Opinion ID: 2334045
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Origin of the Melson Formula

Text: The Family Court is vested with exclusive original jurisdiction to hear and determine all petitions for support. 13 Del.C. § 507. Section 514 of Title 13 provides that [i]n determining the amount of support due to one to whom the duty of support has been found to be owing, the Family Court shall consider, among other things: (1) The health, relative economic condition, financial circumstance, income, including the wages, and earning capacity of the parties, including the children; (2) The manner of living to which the parties have been accustomed when they were living under the same roof; (3) The general equities inherent in the situation. 13 Del.C. § 514. The Melson Formula is named after its judicial craftsman, Judge Elwood F. Melson, Jr. of the Family Court of the State of Delaware. The formula was developed by Judge Melson in response to the directive of 13 Del.C. § 514. It was used by Judge Melson for the first time in the context of a child support case in 1977. I.B. v. R.S. W.B., Del.Fam., File No. A-3000, Melson, J. (Nov. 10, 1977). Almost immediately, several other judges in the Family Court began to apply Judge Melson's formula in child support cases. Each Family Court judge that used the formula found it to be an effective analytical model, by which to discharge the statutory directive of 13 Del.C. § 514. Approximately one year after its articulation by Judge Melson, his formula was being used by a majority of the Family Court judges. The gradual, but steady, expansion of the use of Judge Melson's formula within the judiciary of the Family Court raised a practical concern. The Family Court is, and has been, required by statute, to [m]ake and publish [Family] Court rules governing policies, processes, practices, and procedures, which shall be uniform throughout the state. 10 Del.C. § 907(5). In order to provide a uniform method of determining support obligations, the judges of the Family Court unanimously adopted the Melson Formula, as a rebuttable presumption, to be used in support cases, effective January 26, 1979. [10] The basic principles of the Melson Formula have been summarized as follows: Parents are entitled to keep sufficient income to meet their most basic needs in order to encourage continued employment. Until the basic needs of children are met, parents should not be permitted to retain any more income than that required to provide the bare necessities for their own self-support. Where income is sufficient to cover the basic needs of parents and all dependents, children are entitled to share in any additional income so that they can benefit from the absent parent's higher standard of living. [11] The basic procedures which are performed in an application of the Melson Formula are: Step 1: Determine Available Income of Each Parent. The Melson Formula starts with net income. After determining net income for each parent, a self-support reserve (primary support allowance) is subtracted from each parent's income. This reserve represents the minimum amount required for an adult to meet his or her own subsistence requirements. Step 2: Determine Childrens' Primary Support Needs. The next step in applying the formula is to compute the primary support amount for each dependent. Like the self-support reserve, the primary support amount represents the minimum amount required to maintain a child at a subsistence level.... Work-related child care expenses are added to primary support as are extraordinary medical expenses. The child's primary support needs are pro-rated between the parents based upon available net income as determined in Step 1.... Step 3: Determine Standard of Living Allowance (SOLA). After primary support obligations of each parent are calculated in Step 2, including obligations for child care expenses and extraordinary medical expenses, a percentage of remaining income is also allocated to support of the child. The standard of living allowance enables the child to benefit from the higher living standard of a parent.... If a parent has dependents other than the child for whom support is being sought, and such other dependents are not covered by a court order, primary support amounts for such dependents are deducted from obligor income available for the Standard of Living Allowance. [12] Following its unanimous adoption by the judges of the Family Court of the State of Delaware, the Melson Formula was not without its detractors. Like the Father in this case, many individuals who were ordered to pay support suggested that the Melson Formula generally provided a financial windfall to the custodial parent. [13] Conversely, it was often argued by custodial parents that the use of the Melson Formula resulted in support orders that were too low. See Hunter, Child Support Law and Policy: The Systematic Imposition of Costs on Women, 6 Harv. Women's L.J. 1, 7-11 (1983). Despite these divergent points of view, the underlying merits of the Melson Formula have never been completely examined in a reported judicial decision.