of child support "may include as an attachment a copy of a record of child support payments maintained by the Title IV-D registry").

In his answer to the OAG's motion, Christopher denied that he owed any alleged child or medical support arrearage. He alleged that in 2015: (i) the trial court "ordered multiple real properties be taken from [him] and given to Amy Rogers"; (ii) the combined value of the properties at that time "ranged from $779,450.00 to $1,433,450.00"; (iii) the properties were willed to him by his father and located in Maine, Florida, Louisiana, and Georgia; (iv) the trial court "instructed [him] to have no further involvement with the properties, including inquiries"; and (v) "[t]o date, no information about the properties had been reported by Amy Rogers, nor has the Attorney General attributed value despite knowledge of the 2015 ruling." Christopher sought for the trial court to confirm the value of the property "received by Amy Rogers on May 13, 2015," to "order the defect in alleged arrearages be stricken from the record and accrued interest from the defect be eliminated," and to order the OAG to reimburse him for the excess received based on the property's value.

In August 2021, the trial court held a hearing on the OAG's motion to confirm arrearage. The witnesses were Christopher, Amy, a former attorney of Amy, and Amy's current attorney who testified about attorney's fees. The exhibits included the OAG's financial activity report detailing the accrual of amounts that Christopher owed for child and medical support and payments that he had made from November 2012 to August 2021 and showing the cumulative balances that he owed. See Tex. Fam. Code § 157.002(3).

Christopher did not dispute the amounts of accrued child and medical support that were reflected on the OAG's financial activity report. His position was that those amounts should have been entirely offset based on the value of his property that was "seized" by the State. He contended that "the State seized property from [him] in multiple states" in May 2015 and that "[n]one of these properties have been incorporated into the Attorney General's registry."

Christopher relied on the trial court's 2015 appointment of a receiver^[4] and alleged that his property was lost after it was seized because of "inaction." When asked by the trial court if he had "any testimony from any person that the receiver seized the property," Christopher testified that he had "never heard anything whatsoever from the receiver or seen any documents whatsoever."

The exhibits included a March 2016 "Notice of Impending Automatic Foreclosure" from the State of Maine based on a property tax lien. The notice stated that if the tax lien was foreclosed, the municipality would own the property. The exhibits also included Christopher's September 2020 noncustodial parent's certification of direct payments with a cover letter addressed to the OAG. In the certification, Rogers certifies that the "total of all direct payments" to Amy was $1,049,450.00, which was based on the value of properties in Maine, Florida, Louisiana, and Georgia that he had owned. In his cover letter, Rogers stated that pursuant to the trial court's May 2015 order, his real property in four states was seized and delivered to the possession of Amy, that the "properties existed as unliquidated assets of the estate of [his] deceased father who died in 2010," and that the "combined market value of the properties" at the time the trial court's May 2015 order "was issued was $1,049,450.00."

The OAG disputed Christopher's position and presented evidence that neither the OAG nor Amy had received Christopher's property or any payments from the property. Amy's former attorney testified about trying to locate property in Maine, being "unable to recover anything," and discovering that a Maine township had already foreclosed on the property and owned it. He testified that "there was nothing to get." The attorney was aware that the property had belonged to Christopher's deceased father and that there was a probate proceeding of his father's estate in Maine, but the attorney was unable to take steps "to seize the property."

Amy testified that she had not received any money or property from the trial court's appointment of a receiver and that she had not received any money or property directly from Christopher. Her understanding of what happened in Maine was that "the township in Maine foreclosed on [Christopher's] property" and in response to questions from Christopher, she explained that she "didn't have money to fight [his] foreclosure for [him]" and that he "never got any of [his] stuff out of probate" "so no one could get to [his] properties." The OAG also represented to the trial court that it had not filed a lien against Christopher's out-of-state properties and that the only lien it had filed was on a bank account. At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court ruled in favor of the OAG and Amy, explaining that it did not have evidence that the State "seized anything" or "received any money or property that belonged to [Christopher]" or that would authorize "any credit" against the amounts that Christopher owed in arrearages.

In October 2021, the trial court held a hearing on Amy's motion to reopen the evidence as...