Case ID: so3d_220/html/0552-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "VILLANTI, Chief Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Christopher Joseph GAUT, Appellant, v. DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE, CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT PROGRAM, and Rachelle Dawn Hansen, Appellee.
    Case No. 2D16-1619
    District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.
    Opinion filed June 9, 2017.
    
      Christopher Joseph Gaut, pro se.
    Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, and Toni C. Bernstein, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee Department of Revenue.
    No appearance for Rachelle Dawn Hansen.
   VILLANTI, Chief Judge.

Christopher Joseph Gaut appeals the Final Administrative Paternity and Support Order rendered by the Department of Revenue, Child Support Enforcement Program (the Department). Gaut raises two points on appeal: (1) the Department erred in determining his current child support and (2) the Department erred in determining his retroactive child support. As explained below, we affirm in part and reverse in part.

We affirm on the first point inasmuch as the Department requested income information from Gaut and provided him with notice advising him of his right to participate and to request a hearing. Moreover, the Department correctly could and did utilize available state wage information to calculate Gaut’s current child support obligation. See § 409.2563(5)(a), Fla. Stat. (2016) (“[T]he department may proceed on the basis of information available from any source, if such information is sufficiently reliable and detailed to allow calculation of guideline schedule amounts .... ”). Because Gaut failed to provide income information or to participate in the proceedings below, he cannot complain for the first time on appeal that the court utilized the statutorily permissible methodology to calculate his current child support obligation.

In contrast, on the second point the Department acknowledges that it incorrectly used Gaut’s current child support obligation calculation to also determine his retroactive obligation. Moreover, because the Department had state wage information for the time period in which retroactive child support was due, and because the income information for the two time-frames differed, “the Department ought not to [have] ignore[d] the information in its own files” when it calculated Gaut’s retroactive child support due. Salters v. Dep’t of Revenue ex rel. Mobley, 32 So.3d 777, 778 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010); see also § 61.30(17)(a), Fla. Stat. (2016).

Therefore, we affirm as to Gaut’s current support obligation but reverse as to Gaut’s retroactive support obligation. We remand for the Department to recalculate his retroactive child support obligation using the income information it has from the state for that time period.

Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded with directions.

CRENSHAW and BADALAMENTI, JJ., Concur.