This case was initially decided on appeal by the Court of Appeals and reported at
On March 13, 1965, appellant Dorothy Kuhn and appellee Charles Kuhn were granted a divorce by the Brown Circuit Court. That court ordered the appellee to pay appellant the sum of Thirty-Five Dollars ($35.00) per week as child support for the three minor children of the parties. The three children were all emancipated by July 1, 1972. The appellant, who contends that she was unable to learn the whereabouts of the appellee until 1976 (except for a brief period in 1970), filed suit against Charles on August 27,1976, seeking a judgment for accrued child support.
The trial court еntered judgment against appellant on the basis that her claim was barred by the statute of limitations for injury to personal property which expired two years after emancipation of the youngest child. Upon appeal the Court of Appeals held that the ten-year statute of limitations apрlicable to judgments applies to unpaid installments of court-ordered support; that the statute commences to run upon each installment as it becomes due and unpaid; and that reduction to a second judgment before execution on the debt is unnecessary. We disagree.
The appellаnt argues, and the Court of Appeals held, that accrued arrearages under an order for child support constitute a judgment. We believe this conсlusion is contrary to Indiana case and statutory law. In
Owens v. Owens,
(1976) Ind.App.,
The conclusion that unpaid support cannot be considered a judgment is also required by the reading of the applicable statute. IC § 31-1-11.5-13 (Burns’ Supp.1979) states: “(e) upon application to the court for enforcement of an order for suppоrt, the court may: (1) Enter a judgment against the person obligated to pay support . .” From a practical standpoint, an order for periodic pаyments of child support is not a money judgment until an action is brought for a determination as to the amount of unpaid and dilinquent installments.
If we were to hold that delinquent court-ordered support payments are final money judgments and eliminate the requirement of a second suit, a question would arise as to whether such а judgment would constitute a lien upon the real estate of the parent who becomes delinquent. A decision that child support arrearages are entitled to status as a money judgment could have a devastating effect upon the alienability of real estate. It would be extremely difficult for a purсhaser of land to determine the existence and amount of liens securing the support arrearages. Prior Indiana case law clearly indicatеs that even though support payments may have accrued under a court decree, they are not sufficiently undisputa-
Therefore, we hold that an order for periodic payments of child support is not a final money judgmеnt. We hold that such a money judgment does not exist until an action is brought for a determination of the amount of unpaid and delinquent installments. We believe the anаlogy between a final judgment and accrued court-ordered support is too tenuous to justify the application of the statute of limitations for judgments tо child support arrearages which have not been reduced to a lump-sum judgment.
The trial court stated in its judgment that
Strawser v. Strawser,
(1977) Ind.App.,
Strawser is inapplicable to and distinguishable from the case at bar. There the wife asserted a common law right to reimbursement based uрon the father’s legal duty to support his children absent a support decree. The appellant herein has based her cause of action uрon a decree from the Brown Circuit Court, which ordered appellee to make specific payments to her for the support of their children.
The line of cases upon which appellee relies and which led to the
Strawser
decision does not dictate the choice of either the six-yeаr statute of limitations for accounts and contracts not in writing, IC § 34-1-2-1(1), or the statute of limitations for choses in action, IC § 34-1-2-2(1), as the limiting statute for suits for accrued, court-ordered child support. None of these cases involved a statute of limitations question. In
Corbridge v. Corbridge,
(1952)
Since we cannot characterize an action to : recover accrued, court-ordered support payments as an action on a debt, a money judgment, or a contract, we are unable to .rely on any one of the specific categories set forth in IC § 34-1-2-1 [Burns 1976] or IC § 34-1-2-2 [Burns 1976], We, therefore, .conclude that the appropriate limiting statute is IC § 34-1-2-3 [Burns 1976] which provides:
“All actions not limited by any other statute shall be brought within fifteen (15) years.”
We now turn tо the question of whether the statute begins to run upon emancipation of the youngest child or on each installment as it becomes due and payablе.
We hold that the fifteen-year statute of limitations of IC § 34-1-2-3 applies to court-ordered child support payments. Further, we hold that the statute of limitations begins to run on each installment as it becomes due and unpaid. The Court of Appeals’ decision is hereby vacated and this case is remanded to the trial court with instructions to apply the fifteen-year statute of limitations to each installment of support which the appellant was entitled to receive.