## Facts

- Gail Elkind and Sylvan Byck, Jr. married in New York (1956), had a daughter (1957), and divorced in Georgia (1957).
- The Georgia divorce judgment incorporated a settlement agreement intended as a complete and final resolution of support obligations.
- Byck funded a trust intended to provide $60 per month for the child’s support until age 18, with limited ability to invade principal, plus a separate education trust.
- The agreement stated the trust payments were in lieu of any present or future support claims by the child or the child’s representative and purported to bar modification based on changed circumstances or later legislation.
- In 1965, Elkind (then in New York) initiated a URESA proceeding seeking a “fair and reasonable” support order against Byck (then in California), alleging the prior arrangement was inadequate, not that Byck had breached it.
- The New York court transmitted the petition to California as the responding state under URESA.
- The California superior court denied relief, treating the Georgia decree and settlement as finally determining support.
- Byck argued that imposing additional support would violate the Full Faith and Credit Clause, relying on Yarborough v. Yarborough.

## Issues

1. Whether the Full Faith and Credit Clause prevents California, as a responding state under URESA, from ordering child support exceeding the amount provided in a prior Georgia divorce decree and incorporated settlement characterized as final under Georgia law.
2. Whether a parental settlement approved in a divorce decree can extinguish or permanently limit the child’s right to adequate support enforceable in another state under URESA.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court reversed the order denying the URESA application and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held that full faith and credit did not bar California from considering and potentially ordering additional child support under URESA despite the Georgia decree and settlement.
- The court concluded that the child’s right to adequate support is not conclusively fixed or exhausted by the parents’ settlement agreement, even if the agreement purports to be final and nonmodifiable under another state’s law.

## Legal Principles

- Under URESA, the obligor’s duty of support may be determined by the law of the responding state where the obligor was present during the relevant period.
- Full faith and credit requires recognition of sister-state judgments as to what they decide, but it does not invariably preclude a responding state from enforcing its own child-support policies when it has jurisdiction over the obligor.
- A child has an independent right to adequate parental support; parents cannot conclusively waive or bargain away that right through private agreement, even if incorporated into a divorce decree.
- Prior out-of-state support arrangements may be considered as evidence of existing provision but are not necessarily a constitutional or jurisdictional bar to additional support orders under the responding state’s standards.
- Yarborough v. Yarborough was treated as limited and not controlling where the responding state applies its own support law under an interstate enforcement statute and the relevant domiciles differ.

## Conclusion

California could proceed under URESA to determine whether additional child support should be ordered under California law, notwithstanding a Georgia divorce decree and incorporated settlement purporting to fix support finally, because full faith and credit did not require California to treat the prior decree as an absolute bar to further support.


Elkind v. Byck, 439 P.2d 316 (Cal. 1968)