Opinion
No. 24632.
Submitted May 6, 1998.
Filed July 17, 1998.
Appeal from the Circuit Court of Berkeley County, Honorable Thomas W. Steptoe, Jr., Judge, Civil Action No. 97-P-17.
Richard G. Gay, Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, and Franklin D. Cleckley, Morgantown, West Virginia, Attorneys for Appellant.
Jill L. Miles, Deputy Attorney General, Charli Cooper Fulton, Assistant Attorney General, Charleston, West Virginia, Attorneys for Appellee.
Timothy C. Winslow, Charleston, West Virginia, Attorney for Amicus Curiae, West Virginia Division of Banking.
Deborah M. Zuckerman Washington, D.C., Attorney for Amicus Curiae, American Association of Retired Persons.
This matter is before this Court upon the March 28, 1997, final order of the Circuit Court of Berkeley County. Pursuant to that order, the circuit court ordered that the appellant, Pawn America, produce certain documents described in a subpoena duces tecum issued by the Consumer Protection Division of the West Virginia Attorney General's office in connection with its investigation of the appellant's business practices. The central issue on appeal is whether the appellee, Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., Attorney General, has the authority to investigate Pawn America to determine whether it has engaged in acts which violate the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act, W. Va. Code § 46A-1-101, et seq. (1974). The appellant requests that this Court declare that the Attorney General has been acting outside of his delegated authority and, further, that we prohibit enforcement of the investigatory subpoena issued to Pawn America. We conclude that the Attorney General has the statutory power under the Act to conduct the investigation which his office has commenced. We also find that the lower court did not err with respect to its rulings on the enforceability of the subpoena. Accordingly, we affirm the decision of the circuit court.
I. FACTS
Pawn America is an unincorporated sole proprietorship which is located in Martinsburg, West Virginia. At all times relevant to this case, Pawn America has held a pawnbroker's license issued by the City of Martinsburg under its "Secondhand Dealers" ordinance. The State of West Virginia has not undertaken to license pawnbrokers, and, consequently, Pawn America holds no state-issued pawnbroker's license.
The Attorney General's investigation of Pawn America was prompted by a consumer complaint lodged with the Consumer Protection Division. Based upon the consumer's claims regarding his dealings with Pawn America, as well as the testimony of other Pawn America customers, the Attorney General began an investigation to determine whether Pawn America's business practices violated the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act, W. Va. Code § 46A-1-101, et seq. (1974). The particular transaction attested to by consumers, termed a "title pawn," was described by the circuit court in its final order as follows:
A consumer approaches Pawn America with the intent to borrow money; in exchange for the money being lent, the consumer is required to deliver to Pawn America a clear certificate of title to his/her motor vehicle and to endorse the title in blank; the consumer is required to pay a fee of 25% of the loan amount for a two week loan (which translates into an interest rate of 65% when annualized); that the loan may be renewed for additional two-week periods so long as the consumer pays an additional 25% "finance charge" for each such two-week period; that the consumer is permitted to retain possession of the vehicle unless, and until, he/she defaults on a payment; and Pawn America does not store the motor vehicle on which it loans money at its Martinsburg location, rather if the consumer does not pay the amounts owed to Pawn America in a timely fashion, then Pawn America "repossesses" the consumer's vehicle.
On December 9, 1996, the Attorney General issued a subpoena duces tecum, seeking business records from Pawn America. The subpoena was served upon Pawn America the next day. Pawn America refused to produce the requested documents without a court order. Therefore, on February 5, 1997, the Attorney General filed a petition for enforcement of the subpoena in the circuit court.
On March 10, 1997, the circuit court held a hearing on the Attorney General's petition, and on March 28, 1997, the circuit judge issued a final order enforcing several of the subpoena demands and quashing others. On April 8, 1997, the circuit court entered an order which stayed its final order pending the outcome of this appeal.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
"Where the issue on an appeal from the circuit court is clearly a question of law or involving an interpretation of a statute, we apply a de novo standard of review." Syl. Pt. 1, Chrystal R. M. v. Charlie A. L., 194 W. Va. 138, 459 S.E.2d 415 (1995). This appeal presents both a question of law and involves statutory interpretation. Accordingly, we apply a de novo standard of review.
III. DISCUSSION
The central issue before this Court is whether the Attorney General has the statutory power to investigate Pawn America for suspected violations of the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act, W. Va. Code § 46A-1-101, et seq. In order to resolve this question, we must first determine a threshold issue: whether Pawn America's alleged "title pawn" transactions fall within the exclusion from the Act for "licensed pawnbrokers."
West Virginia Code § 46A-1-105 (1996) states: "This chapter does not apply to: . . . (4) Licensed pawnbrokers." Pawn America contends that this provision gives licensed pawnbrokers a blanket exemption from the Act's coverage and that the circuit court erroneously disregarded this exemption in enforcing the Attorney General's investigatory subpoena. We disagree. For reasons set forth below, we conclude that the Act's exemption does not preclude the investigation of acts which are not true pawns and are beyond the scope of a pawnbroker's license.
As indicated earlier, Pawn America holds a pawnbroker's license issued by the City of Martinsburg. This license allows Pawn America to receive and sell "secondhand personal property." Under the Martinsburg "Secondhand Dealers" ordinance, which regulates pawnbrokering in that city, there is a specific exemption for "[p]ersonal property which is subject to and has been issued a title under the provisions of the laws of the State of West Virginia or any other State." In addition, another provision of the ordinance mandates that "[a]ll secondhand personal property obtained by a purchaser shall be stored at the business location in Martinsburg, West Virginia, where it was purchased. . . ." West Virginia Code § 17A-3-2 (1992) requires, generally, that all motor vehicles and recreational vehicles which are driven or moved upon a highway must be titled by the West Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. Given that Pawn America was apparently lending money in exchange for the titles of motor vehicles and failing to store these vehicles at its Martinsburg business location, its "title pawn" activity was in violation of the Martinsburg "Secondhand Dealers" ordinance which regulates pawnbrokers. Because such activity was entirely outside of the scope of Pawn America's license from the City of Martinsburg, and, thus, ultra vires, the exemption under the Consumer Credit and Protection Act for a "licensed pawnbroker" is not applicable to the "title pawn" transactions in which Pawn America allegedly engaged.
The only West Virginia case relied upon by Pawn America is First National Bank v. Harkness, 42 W. Va. 156, 24 S.E. 548 (1896). This century old case dealt with the pledge of 1800 barrels of crude oil. The transaction at issue was a commercial one, involving neither a consumer loan nor a pawnbroker. In view of these distinctions, Harkness is not determinative, or even persuasive, in a statutory consumer protection case, such as this, where entirely different principles of remedial statutory construction and application apply. Furthermore, what Harkness stands for, at best, is that at common law, if actual delivery in a commercial pledge were not practicable due to the nature of the goods, then symbolic delivery would suffice. The critical difference in this case is that automobiles are susceptible to actual delivery to the lender or pledgee, i.e., Pawn America.
In Commonwealth v. Car Pawn of Virginia, Inc., 37 Va. Cir. 412 (1995), the Virginia Court applied a substantially similar statute to the same facts as in the instant case and concluded that the Legislature did not exempt "title pawns" from consumer loan regulation when it set forth a "pawnbroker" exemption to the state's consumer protection laws. The court in Car Pawn insightfully found that
Car Pawn is essentially an unlicensed finance business which violates . . . the Consumer Finance Act. Notwithstanding that Car Pawn attempts to receive pawns of automobiles, the business does not actually retain the pawned vehicles in most cases. Moreover, if redemption does not occur within the stated period, the customer may continually renew the pawn indefinitely. In form, this transaction mimics a pawn; at heart it is simply a small loan . . . with an excessive interest rate.
Id. at 416.
Moreover, given West Virginia's comprehensive remedial scheme for the regulation of consumer lending, this Court believes it would be absurd to suppose that in enacting a "licensed pawnbroker" exemption to the Consumer Credit and Protection Act, our Legislature intended to allow a consumer loan company, like Pawn America, to go entirely unregulated with respect to every aspect of a loan when the transaction is a "pawn" in name only, and in reality a consumer loan with an usurious interest rate — not a true pawn.
Accordingly, under the circumstances of this case, we hold that pursuant to W. Va. Code § 46A-1-105 (1996), licensed pawnbrokers are excluded from the coverage of the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act insofar as they engage in true pawn transactions that are within the scope of a valid pawnbroker's license. However, this exclusion is not applicable to activities which are not true pawns and are beyond the scope of such license and, thus, ultra vires.
Since we find that the "title pawn" activity, which is the subject of the Attorney General's investigation, is covered by the Consumer Credit and Protection Act, we now turn to consider whether the circuit court nonetheless erred in requiring the production of certain documents sought by the investigatory subpoena and quashing the subpoena as to the rest.
The circuit judge ordered production of the documents demanded in paragraphs 1, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 11 of the Attorney General's subpoena under the "required records" doctrine, notwithstanding Pawn America's assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution provides that "[n]o person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. . . ." In proper circumstances, the owner of a sole proprietorship can successfully invoke this privilege. Bellis v. United States, 417 U.S. 85, 87-88 (1974). However, in Shapiro v. United States, 335 U.S. 1 (1948), the United States Supreme Court held that the privilege against self-incrimination "cannot be maintained in relation to `records required by law to be kept in order that there may be suitable information of transactions which are the appropriate subjects of governmental regulation, and the enforcement of restrictions validly established." Id. at 32-33. In Grosso v. United States, 390 U.S. 62 (1968), the Supreme Court articulated the following requisites for application of the "required records" doctrine: (1) the purposes of the governmental inquiry must be essentially regulatory; (2) information is to be obtained by requiring the preservation of records of a kind which the regulated party has customarily kept; and (3) the records themselves must have assumed "public aspects" which render them at least analogous to public documents. Id. at 67-68. The doctrine has been held to apply specifically to sole proprietors, such as Pawn America. In re Grand Jury Subpoena, 21 F.3d 226 (8th Cir. 1994). We find that all three factors set forth in Grosso are present in this case with respect to the documents which Pawn America was ordered to produce. Thus, we find no error in the circuit court's determination that Pawn America's assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege was foreclosed as to those documents.
The Attorney General asserts, as a cross assignment of error, that the lower court erred in quashing the subpoena as to the records demanded in paragraphs 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 and 15 thereof. Under the particular facts of this case, we find no error in this ruling, which the circuit court prefaced upon its finding that the documents' production was foreclosed by the asserted Fifth Amendment privilege. Once the privilege is asserted, "[i]t is the duty of a court to determine the legitimacy of a witness' reliance upon the Fifth Amendment." Roberts v. United States, 445 U.S. 552, 560 n. 7 100 S.Ct. 1358 63 L.Ed.2d 622 (1980). "[I]f the witness, upon interposing his claim, were required to prove the hazard in the sense in which a claim is usually required to be established in court, he would be compelled to surrender the very protection which the privilege is designed to guarantee." Hoffman v. United States, 341 U.S. 479, 486 (1951). Moreover, in considering the propriety of a trial court's ruling permitting a witness to invoke the Fifth Amendment, this Court is mindful that "[t]he trial judge in appraising the claim `must be governed as much by his personal perception of the peculiarities of the case as by the facts actually in evidence.'" Id. at 487.
IV. CONCLUSION
Upon all of the foregoing, the decision of the circuit court is affirmed.
Affirmed.
In 1995, in the predecessor case to the instant case, the United Mine Workers of America, the West Virginia Education Association, the West Virginia Citizen Action Group and the West Virginia Environmental Council joined with several individual citizens to assert the claim that West Virginia's present system for valuing, assessing and taxing coal reserves is unconstitutional.
This is not an abstract issue. These plaintiffs have a lot at stake in the taxation of coal reserves. Unconstitutionally low taxation of coal reserves means less money for public education, for environmental protection, and for worker retraining — to name a few important concerns of the plaintiffs. And if some coal reserve property is taxed at more than its fair market value, then thousands of West Virginia property owners are paying more taxes on their coal than they should.
Moreover, the interests of all citizens of West Virginia are affected by the State's system of coal reserve tax valuation and assessment. "If one party is not required to pay taxes based on market value of coal reserves and thus is under-assessed, the resulting injury is to all other members of the taxing district who are subjected to discriminatory assessment and denied the benefits of full and equitable taxation." Tug Valley Recovery Center, Inc. v. Mingo County Comm'n, 164 W. Va. 94, 105, 261 S.E.2d 165, 172 (1979).
In the 1995 case, the State Tax Department vigorously denied the plaintiffs' charge that the present system is inaccurate or unconstitutional. The 1995 case settled when the Tax Department offered to conduct a study of the present system. The plaintiffs went along, confident that the study would show that the plaintiffs were correct.
The plaintiffs' confidence was not misplaced. The Tax Department study concluded unequivocally that the present system does not value and assess coal reserves at fair market value. This means that it is unconstitutional, under article X, section 1 of the West Virginia Constitution. See Killen v. Logan County Comm'n, 170 W. Va. 602, 295 S.E.2d 689 (1982).
For example, for large-acreage coal reserves purchased by coal companies: reserves that sold for 26.3 million dollars were valued by the Tax Department's current methodology at 6.2 million dollars; reserves that sold for 11.3 million dollars were valued at 2.3 million dollars; reserves that sold for 13 million dollars were valued at 1.5 million dollars; and so forth for numerous properties. On the other hand, the Tax Department valued many small coal acreages, not purchased by coal companies for their reserves, at far above the actual purchase prices.
After the study was released, the Tax Department developed a proposal to change the system. The Department submitted the proposed changes to the 1998 Legislature, along with the Department's critique of the present system. That critique said that the present system "doesn't work."
The Legislature failed to change the present system. In the meanwhile, the plaintiffs went back to court in the instant case, again seeking a declaration by the circuit court that the system is unconstitutional, and an order requiring the Department to implement a system that passes constitutional muster.
After the plaintiffs presented their case to the circuit court, in which the evidence of the present system's unconstitutionality was essentially unrefuted, the circuit court entered an order denying the plaintiffs any relief. That is the order that we review today. The circuit judge said, in a cover letter that accompanied the court's order: "An order has been entered today which resolves all the issues in controversy." (Emphasis added.)
The circuit judge was entirely correct in stating that his order resolved (albeit adversely to the plaintiffs) all of the claims made by the plaintiffs.
First, the plaintiffs had asked for a declaratory judgment saying that the Tax Department's present method was unconstitutional. The circuit court's order refused this request. Second, the plaintiffs had asked for an injunction against the further use of an unconstitutional valuation method. The court's order also denied this request. Third, the plaintiffs had asked for an order requiring the tax commissioner to appraise property at fair market value. The court's order said that the plaintiffs weren't entitled to this requested relief either.
Yes, the plaintiffs had asked the circuit court to "retain jurisdiction" in the case — but only to monitor the compliance of the defendants with an order requiring them to implement a constitutional system. In the absence of any finding by the court that the present system of valuing and assessing coal reserves is unconstitutional, the circuit court had and has no jurisdiction to keep the case before the court.
To summarize, the circuit court's order was a final and resounding "no" to each of the plaintiffs' requests. As the saying goes — what part of "no" don't we understand?
Thus, because the circuit court's order is an appealable "final order," the majority is wrong in its stated rationale for failing to review the merits of the circuit court's refusal to grant the plaintiffs' requested relief.
Turning briefly to the merits of that refusal, it appears that the circuit court may have been concerned that declaring the present system to be unconstitutional — although such a ruling would be entirely supported and indeed is compelled by the evidence — would jeopardize tax collections until a proper system is put in place.
But there is no merit in such a fear, because a declaration of unconstitutionality does not in itself mean that the existing system must be immediately scrapped. This principle is illustrated by the decisions in which this Court held that the conditions of confinement at the Moundsville prison were unconstitutional. See, e.g., Crain v. Bordenkircher, 182 W. Va. 787, 392 S.E.2d 227 (1990).
Although the conditions at Moundsville were unconstitutional, our rulings gave the Executive and the Legislature ample time and deference to plan and build a new facility. And the same should be true with coal reserve valuation and assessment.
But the first step toward any needed change, as in the Moundsville cases, is to decide the constitutionality issue — as these plaintiffs have been asking the courts to do for over three years.
Absent such a threshold determination by this Court, what incentive is there for the Tax Department and Legislature to timely develop and implement a constitutional system? What would have happened in 1956, if the United States Supreme Court had said: "It's true that all of the evidence shows that segregated schools are unconstitutional, but because the lower court "kept jurisdiction" (but denied all relief), our hands are tied."? Also, no one closed all of our nation's segregated schools, on the day after Brown v. Board of Education was decided. A declaration of unconstitutionality does not result in the immediate collapse of the system in question.
It is interesting to compare the majority opinion in the instant case with this Court's recent ruling in another case that is similar to the Moundsville cases — State ex rel. Stull v. Davis, ___ W. Va. ___, ___ S.E.2d ___, Nos. 24459 et al. (December 8, 1998).
In Stull, this Court determined that prisoners lodged in county and regional jails are being denied their statutory right to be housed in state correctional facilities. We appointed a special master and are requiring development and implementation of a plan to move those inmates.
It is with great reluctance that I support rulings, however legally correct, that may effectively drive the construction of more prison and jail beds. In 20 years as a trial judge, I learned (as nearly every judge I know has learned) that prison and jail incarceration is expensive overkill for a substantial percentage of the people who are convicted of crimes.
To put it bluntly, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that hundreds of the people who are "overcrowding" West Virginia's jails and prisons could be safely, soundly and fully punished for their crimes — without being housed, fed, doctored, and otherwise cared for in costly jails and prisons for which taxpayers have to pay.
So I find it hard to "enable" the construction of more prison beds, when I am sure that a significant fraction of the existing beds are being wasted (e.g., recently in Kanawha County two men were jailed — one for fishing without a license, the other for possessing fishing paraphernalia). I fear that once built, these beds will be filled without much regard for whether they are really needed. The demographics of our state suggest strongly that we are an aging population. What will result is a diminished need for prison beds in the future.
As a citizen, lawyer, parent, husband, property owner, taxpayer and judge, the maximum possible use of alternatives to imprisonment appeals to me because it means my taxes can go to support more productive activity, like building good schools and providing medical care for children and the elderly. Another attractive aspect of the use of alternative punishment is that less people get to receive the highly effective, publicly-funded, graduate education in criminal behavior that jails and prisons offer.
I note that in Stull, this Court has not required the prisoners at the regional and county jails to come up with a plan to create space for them in the state prisons. That is the job of jail and prison authorities. In the instant case, the circuit court faulted the appellants for not themselves offering a "better" system for coal reserve tax valuation. Following Stull, we should not uphold a requirement that school teachers develop and implement a plan to tax coal reserves fairly. That is the job of the Tax Department and the Legislature.
In Stull, this Court was properly protective of the statutory rights of people who are convicted of crimes. But in the instant case, the majority shows little inclination to protect the constitutional rights of school teachers, union coal miners, environmentally concerned citizens, small property owners, and taxpayers generally.
What explains the difference in the two cases' approaches?
I believe that any attempt at answering this question would be pointless, speculative, and counterproductive. Instead, I look to the future. "Hope springs eternal in the human breast." Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34).
So, my hope is that the plaintiffs in the instant case will go back to the circuit court and vigorously press their request that the circuit court directly rule — up or down — on the constitutionality of this state's coal reserve valuation and assessment system. If the circuit court still will not make such a ruling, I hope that the plaintiffs will ask for mandamus relief from this Court, to require the circuit court to rule.
And if this Court faces these issues again, I hope that we will choose to give the same consideration and protection to the rights of law-abiding taxpayers that we give to the rights of incarcerated criminals. Both are deserving of and entitled to our attention.
For the foregoing reasons, I dissent from the court's decision to dismiss the appeal.
I must respectfully dissent from the majority as it wrongly concludes that a single statutory provision is controlling with respect to the collection of child support arrearages. In holding that the procedures of West Virginia Code § 48A-5-2 (1998) must be followed prior to instituting automatic withholding of an obligor's income, the majority has failed to comprehend the statutory scheme of child support collection established by the Legislature. Rather than only one procedural mechanism for collecting child support arrearages, there are in fact four separate means of collecting child support.
One method by which an obligee of child support may seek to collect unpaid child support is to follow the procedures set forth in West Virginia Code § 48A-5-2 for instituting a lien against the obligor's personal property. A second method of collecting child support obligations, both current and past due, is to pursue the mechanism provided for in West Virginia Code § 48A-5-3 (1998), which authorizes automatic withholding from the obligor's wages. Under the provisions of West Virginia Code § 48A-5-4 (1998), an obligee can file a lien against the obligor's real property for overdue child support. The final method contemplated by the Legislature for enforcement of support obligations involves the commencement of contempt proceedings in accordance with West Virginia Code § 48A-5-5 (1998).
The majority wrongly focused on language found in West Virginia Code § 48A-5-2, which addresses the procedures that are to be followed prior to obtaining a writ of execution, suggestion, or suggestee execution in connection with filing a lien against an obligor's personal property, and concluded that these procedures similarly apply to wage withholding collection scenarios. Nothing could be further from the truth. As delineated above, the Legislature clearly set forth four different mechanisms for collecting child support. While an obligee could clearly opt to pursue collection efforts under all four of these statutory provisions, the procedures necessary to obtain the issuance of a writ of execution, suggestion, or suggestee execution as stated in West Virginia Code § 48A-5-2 are not a prerequisite to seeking child support through the means of wage withholding provided for in West Virginia Code § 48A-5-3.
The majority similarly errs in its statement that "totally different collection procedures are provided for current obligations as opposed to accrued, past due obligations." This is patently fallacious as all four types of collection/enforcement mechanisms apply in cases where child support obligations are past due. Since income withholding applies to both current and past due obligations under West Virginia Code § 48A-5-3, the majority's view of collection procedures is simply not supported by law.
Another serious mistake in reasoning that the majority makes is to conclude that the wage withholding provisions set forth in West Virginia Code § 48A-5-3 only apply to current support obligations. Even a cursory examination of the language of West Virginia Code § 48A-5-3 reveals that the Legislature both envisioned and provided for wage withholding for support obligations that are current, past-due, or a past due support obligation that coexists with a current support obligation. Contrary to the majority's ruling, automatic income withholding is legally mandated under the provisions of West Virginia Code § 48A-5-3. This is in accord with federal law which requires income withholding as a mechanism for collecting child support. See 45 C.F.R. § 303.6 (1995).
The majority spends much time discussing the need for due process protections in connection with child support collection efforts. Presumably, the majority finds fault with automatic wage withholding on the grounds of notice. Yet, consistent with federal law, see 42 U.S.C.A. § 666(b) (1998), notice is only required in automatic wage withholding cases in two instances. Pursuant to West Virginia Code § 48-2-15b(c) (1998), income withholding shall not be automatic where good cause is established or where the parties submit an agreement providing for an alternate arrangement for collection. In the instant case, the parties conceded that neither of these exceptions apply.
The ruling of the majority has placed this State in a precarious financial situation as the Child Support Enforcement Division ("Division") argues that it is now at risk of placing federal funds in jeopardy if it follows the majority's position and first jumps through the procedural hoops delineated in West Virginia Code § 48A-5-2 (i.e. obtaining an affidavit and/or court order) before instituting income withholding under West Virginia Code § 48A-5-3. As the Division points out in its brief supporting its petition for rehearing, by adhering to the procedures outlined in West Virginia Code § 48A-5-2 it stands at risk of violating federal law mandating automatic withholding, 42 U.S.C.A. § 666(a)(1)(B), (b)(9) (1998), due to the possibility that an obligor would schedule a hearing pursuant to West Virginia Code § 48A-5-2(f) to contest the affidavit of accrued support. Furthermore, the Division argues that compliance with the majority's ruling will force it to violate federal time limits that require it to withhold income within two days of locating an obligor's source of income. See 42 U.S.C.A. §§ 653a(g)(1); 654 (g)(1)(a) (1998). Violation of this two-day requirement seems inevitable if the majority position is followed given the fourteen-day moratorium imposed upon the collecting party by West Virginia Code § 48A-5-2(g).
The Division represents the amount of federal funds at risk as $130,000,000.
Under West Virginia Code § 48A-5-2(g), the obligor has fourteen days in which to contest the affidavit of accrued support by informing the Division in writing of its basis for contesting the affidavit or to obtain a court hearing for the same purpose.
Once again, as is all too often the case where children are involved, the delays in receiving child support that will result from adherence to the majority ruling and possible federal funding losses brought about by the majority's ruling will surely inure to the detriment of the child. Any delay in the receipt of child support payments, which we have previously declared to be "exclusively for the benefit and economic best interest of the child," will undoubtedly exacerbate the negative impact already realized by the child who is owed support. Carter v. Carter, 198 W. Va. 171, 176, 479 S.E.2d 681, 686 (1996). Through the majority's emasculation of the automatic wage withholding mechanism of collecting child support, this State's previously-declared public policy to resolve issues of "visitation, child support and child custody" consistent with the "best interest and welfare of the children" in mind has been violated. Carter, 198 W. Va. at 176, 479 S.E.2d at 686.
I am authorized to say that Chief Justice Davis joins me in this dissent.