Case Title: Sullivan v. George

Citation: 

Docket Number: 2018 ME 115

State: maine

Court: Maine Supreme Court

Date: 2018-08-14T00:00:00Z

Document:
MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2018 ME 115 
Docket: 
Cum-17-371 
Submitted 
On Briefs: January 11, 2018 
Decided: 
August 14, 2018 
 
Panel: 
ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ. 
 
 
MICHELLE L. (GEORGE) SULLIVAN 
 
v. 
 
WILLIAM A. GEORGE 
 
 
HJELM, J. 
 
[¶1]  Michelle L. (George) Sullivan appeals from a divorce judgment 
entered by the District Court (Portland, J. French, J.).  She contends that the 
court abused its discretion by ordering, sua sponte, a downward deviation of 
William A. George’s child support obligation from the amount prescribed by the 
guidelines, by ordering William to pay spousal support in an amount that 
Michelle asserts is insufficient in duration and amount, and by declining to 
award attorney fees beyond those provided through an interim order.  We 
vacate the court’s child support order and remand for entry of a child support 
order pursuant to the guidelines, but we affirm the judgment in all other 
respects.  
 
2 
I.  BACKGROUND 
[¶2]  The following facts, which are supported by the record, are drawn 
from the divorce judgment.  Harper v. Harper, 2017 ME 171, ¶ 2, 169 A.3d 385.   
[¶3]  Michelle and William were married in 1995 and have three 
children—at the time of the hearing, one was an adult and two were minors.1  
In early 2016, Michelle commenced this divorce action.  At the two-day final 
hearing held in May of 2017, the parties stipulated to some parenting issues 
and to the distribution of most of the real property and the valuation of some 
of the personal property and debt.  The contested issues included the amount 
of the parties’ incomes for purposes of determining child support, spousal 
support, and attorney fees.2   
[¶4]  In the divorce judgment issued in July of 2017, the court found that 
the parties had agreed that if they started a family, Michelle would stay at home 
with the children.  Michelle is a physical therapist who has worked generally on 
a per diem basis, although her license has expired.  She is also a certified Pilates 
instructor.  Following the birth of the parties’ first child in 1997, Michelle 
                                         
1  The middle child was to begin his senior year in high school in 2017.   
2  The contested issues also included the remaining parental rights and responsibilities, and the 
distribution and valuation of the some of the property and debt.  The court’s adjudication of those 
matters is not at issue on appeal. 
 
3 
worked as a physical therapist intermittently, and when she did so, her 
employment was less than full-time.  Her most recent employment, which was 
in 20163 and paid her roughly $45 per hour, ended after only two weeks 
because her training was not current.    
[¶5]  The court fixed Michelle’s current annual imputed employment 
income at $14,040, based on an hourly wage of $9 for 30 hours per week.  The 
court declined to attribute income to Michelle based on full-time employment 
because she will be required to intern or volunteer for at least 1,000 hours to 
qualify as an independent practitioner in a specialized field that will combine 
her vocational goals as a Pilates instructor and physical therapist.  The court 
found that Michelle’s annual living expenses are nearly $125,000.4   
[¶6]  William is a physician and is the founder and current one-third 
owner of a medical practice.  He earns $335,000 annually and incurs annual 
living expenses totaling just over $100,000.  William lives with a domestic 
partner who earns $37,000 per year and contributes toward the monthly 
household expenses.   
                                         
3  The evidence indicated that before her short period of employment in 2016, Michelle had not 
been employed at all since at least 2010.   
4  The record indicates that the expenses claimed by Michelle include, among others, the monthly 
mortgage payments for the formerly marital residence that the parties agreed would be awarded to 
her, a significant amount for prescriptions, and expenses related to the children.   
 
4 
[¶7]  Pursuant to the parties’ agreement, the court ordered that the 
children would live primarily with Michelle with rights of contact awarded to 
William.  The court calculated the amount of weekly child support that William 
would be required to pay pursuant to the guidelines, see 19-A M.R.S. § 2006 
(2016),5 which was $626 for two children and $444 for the youngest child after 
William’s obligation to pay support for the middle child ends, see supra n.1.  
Then, even though neither party requested that the court depart from the child 
support guideline amounts, the court ordered a downward deviation from the 
guidelines on the basis that “the support guidelines would be inequitable or 
unjust in consideration of the interrelation of the total support obligation[,] 
. . . the division of property[,] and an award of spousal support[,] as well as 
available income and financial contribution of [William’s] domestic associate.”  
For those stated reasons, the court reduced William’s weekly support 
obligation for two children from $626 to $550, and from $444 to $400 for one 
child.   
[¶8]  The court’s division of the marital estate resulted in a net 
distribution of assets and liabilities that was nearly equal.   
                                         
5  We cite to the 2016 version of 19-A M.R.S. § 2006 because the statute was amended after the 
divorce judgment was entered in July of 2017.  See P.L. 2017, ch. 30, §§ 4-10 (effective Nov. 1, 2017).  
The amendments do not bear on the issues presented here. 
 
5 
[¶9]  The court ordered William to pay general spousal support of $3,600 
per month.  In addition, the court awarded Michelle monthly transitional 
support of $3,600 for thirty months “to allow for Michelle’s reentry in the 
workforce.”  See infra n.9.  The court stated that the awards of general and 
transitional spousal support resulted from its consideration of the factors 
contained in 19-A M.R.S. § 951-A(5) (2017), including the length of the parties’ 
marriage, Michelle’s contributions as a homemaker, and the employment and 
income-producing history of each party.  Finally, the court denied Michelle’s 
request for attorney fees.   
 
[¶10]  Following entry of the judgment, Michelle filed a motion for further 
findings and conclusions on several issues, including the amount of child 
support, and a motion to amend the judgment.  See M.R. Civ. P. 52(b), 59(e).  The 
court made several corrections within the child support orders without altering 
the reduced amounts of child support that William was required to pay, but the 
court otherwise denied the motions, explaining that the judgment articulated 
the factual and legal bases for its determinations.  Michelle filed a timely notice 
of appeal.  See 14 M.R.S. § 1901(1) (2017); 19-A M.R.S. § 104 (2017); M.R. 
App. P. 2B(c).   
 
6 
II.  DISCUSSION 
[¶11]  Michelle contends that the court erred by awarding an insufficient 
amount of spousal support and by ordering a downward deviation of child 
support.6  Because we conclude that the court’s reasoning for the downward 
deviation of child support is not supported by the record, we focus our 
discussion on that issue. 
[¶12]  We review a deviation from the statutorily presumptive child 
support guidelines “for an abuse of discretion, and, absent a violation of a 
positive rule of law, we will overturn the trial court’s decision only if it results 
in a plain and unmistakable injustice, so apparent that it is instantly visible 
without argument.”  Dep’t of Human Servs. v. Monty, 2000 ME 96, ¶ 10, 750 A.2d 
1276 (quotation marks omitted). 
[¶13]  A determination of whether a court abused its discretion involves 
a three-part analysis: (1) whether factual findings are “supported by the record 
according to the clear error standard; (2) [whether] the court [understood] the 
law applicable to its exercise of discretion; and (3) given all the facts and 
                                         
6  Michelle also asserts that the court erred by declining to award her attorney fees, which totaled 
nearly $50,000.  In doing so, the court applied the correct legal principles and recognized salient 
aspects of the record, such as the equal division of the marital estate and William’s previous payment 
of $15,000 toward Michelle’s attorney fees pursuant to an interim order.  Michelle’s challenge to this 
aspect of the judgment is not persuasive, and we do not discuss it further.  See Pearson v. Wendell, 
2015 ME 136, ¶¶ 45, 47, 125 A.3d 1149. 
 
7 
applying the appropriate law, was the court’s weighing of the applicable facts 
and choices within the bounds of reasonableness.”  Pettinelli v. Yost, 
2007 ME 121, ¶ 11, 930 A.2d 1074.  “A fact-finding is clearly erroneous only if 
there is no competent evidence in the record to support it.”  Wandishin v. 
Wandishin, 2009 ME 73, ¶ 14, 976 A.2d 949.  Because Michelle filed a proper 
motion for further factual findings on the child support order, M.R. 
Civ. P. 52(b)—a motion that the court denied because it stated that it had 
already articulated the basis for its determination—our review is confined to 
the court’s explicit findings.  Ehret v. Ehret, 2016 ME 43, ¶ 12, 135 A.3d 101.   
[¶14]  The fundamental step in determining the amount of a parent’s 
child support obligation is to calculate that amount pursuant to the support 
guidelines, which takes into account the number of children, the parents’ 
incomes, child care costs, a child’s extraordinary medical expenses, and the 
costs of private health insurance.  19-A M.R.S. § 2006.  “There is a rebuttable 
presumption that the child support obligation derived from the child support 
guidelines is the amount to be ordered, absent special circumstances or a 
deviation from the guidelines . . . .”  Sullivan v. Doe, 2014 ME 109, ¶ 25, 100 A.3d 
171; see also 19-A M.R.S. § 2005 (2017).  The court may deviate from that 
presumptive amount upon a finding that that amount is “inequitable or unjust” 
 
8 
due to at least one of the considerations enumerated in the governing statute, 
19-A M.R.S. § 2007(1), (3) (2017).   
 
[¶15]  Here, the presumptive child support amount, as calculated in the 
child support worksheets, was $626 for two children and $444 when William 
is obligated to pay for the benefit of only the youngest child.  The court 
determined sua sponte7 that a downward deviation from the presumptive 
amount was justified, and the court accordingly reduced the amount to $550 
per week for two children and $400 per week when only one child is eligible.  
The amount of the reduction from the presumptive obligation is therefore $76 
per week for two children ($3,952 annually) and $44 per week when the 
support is for one child ($2,288 annually).   
[¶16]  The court explained that there were three reasons to warrant the 
downward deviation:  
The court finds that a child support order based on the support 
guidelines would be inequitable or unjust in consideration of the 
interrelation of the total support obligation established under the 
support guidelines for child support, the division of property[,] and 
an award of spousal support as well as available income and 
                                         
7  Because neither party requested that the court deviate from the presumptive amount of child 
support, the parties did not file written proposed findings that are otherwise required to explain why 
“the presumptive amount would be inequitable or unjust.”  19-A M.R.S. § 2007(2) (2017).  Further, 
because Michelle did not request that the court order an upward deviation from the guideline 
amount, we do not address the question of whether, if any departure from the child support 
guidelines was appropriate, it should have been an increase.   
 
9 
financial contribution of [William’s] domestic associate.  And so the 
court believes that a downward deviation is appropriate. 
 
These ostensible justifications for the downward deviation are derived from 
the factors that a court may use for that purpose:  
C. The interrelation of the total support obligation established 
under the support guidelines for child support, the division of 
property and an award of spousal support made in the same 
proceeding for which a parental support obligation is being 
determined;  
 
. . . . 
 
J. Available income and financial contributions of the domestic 
associate or current spouse of each party. 
 
Id. § 2007(3) (C), (J).   
[¶17]  In the abstract, the court’s legal analysis is faithful to the statutory 
framework germane to the deviation analysis.  The question presented here, 
however, is whether—given the record in this case—the court erred by 
invoking these grounds for a downward deviation.  For the reasons noted 
above, supra ¶ 13, we will not attribute to the court’s analysis any findings or 
conclusions other than those explicitly articulated in its judgment.  See Ehret, 
2016 ME 43, ¶ 12, 135 A.3d 101.  Therefore, we consider only the three grounds 
identified by the court—the division of property, the financial contributions of 
William’s domestic partner, and the award of spousal support—to determine if 
 
10 
the downward deviation was within the bounds of the court’s discretion.  See 
Monty, 2000 ME 96, ¶ 10, 750 A.2d 1276. 
[¶18]  First, the marital estate was divided predominately by agreement, 
and virtually evenly, with Michelle and William each receiving a net value of 
roughly $270,000.  Because Michelle will not receive a greater value of net 
marital assets than William, and because none of the court’s other findings 
regarding the division of the marital estate justifies a departure from the 
presumptive amount of child support, this consideration—either by itself or in 
combination with the other facts cited by the court—does not support a 
reduction of William’s child support obligation. 
[¶19]  Second, William’s domestic partner is employed in the medical 
field, earns $37,000 annually, and contributes toward their joint living 
expenses by paying for groceries and household supplies.8  Because William’s 
living expenses are reduced because of his partner’s material support of the 
household in which he lives, this factor also does not justify a reduction of 
William’s obligation to support his children. 
                                         
8  Although not stated in the judgment, the evidence reveals that the domestic partner spends 
between $600 and $700 each month for groceries and supplies.   
 
11 
[¶20]  Finally, we consider the award of spousal support as it bears on 
the amount of child support.  Contrary to Michelle’s direct challenge to the 
amount of spousal support that William will be required to pay her, the court 
did not abuse its discretion in determining the amount, duration, and types of 
spousal support.  See Haskell v. Haskell, 2017 ME 91, ¶ 16, 160 A.3d 1176 
(reviewing a spousal support award for an abuse of discretion).  Given the 
court’s findings regarding the parties’ finances, however, the spousal support 
ordered by the court—although not outside the bounds of its discretion—was 
not favorable to Michelle.  With support in the record, the court found that she 
is presently capable of only part-time employment at a low wage—$9 per 
hour—so that she can commit additional time to attain the practice-based 
qualifications needed for full-time and more remunerative employment in the 
future.9  Thus, Michelle’s earning capacity is very modest—$14,000 annually.  
During the thirty-month period of transitional spousal support payments, 
Michelle will receive $86,400 annually in combined general and transitional 
                                         
9  As we note above, see supra ¶ 5, the court found that Michelle needs to perform at least 1,000 
hours of work with a licensed therapist to attain the credentials needed for her to practice 
independently.  Michelle testified, however, that this requirement could take as much as 5,000 hours 
and likely three to four years to complete, which would be beyond the period of transitional support 
ultimately ordered by the court.  In this context, we note that the award of spousal support, including 
transitional support, is subject to future modification if a court were to determine “that justice 
requires” such a change.  19-A M.R.S. § 951-A(4) (2017); see also, e.g., Marston v. Marston, 2016 ME 
87, ¶¶ 7-9, 141 A.3d 1106; McAllister v. McAllister, 2011 ME 69, ¶¶ 11-13, 21 A.3d 1010. 
 
12 
spousal support, resulting in an annual total of approximately $100,000 from 
imputed employment income and spousal support.  This is significantly less 
than the annual living expenses of $125,000 incurred by Michelle and the two 
minor children, and the support order barely brings Michelle’s total receipts 
above the amount of her expenses.   
[¶21]  In contrast, William earns nearly $335,000 per year and has annual 
living expenses of just over $100,000, with some of those expenses being paid 
by his domestic partner.   
[¶22]  As the court noted, the parties’ marriage was of significant 
duration, and, by agreement of the parties, Michelle’s responsibilities within the 
family included staying at home with the children as their primary caregiver, 
thereby deemphasizing her professional development.  See 19-A M.R.S. 
§ 951-A(5).   
[¶23]  Particularly when the award of spousal support is viewed in a 
more nuanced way that is appropriate for appellate review, see, e.g., Jandreau v. 
LaChance, 2015 ME 66, ¶¶ 14-26, 116 A.3d 1273, this broad-stroke description 
of some of the important factors germane to that award demonstrates that, 
although the award is not so conservative that it rises to the level of error, the 
award was not so beneficent toward Michelle that it could justify a reduction of 
 
13 
the statutorily presumptive amount of child support that William will be 
required to pay.  This is especially so when William did not even seek a 
downward deviation. 
[¶24]  For these reasons, the record does not support the factors used by 
the court for a downward deviation from William’s presumptive child support 
obligation and does not support the court’s ultimate determination that the 
presumptive amounts of child support as calculated pursuant to the guidelines 
are “inequitable or unjust.”  19-A M.R.S. § 2007(1); accord Monty, 2000 ME 96, 
¶ 10, 750 A.2d 1276 (“[W]e will overturn the trial court’s decision only if it 
results in a plain and unmistakable injustice, so apparent that it is instantly 
visible without argument.” (quotation marks omitted)).  We therefore vacate 
the child support order and remand for the court to enter a child support order 
requiring that William pay child support in the amounts calculated pursuant to 
the child support guidelines.10   
                                         
10  In some cases where we have vacated certain financial aspects of a divorce judgment, we 
authorized the court on remand to reconsider other aspects of the judgment that might be affected 
by changes necessary to correct the original error.  See, e.g., Mooar v. Greenleaf, 2018 ME 23, ¶¶ 8, 13, 
179 A.3d 307; Dube v. Dube, 2016 ME 15, ¶¶ 1, 10-14, 131 A.3d 381; Thumith v. Thumith, 2013 ME 
67, ¶ 15, 70 A.3d 1232.  We do not do so here, however, because, for the reasons explained in the text, 
the amount of spousal support awarded to Michelle cannot properly be reduced below the amount 
prescribed in the judgment, even in response to the increase in court-ordered child support that 
William will be required to pay. 
 
14 
The entry is: 
 
Judgment as to the child support order vacated.  
Judgment affirmed in all other respects.  
Remanded for further proceedings consistent 
with this opinion.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Gene R. Libby, Esq., and Tyler J. Smith, Esq., Libby O’Brien Kingsley & Champion, 
LLC, Kennebunk, for appellant Michelle L. (George) Sullivan 
 
Theodore H. Irwin, Jr., Esq., and Jacqueline R. Moss, Esq., Irwin Tardy & Morris, 
Portland, for appellee William A. George 
 
 
Portland District Court docket number FM-2016-52 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY