COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Judges Frank, Clements and Senior Judge Bray 

CARLO MARIA GAIONE 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION* 

v. Record No. 1315-02-2 PER CURIAM 

 NOVEMBER 19, 2002 

MARTHA FERGUSSON GAIONE 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF HENRICO COUNTY 

George F. Tidey, Judge 

 (J.W. Harman, Jr.; Harman & Harman, P.C., on 

brief), for appellant. 

 (Donald K. Butler; Mary Beth Joachim; Morano, 

Colan, Cook & Butler, on brief), for 

appellee. 

 On appeal, Carlo Maria Gaione (father) contends the trial 

court erred in awarding Martha Fergusson Gaione (mother) sole 

custody of their children. He also contends the trial court erred 

in using the sole custody guidelines to determine child support. 

Upon reviewing the record and the parties' briefs, we conclude 

that this appeal is without merit. Accordingly, we summarily 

affirm the decision of the trial court. Rule 5A:27. 

BACKGROUND

 On appeal, "we view the evidence and all reasonable 

inferences in the light most favorable to the prevailing party 

below . . . . 'The burden is on the party who alleges reversible 

 

* Pursuant to Code § 17.1-413, this opinion is not 

designated for publication.
error to show by the record that reversal is the remedy to which 

he is entitled.'" Lutes v. Alexander, 14 Va. App. 1075, 1077, 421 

S.E.2d 857, 859 (1992) (citation omitted). 

 The parties were married on May 5, 1991, and they separated 

on April 26, 1999. Two children were born of the marriage. 

 On March 1, 2002, the trial court heard evidence regarding 

custody and support. Melody Podraza, a licensed clinical social 

worker, testified that she has been the "treating therapist" for 

both children since the parties separated in 1999. Throughout 

therapy, mother demonstrated "ongoing consistent involvement," 

whereas father exhibited less consistency, in what Podraza 

described as "a pattern of involvement, and then he wasn't there, 

and involvement, and then he wasn't there." 

 Mother testified that she was the primary caregiver for the 

children, arranging activities, appointments, transportation and 

childcare. The trial court admitted, without objection, a 

document prepared by mother entitled "Parenting History." In it, 

mother recorded events and/or situations from 1998 until 2002 

involving father's activities and his relationship with the family 

and the children. She used this document to demonstrate father's 

lack of involvement and/or poor judgment. 

 At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court determined 

the parties "are at loggerheads on three issues that I don't 

believe would be conducive to joint custody." Those issues 

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involved after school daycare, the presence of father's paramour, 

Kate, and a lack of communication between father and mother. 

 Before the March 1st hearing adjourned, father added: 

Your Honor, I'd like to mention a couple of 

things very briefly. First of all, if my 

computation's correct, the current 

visitation schedule would be about 114 days 

a year for Mr. Gaione, so that would throw 

us firmly into the shared custody 

guidelines. 

 In a March 6, 2002 letter addressed to the parties, the trial 

court advised, inter alia, "Based on the guidelines, child support 

will be $1,117.00 for three months and $1,255.00 thereafter." 

In a March 11, 2002 motion to reconsider, father contended he 

spent "114 days per year with the children" and that the trial 

court failed to use the shared custody guidelines or, in the 

alternative, to state a reason for deviating from that presumed 

amount. Father attached a child support worksheet, which 

purportedly calculated father's child support obligation under 

shared custody figures at a lower figure. Without elaboration, 

the trial court indicated in a one-sentence letter dated April 4, 

2002, "I will stand by my original rulings on custody and child 

support." 

 The final decree of divorce entered on May 9, 2002, contains 

the following statement: "Upon the evidence presented and it 

appearing to be in the best interests of the children, it is 

hereby ORDERED that sole custody of the children is awarded to 

[mother]." The trial court ordered father to pay child support 

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in the amount of $1,117 per month from March 1, 2002 until May 

31, 2002, and $1,255 per month thereafter. 

CUSTODY

 On appeal, father contends the trial court "failed to 

consider all the factors when reaching its decision regarding 

custody." He argues that Code § 20-124.3 

lists ten factors for the Court's 

consideration. The tenth refers to "other 

factors as the Court deems necessary and 

proper." In this case the Court makes no 

findings and makes no reference to these 

factors at all. 

 After the March 1, 2002 ore tenus hearing, father moved the 

trial court to reconsider its oral decision to give wife sole 

custody of the children. In support, father contended there 

were only a few issues "on which the parties have not been able 

to reach agreement," and "there is no evidence that they would 

be unable to agree on other such issues in the future." Later, 

father filed the following objections to the final decree: 

 For the reasons stated in the Motion to 

reconsider filed with the Court in the 

captioned matter, the defendant OBJECTS to 

those provisions [o]f the Final Decree which 

(1) grant sole legal custody of the children 

. . . to the [mother] and which (2) provide 

for child support to be paid in something 

other than the amount prescribed by the 

shared custody child support guidelines 

without any written justification for such 

deviation . . . .

 Rule 5A:18 requires that objections to a trial court's 

action or ruling be made with specificity in order to preserve 

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an issue for appeal. See Campbell v. Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 

476, 480, 405 S.E.2d 1, 2 (1991) (en banc). A trial court must 

be alerted to the precise issue to which a party objects. See

Neal v. Commonwealth, 15 Va. App. 416, 422-23, 425 S.E.2d 521, 

525 (1992). 

 The record fails to indicate that father made the argument 

in the trial court that he now raises on appeal. Moreover, 

because the trial court stated that its award of custody was 

based on the evidence presented and the best interests of the 

children, and because the evidence presented by mother and 

Podraza related to the enumerated factors in Code § 20-124.3 and 

supported the trial court's sole custody award to mother, the 

record does not reflect any reason to invoke the good cause or 

ends of justice exceptions to Rule 5A:18. 

CHILD SUPPORT

 Code § 20-108.2(G) sets forth formulas to calculate the 

presumptively correct amount of support for three different 

factual scenarios: sole custody, split custody, and shared 

custody. "There shall be a rebuttable presumption in any 

judicial or administrative proceeding for child support, 

including cases involving split custody or shared custody, that 

the amount of the award which would result from the application 

of the guidelines set out in § 20-108.2 is the correct amount of 

child support to be awarded." Code § 20-108.1. 

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 The final decree provided that father "shall have 

visitation with the minor children from Sundays at noon through 

Tuesday mornings when the children shall be returned to their 

mother or to school." In addition, father "shall have two 

nonconsecutive weeks of Summer visitation." 

 Code § 20-108.2(G)(1) sets forth the procedure for 

calculating child support under the sole custody guidelines. 

Code § 20-108.2(G)(3)(a) sets forth the procedure for 

calculating child support in shared custody situations "[w]here 

a party has custody or visitation of a child or children for 

more than ninety days of the year." 

 The record fails to contain the child support guidelines 

worksheet used to determine child support or indicate upon what 

basis (sole or shared custody) the trial court calculated the 

award. However, assuming it was prepared under the sole custody 

guideline, the evidence fails to show that the shared guidelines 

applied.

For the purposes of [Code § 20-108.2], "day" 

means a period of twenty-four hours; 

however, where the parent who has the fewer 

number of overnight periods during the year 

has an overnight period with a child, but 

has physical custody of the shared child for 

less than twenty-four hours during such 

overnight period, there is a presumption 

that each parent shall be allocated one-half 

of a day of custody for that period. 

Code § 20-108.2(G)(3)(c). Under Ewing v. Ewing, 21 Va. App. 34, 

37, 461 S.E.2d 417, 418 (1995) (en banc), a "day" is defined as 

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"any continuous twenty-four hour period," and does not include 

periods when the child "'is attending school, is placed in 

non-parent day care, or placed with a third party.'" 

 Although the children spend two nights a week with father 

in addition to fourteen days in the summer, because they have 

school on Mondays, father cannot be credited with any continuous 

twenty-four hour periods during the school year for those two 

overnight visits. Assuming the children attend school for nine 

months (thirty-seven weeks), the father would accrue 

seventy-four overnight visits. However, crediting each of those 

non-continuous twenty-four hour periods as a half-day, see Code 

§ 20-108.2(G)(3)(c), would result in a total of thirty-seven 

days of custody during the academic year. Assuming there was no 

school or daycare in the summer, the most father could hope to 

accrue in the summer would be twenty-six days during thirteen 

weeks of summer vacation. Adding those days in the fifty-week 

period that father has custody (thirty-seven days + twenty-six 

days = sixty-three days) with the two-week summer vacation 

(fourteen days) would amount to a total of seventy-seven days, 

well below the ninety-day minimum required for application of 

the shared custody guidelines. Because the record demonstrates 

that father has less than ninety days of custody, as "day" is 

defined under the statute, the trial court did not err in 

calculating child support. 

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Accordingly, we summarily affirm the decision of the trial 

court. See Rule 5A:27. 

Affirmed. 

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