IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA No. 18

- 1860 Filed September 11, 2019

IN RE THE MARRIAGE OF ERIKA MICHELLE OLSON AND MICHAEL ALBERT OLSON Upon the Petition of ERIKA MICHELLE OLSON , Petitioner

- Appell ee , And Concerning MICHAEL ALBERT OLSON , Respondent

- Appell ant

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________________________________________________________________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Marion County, Terry R. Rickers , Judge.

A husband appeals from a temporary order requiring him to pay child support, spousal support, and attorney fees. AFFIRMED.

Christopher A. Clausen of Clausen Law Office , Ames , for appellant. Becky S. Knutson of Davis, Brown, Koehn, Shors & Roberts, P.C. , Des Moines , for appe llee.

Considered by Mullins, P.J., Bower, J., and Vogel, S.J.*

* Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206 (2019)

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BOWER , Judge

. Michael Olson appeals the district court order requiring him to pay temporary child support, spousal support, and attorney fees. We find the district court order for child and spousal support was equitable and the court did not abuse its discretion in ord ering temporary attorney fees. We award appellate attorney fees to Erika.
I. Background Facts & Proceedings The parties married in 1996. 1 In May 2018, Erika filed for dissolution of marriage. Erika filed for temporary custody, visitation, and support. The parties have two children, one of whom is still a minor

. B oth children and Erika are covered under Michael’s health insurance. It appears Michael generally paid expenses for the home. The parties entered into a stipulation regarding custody , child s upport pursuant to the guidelines , and physical care

. T hey did not agree on temporary attorney fees or spousal support, which were submitted to the court

. Michael has an annual income of $106,200 from a combination of employment and veteran’s
income. Mi chael pays for the family’s health insurance. Erika earns $21,951 per year from her employment. On August 29, the district court entered an order on temporary matters. In addition to the stipulated provisions on custody , the court calculated child sup port,

1 The parties entered into a prenuptial agreement. However, any provisions relating to child support, spousal support, or waiving related attorney fees are not enforceable

. See Iowa Cod e § 596.5(2) (2018); In re Marriage of Erpelding , 917 N.W.2d 235, 239

– 40 (Iowa 2018) (holding “ a premarital

- agreement provision waiving an award of attorney fees related to issues of child or spousal support adversely affects the right to suppor t” and is t herefore “categorically prohibited by section 596.5(2)”)

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ordered the parties split additional medical expenses for the child , and ordered Michael to pay Erika $2000 a month in temporary spousal support and $3000 in temporary attorney fees. The court did not make separate findings of fact beyond the stipul at ion

. Michael filed a motion to expand or enlarge the court’s findings. As a result, the court reduced the temporary spousal support by $250

— approximately the value of the health insurance premium attributable to Erika

— and required Erika to be responsible for the loan for her vehicle . The temporary child support and temporary attorney fee awards were confirmed. Michael appeals.
II. Standard of Review A dissolution of marriage action is an equitable proceeding. In re Marriage of Thatcher

, 864 N.W .2d 533, 537 (Iowa 2015). We review equity actions de novo. Iowa R. App. P. 6.907. We examine the entire record and adjudicate anew the issues properly presented. In re Marriage of Smith , 573 N.W.2d 924, 926 (Iowa 1998). That said, “we accord the tria l court considerable latitude in resolving disputed claims and will disturb a ruling ‘only when there has been a failure to do equity.’” Id. (citation omitted).
III. Analysis Temporary c hild support. Michael contests the portion of health insurance allocated to the child under the guidelines. He claims the court should have used $507 per month for the child’s portion of the health insurance in its calculations4

instead of $300 . Michael claims t his deduction would reduce temporary child support from $1008 per month to $913.54 per month. 2 Michael pays $850 per month for health insurance for the entire family

— himself, Erika, and both children. In his calculations , he also includes dental insurance , which costs $116 per month for the entire family , for a tota l of $968 per month for insurance. The costs for him as an individual would be $164 for health, and forty

- three dollars for dental, totaling $207 per month. We follow the formula in Iowa Court rule 9.14(5) , describing how to calculate the child’s portion of the premium

— subtracting Michael’s individual portion from the total premium, then dividing by the number of persons on the plan to reach $253.67 attributable to each
child and Erika. Michael claims that because the older child is not part of th is action, whether the older child is currently covered under his insurance should have no effect on premiums for the younger child included on the child support guidelines form. Our child support guidelines direct the court to allocate a portion of insuran ce premiums
to each person covered, whether they are subject to the pending action or not. Iowa Ct. R. 9.14(5)(b). For Michael to attribute the entire premium to the younger child, he would have to show the plan only covers the younger child, not the old er child. We find the court’s child support calculation is equitable. Temporary s

pousal support. The court ’s original order required Michael to pay Erika $2000 a month in temporary spousal support. Michael filed a motion to amend and enlarge, which resulted in the court reducing the temporary monthly

2 To reach Michael’s desired child support amount requires other income adjustments on the guidelines sheet not discussed in the brief s

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support payment to $1750. On appeal , Michael contests some of the budgeted
expenses included in Erika’s financial affidavit

. Orders for spousal support are based on criteria found in Iowa Code section 598.21A. The award is circumstance

- dependent and considers the comparative earning capacity of each party. See In re Marriage of Schenk elberg , 824 N.W.2d 481, 486

– 87 (Iowa 2012). The amount is calculated equitably, and we only disturb the award if it fails to do equity. Id. at 486. Michael claims the temporary spousal support award is inequitable, but he does not suggest an amount he c onsiders equitable. 3 The temporary spousal support award is approximately one

- quarter of Michael’s monthly income. Erika’s monthly income, temporary spousal support award, and child support equal almost exactly one

- half of the post

- tax combined income of Michael and Erika. We find the district court’s temporary spousal support award is equitable. Temporary a ttorney fees. Michael claims he should not have been ordered to pay any of Erika’s attorney fees in light of the temporary child support and
spous al support award and her decision to dissipate assets by going on a vacation by herself rather than paying her attorney fees or other expenses. He claims the award would force him to liquidate assets protected by a preservation order or premarital assets protected by their prenuptial agreement. An award of attorney fees is within the discretion of the trial court. In re Marriage of Sullins , 715 N.W.2d 242, 255 (Iowa 2006). In order to overturn an award of attorney fees, a party must show the ruling “res ts on grounds that are

3 At the hearing on his motion to amend and enlarge, Michael suggested Erika should not receive any spousal support.6

clearly unreasonable or untenable.” In re Marriage of Erpelding , 917 N.W.2d 235, 238 (Iowa 2018) (citation omitted). “A ruling is clearly unreasonable or untenable when it is ‘not supported by substantial evidence or when it is bas ed on an erroneous application of law.’” In re Marriage of Kimbro , 826 N. W.2d 696, 698

– 99 (Iowa 2013) (citation omitted). We find the district court did not abuse its discretion by ordering Michael to pay $3000 of Erika’s attorney fees for temporary matt ers

. Appellate attorney fees. Both parties have requested an award of appellate attorney fees. The award of appellate attorney fees is discretionary and we consider “the needs of the party seeking the award, the ability of the other party to pay, and the relative merits of the appea l.” Sullins , 715 N.W.2d at 255 (citation omitted). In determining their respective abilities to pay, we consider each party’s entire financial picture. Kimbro , 826 N.W.2d at 704. Considering all the circumstances, we order Michael to pay $ 4 000 toward E rika’s appellate attorney fees.
AFFIRMED.