MEMORANDUM DECISION
[1] Juan Cuatzo (“Father”) appeals the Bartholomew Superior Courts order determining his child support arrearage to be $19,950. He presents a single issue for our review, namely, whether the trial court erred when it made that determination.
[2] We affirm.
Facts and Procedural History
[3] Father and Raquel Montes (“Mother”) (collectively “Parents”) have one child together, Child, who was born in June 2015. Parents were not married at the time of Childs birth, but they established Fathers paternity of Child in 2017.
[4] In a preliminary order, the trial court ordered Father to pay child support in the amount of $163 per week based on a weekly income of $769. However, Father did not appear, either in person or by counsel, at the final hearing, where Mother testified that Fathers weekly income was $3,500 per week. In its final judgment, issued in August 2018, the trial court ordered Father to pay $399 per week in child support retroactive to June 2016. The trial court also found that Fathers child support arrearage as of June 12, 2017, was $19,950. Father did not appeal that judgment.
[5] In 2021, the State, as intervenor, filed a petition for contempt for Fathers continuing failure to pay child support. The State alleged that Fathers child support arrearage exceeded $100,000. In response, Father filed a petition to eliminate his child support arrearage. Father alleged that Mother had fraudulently stated his income at the June 2017 final hearing. Following a May 2, 2022, hearing on Fathers petition, the trial court found that: Fathers petition was, in essence, “either an independent action for fraud or as a pleading to grant relief for fraud on the court”; Father had not proven fraud; Child was living with Father from June 2017 until April 2022, and Father “satisfied his obligation to support [Child] from August 16, 2018 to May 2, 2022 by caring for her in his own household[.]” Appellants App. Vol. 2, p. 113. Thus, the trial court granted Fathers petition to eliminate his child support arrearage in part with respect to the new arrearage allegedly accrued from August 16, 2018, to May 2, 2022. But the trial court denied Fathers petition with regard to “the remainder of the request,” which included the $19,950 arrearage for the period June 2016 through June 2017 that had already been reduced to a judgment. Id. at 114. Father did not appeal that judgment.
1
[6] In September 2022, Father filed a petition to modify custody of Child and a motion to dismiss the States contempt petition. In March 2023, Parents filed with the trial court a verified agreement on custody, parenting time, and child support, whereby they agreed that they would have joint physical custody of Child and that, “from the date of this order,” neither Father nor Mother would have a child support obligation. Id. at 138. The agreement was silent with respect to Fathers child support arrearage. The trial court entered an order approving that agreement.
[7] In March 2023, the State filed a petition to determine the amount of Fathers child support arrearage. Following an evidentiary hearing, the trial court found that Fathers child support arrearage was $19,950. Father filed a motion to correct error, which the trial court denied. This appeal ensued.
Discussion and Decision
[8] Father contends that, because the $19,950 child support arrearage is based on Mothers allegedly false testimony regarding his income during the 2017 hearing, where he was neither present nor represented by counsel, the evidence is insufficient to support the courts June 2023 order. Accordingly, Father asks that we vacate the courts order.
[9] As this Court has explained:
Determinations of child support obligations are within [the] trial courts discretion, and we will not set such determinations aside unless they are clearly erroneous. Lea v. Lea, 691 N.E.2d 1214, 1217 (Ind. 1998). “Findings are clearly erroneous only when the record contains no facts to support them either directly or by inference.” Quillen v. Quillen, 671 N.E.2d 98, 102 (Ind. 1996). A judgment is clearly erroneous if it relies on an incorrect legal standard. Menard, Inc. v. Dage-MTI, Inc., 726 N.E.2d 1206, 1210 (Ind. 2000), rehg denied. We give due regard to the trial courts ability to assess the credibility of witnesses. Id. While we defer substantially to findings of fact, we do not do so to conclusions of law. Id. We do not reweigh the evidence; rather we consider the evidence most favorable to the judgment with all reasonable inferences drawn in favor of the judgment. Yoon v. Yoon, 711 N.E.2d 1265, 1268 (Ind. 1999).
Trent v. Trent, 829 N.E.2d 81, 85 (Ind. Ct. App. 2005).
[10] It is well settled that a court may not retroactively reduce or eliminate child support obligations after they have accrued. Whited v. Whited, 859 N.E.2d 657, 661 (Ind. 2007). Indeed, Indiana Code section 31-16-16-6(a) clearly states that “a court may not retroactively modify an obligors duty to pay a delinquent support payment.” Here, the trial court found that, in 2018, Fathers arrearage was adjudicated to be $19,950. The trial court also found that Father had not presented evidence that he had ever paid that arrearage. Thus, the trial court concluded that Fathers child support arrearage remains $19,950, to be paid in $25 weekly installments.
[11] On appeal, Father argues that, in its August 2022 order, the trial court found that Mother had “drastically overstated” Fathers income during the June 2017 hearing and that her attempt to collect the arrearage after Parents’ breakup, when Father was directly supporting Child, was “disingenuous at best.” Appellants App. Vol. 2, p. 113. Thus, Father argues that the evidence is insufficient to support the arrearage, which was based on the 2018 order that he pay $399 per week in child support from June 2016 to June 2017.
[12] We do not reach the merits of Fathers argument on appeal because he is attempting to relitigate the issue of the evidentiary support for the $19,950 arrearage, which was reduced to a final judgment in 2018. Father did not appeal that judgment, and the issue is barred by res judicata.
2
As we have explained:
“The principle of res judicata is divided into two branches: claim preclusion and issue preclusion.
The first of these branches, claim preclusion, applies where a final judgment on the merits has been rendered and acts as a complete bar to a subsequent action on the same issue or claim between those parties and their privies. When claim preclusion applies, all matters that were or might have been litigated are deemed conclusively decided by the judgment in the prior action. The following four requirements must be satisfied for claim preclusion to apply as a bar to a subsequent action: (1) the former judgment must have been rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction; (2) the former judgment must have been rendered on the merits; (3) the matter now in issue was, or could have been, determined in the prior action; and (4) the controversy adjudicated in the former action must have been between the parties to the present suit or their privies.”
Freels v. Koches, 94 N.E.3d 339, 342 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018) (quoting Angelopoulos v. Angelopoulos, 2 N.E.3d 688, 696 (Ind. Ct. App. 2013), trans. denied). Here, the trial court reduced the $19,950 arrearage to a final judgment in its August 2018 order. Father could have brought an appeal from that judgment to challenge the veracity of Mothers testimony regarding his income, but he did not do so. Accordingly, Father cannot relitigate the issue of the amount of his arrearage that was determined in 2018; that issue is barred by claim preclusion. See id.
[13] Further, it is well settled that an individual cannot contract away his or her obligation to support his or her children. See Bussert v. Bussert, 677 N.E.2d 68, 71 (Ind. Ct. App. 1997). Thus, even if Parents’ March 2023 agreement eliminating Fathers child support obligation had also purported to eliminate Fathers arrearage, which it did not, it would not apply retroactively to the arrearage accrued prior to March 2023.
[14] For all these reasons, we affirm the trial courts determination that Fathers child support arrearage is $19,950.
[15] Affirmed.
FOOTNOTES
1
. The trial court did not address the States contempt petition.
2
. Our Supreme Court has held that where a child support arrearage has been reduced to a lump-sum judgment, that is a final judgment. See Kuhn v. Kuhn, 273 Ind. 67, 402 N.E.2d 989, 991 (Ind. 1980).
Mathias, Judge.
Riley, J., and Brown, J., concur.