Opinion ID: 2135211
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Support Ordered by Court of Appeals.

Text: In modifying the district court's support order, the court of appeals relied on a 1993 amendment to section 598.21(4). This amendment directed the supreme court, in its periodic review of the guidelines, to consider other children for whom either parent is legally responsible for support in setting monthly child support payments. 1993 Iowa Acts ch. 79, § 48. The court of appeals interpreted this amendment to require the district court to consider the noncustodial parent's obligation to support other children the same as court-ordered support obligations. Court-ordered support obligations are deducted from gross income in computing a parent's net monthly income. Consequently, the court reduced Chris' monthly income by a hypothetical amount of support for his other three children and then applied the one child table to that reduced figure to arrive at the monthly support payment. The interpretation the court of appeals gave to amended section 598.21(4) and the procedure it used in applying the guidelines under its interpretation were incorrect. In a case decided after the court of appeals decision here, we held that the recent amendment to section 598.21(4) does not require the district court to alter the manner in which it computes net monthly income to account for a parent's support obligations that are not court-ordered. State ex rel. Hartema v. Cottrell, 513 N.W.2d 765 (Iowa 1994). We concluded that the legislature intended to direct our court to consider in our next review of the guidelines the fact that a parent may also be supporting other children. Id. at 767. Consequently, the court of appeals erred in deducting from Chris' net monthly income the amount of support he would have to pay for three children.