COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Chief Judge Moon, Judge Fitzpatrick and 

 Senior Judge Hodges 

Argued at Alexandria, Virginia 

SAMUEL GIFFORD MURPHY 

v. Record No. 0071-95-4 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

 CHIEF JUDGE NORMAN K. MOON 

DEBORAH HUTCHINS MURPHY OCTOBER 17, 1995 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF FAIRFAX COUNTY 

Jane Marum Roush, Judge 

 Keenan R. Goldsby (Richard M. Wexell; Richard 

M. Wexel & Associates, on brief), for 

appellant. 

 Peter M. Fitzner (Deborah Hutchins Murphy, 

pro se, on brief), for appellee. 

 The judgment of the trial court is affirmed because the 

trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to allow 

appellant to amend his bill of complaint. 

 Here, appellant did not raise the issue of child support in 

his answer or at the depositions in lieu of trial, which he 

failed to attend. He joined in appellee's request that the 

agreement be incorporated into the decree. During the 

depositions the settlement agreement was admitted into evidence. 

 After he had been notified the appellee was moving the court for 

a decree in accordance with the pleadings and proof contained in 

the deposition, appellant changed his lawyer and moved the court 

for leave to amend his pleadings in order to put the amount of 

 

 *Pursuant to Code § 17-116.010 this opinion is not 

designated for publication. 
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child support at issue. 

 The right to file amended pleadings rests in the sound 

discretion of the trial judge, and although it shall be liberally 

granted in furtherance of the ends of justice, it is not an abuse 

of discretion to deny an amendment where the ends of justice do 

not require it. See Roberts v. Roberts, 223 Va. 736, 292 S.E.2d 

370 (1982). The appellant requested permission to amend his 

answer because, he alleges, the agreed amount of support was no 

longer reasonable due to a job change. However, the appellant 

acknowledged that he had changed jobs before he filed his 

original answer. The trial judge found that in such 

circumstances the ends of justice would not be served by granting 

the appellant's request. 

 Appellant contends that "if the amount of child support is 

in dispute, in spite of a prior agreement, the trial court must 

address `the issue of determining the child support.' Code 

§ 20-108.1." Alexander v. Alexander, 12 Va. App. 691, 695, 406 

S.E.2d 666, 668 (1991). That is true. That principle required 

the reversal in Watson v. Watson, 17 Va. App. 249, 436 S.E.2d 193 

(1993), where there was a child support agreement and the bill of 

complaint requested that the settlement agreement providing for 

child support be incorporated into the final decree. However, in 

her answer, the wife did not join in the request, but instead 

requested temporary and permanent child support. We found that 

the wife had raised the issue of child support, and remanded the 

case for a redetermination of child support that took both the 
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agreement and the guidelines into consideration. Watson, 17 Va. 

App. at 251, 436 S.E.2d at 195. However, the Watson facts are 

inapposite to the facts here. In Watson the amount of child 

support was placed in dispute by the pleadings in the case, and 

it was the wife's contention throughout the proceedings that the 

trial judge had to determine the presumptive amount of child 

support notwithstanding a settlement agreement. Here, appellant 

did not seek to put the amount in issue until after all the 

evidence was in, and the court was prepared to enter a decree 

based upon the pleadings and depositions already filed in the 

case. What was put in issue by appellant's motion to amend was 

whether he could amend to put child support in issue. The record 

does not support a finding that the trial court abused its 

discretion by denying the motion to amend. Therefore, the 

question of child support was not put in issue. 

 Accordingly, there is no reversible error. 

 Affirmed.