Resources
Child Support Resource Library
Welcome to the YoungWilliams Child Support Resource Library. Search by keywords or use the filters to select categories of interest to you. Currently, our Library consists of academic and government research articles and reports from around the country, federal opinions, and case law from states in which our full service child support projects are located.
Thornton v. Thornton (Mississippi 2021)
In the absence of specific findings, evidence in the record must support the award of the child tax exemption to a parent. In the latest appeal of this case, the mother appealed a court order changing custody of the younger child to the father, reducing his child support, and awarding him the income tax exemption for the younger child. The appellate court found no abuse of discretion and affirmed these provisions. The order didn’t contain specific findings but the court found specific findings weren’t required as long as the record supported the decision. The record showed the tax exemption would benefit the father. The mother received disability and had no earned income. The father’s support obligation was higher. The father will have additional financial responsibilities as the custodian.
Davis v. Henderson (Mississippi 2020)
A child’s clear and extreme actions may be grounds to end child support. As part of ongoing post-divorce litigation, the father filed a motion to terminate his child support obligation to his oldest child, who refused to have contact with him. In the final order, the chancery court granted the request. The mother appealed the termination of support. The appellate court reversed. The evidence in the record showed the child’s refusal to see his father stemmed from the father’s abuse of the child and lack of interest. The child described an event of physical abuse and witnessed the father abuse his sibling. The father didn’t attend the child activities such as band concerts and football games. The father’s actions contributed to the estrangement. The appellate court reversed and remanded for further action.
Smith v. Smith (Mississippi 2021)
To modify a child support order, there must be a substantial and material change not anticipated at the time of the original order. The initial divorce decree awarded the mother sole physical and legal custody of the two minor children and ordered the father to pay support. Post-divorce, the mother moved to Tennessee and enrolled the daughter in a private school. The son attending a private boarding school. Subsequently, both parents filed petitions to modify custody and support. After a trial, the order granted the mother sole physical and legal custody of the daughter and father sole legal and physical custody of the son, ordered the father to pay half of the daughter’s private school tuition, and ended the father’s support obligation for the son. The court didn’t order the mother to pay support for the son. The father appealed. The appellate court affirmed the support provisions. The father argued the mother should have been ordered to pay support for the son. She had a high earning capacity but chose not to work. Her parents paid a portion of the daughter’s tuition. The appellate court found the grandparent’s contribution to tuition wasn’t a material change of circumstances. The parties anticipated this contribution at the time of the divorce based on the amount of ordered child support and the children’s needs. The mother paid child support in the form of tuition payments for the son. The father also argued the court erred in entering a judgment for back support. The son was attending boarding school during this time. The appellate court found the mother was still the son’s legal custodian at this time and continued to incur expenses on the son’s behalf. The award of back support wasn’t error.
Garrison v. Courtney (Mississippi 2020)
Service in a contempt proceeding must provide the parent with due process and cannot be waived. The failure to pay support as ordered is prima facie evidence of contempt. The parents filed for divorce. The chancery court entered a temporary order for custody and child support. Mid-proceeding, the mother filed a contempt motion for father’s failure to pay support. The chancery court heard this motion in conjunction with the already scheduled divorce trial. In the final order, the chancery court found the father in contempt. The father appealed several provisions of the final order, including the contempt finding. The father argued he wasn’t given proper notice of the contempt motion and the contempt finding was an error. The chancery court affirmed, finding the father waived his notice argument and the merits supported the contempt finding. The father argued service of the contempt motion wasn’t completed in the required timeframe. While service wasn’t technically completed within the required timeframe, it was close enough to preserve the father’s right to due process. Significantly, the record contained no evidence of his objection to the notice. The merits supported the contempt finding. The father failed to pay support as ordered and didn’t offer any evidence as to his inability to pay.
Craven County v. Hageb (North Carolina 2021)
Specific findings must support a court’s decisions in a child support proceeding. In this proceeding to establish paternity and support for two children, the father was self-employed. The final order set out his income and including these findings: the court reviewed tax returns, his income from a gaming and lottery business was not included in the calculation, and he had significant personal expenses on his tax return. In the final support award, the court gave the father credit for one of two additional children living with him, finding his name was only on the birth certificate for one child. The father appealed. The court of appeals reversed the order and remanded for additional findings. The court of appeals found the findings in the order lacked sufficient detail. The father argued he should have received credit for depreciation as an ordinary and necessary business expense. Depreciation can be handled in one of two ways. The findings in the order were not clear as to how the lower court treated the depreciation. The findings regarding credit for the additional children were also lacking. Parentage can be established in other ways. The lower court was free to find the father’s evidence not credible but the court still had to make findings to that effect.
Church v. Jones (Tennessee 2021)
The trial court has discretion to set the effective date of a modified child support order to the date of the modification petition, the date of the final hearing, or any appropriate date in between. The father filed to modify support based on his reduced income. It took almost four years for this proceeding to end. In the final order, the court reduced support and, applying its discretion, set the effective as the last day of final hearing. The father appealed. The court of appeals affirmed the order. The father argued the effective date constituted a deviation from presumptive support and the order lacked the findings required for a deviation. The appellate court found no merit in this argument. The trial court properly applied the guidelines to determine support. The date merely establishes when the new amount starts. The father’s actions made the proceeding drag so it was not an abuse of discretion to start the modified amount as of the date of the final hearing. The father argued the judge was biased against him. However, he never filed a motion to recuse. The appellate court found he waived his right to challenge the judge’s impartiality.
Connecting Parents to Occupational Training: A Partnership Between Child Support Agencies and Local Service Providers
The federal Families First Demonstration Grant considered new ways of increasing the ability of parents who can’t meet their monthly child support obligation. Specifically, it integrated employment services and job training into local child support programs. In exchange for participating, certain enforcement remedies were stayed. Major findings included: the local agencies needed a certain amount of flexibility in the design and development of their project; identifying parents willing to participate was difficult; the majority of participants had a good experience, which benefits the program in the long term; and as order rates decreased, the total monthly payment amounts increased.
Evans v. Evans (Nebraska 2021)
A parent must willfully fail to pay support in order to be found in civil contempt. The County Attorney brought a contempt action against the father for failure to pay support. The district court heard evidence of the father’s assets, including a home and his business. The father argued he was injured and couldn’t work. The district court found the father in contempt for failure to pay support, set a purge payment schedule, and ordered him incarcerated if he didn’t comply with the payment schedule. The father appealed. The court of appeals affirmed the contempt finding. The appellate court found his credibility questionable. The initial support order had been modified down due to a work injury. However, he offered no evidence as to that injury or an ongoing inability to work. Evidence showed he had a business and was working in spite of his injury. The father argued he couldn’t make the payment required to purge himself of contempt. The appellate court relief on the evidence of his assets and lack of evidence as to his inability to work to find the purge schedule appropriate.
Lemus v. Martinez (Wyoming 2021)
A parent must provide proper proof of a legitimate business expense if the parent wants credit in the child support calculation. The father appealed several terms of the district court order, specifically the court’s decision not to give him credit for mortgage interest in his income for child support. The Supreme Court affirmed the child support order. The district court properly acknowledged mortgage interest as a legitimate business expense. The district court had issues with the father’s lack of proper proof of the mortgage interest. He failed to provide the widely-accepted Form 1098, which documents mortgage interest. He testified he lost the form and couldn’t get a copy. His accountant testified he had never had a situation where a bank couldn’t reprint a Form 1098. The Supreme Court found no abuse of discretion in the court’s decision not deduct mortgage interest when determining the father’s monthly income.
In re Yocky (Kansas 2021)
The Kansas Supreme Court has broad authority to promulgate the child support guidelines. The Kansas Supreme Court has statutory authority to establish child support guidelines. The guidelines require a parent to notify the other parent of any change in income which might be a substantial change of circumstances. The rules provide for sanctions for a failure to report. The mother requested a review of the support obligation. The father’s income had increased substantially since entry of the initial order and he failed to notify the mother. The court granted the mother’s request for sanctions, and the father appealed. The court of appeals declined to set aside the sanctions order. The father didn’t dispute his failure to report. He argued the Supreme Court was without authority to promulgate the rules at issue. According to the father, the Supreme Court violated the separation of powers doctrine. He argued the statute gave the Supreme Court limited authority to determine the formula for calculating support. The appellate court rejected this reading of the statute as too narrow. The statute gave the Court the ability to consider all factors when adopting the rules. Reporting income changes and a remedy for the failure to report fell within the grant of rulemaking authority.
