Opinion ID: 853784
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Potential Income

Text: Finally, Glass argues that the trial court ignored the fact that Oeder works less than twenty hours per week as evidence of potential income and thus erred in finding that Oeder's income was $81 per week. In 1996, Oeder earned an average of $139 per week for an average 16.4 hour week. In 1997, that fell to an average of $87 for an average 10.4 hour week. The Guidelines provide that a trial court may include a parent's potential income in weekly gross income if a parent is capable of earning more. Child Supp. G. 3A Commentary 2(c). One purpose of attributing potential income to a parent is to fairly allocate the support obligation when one parent remarries and, because of the income of the new spouse, chooses not be employed. Child Supp. G. 3(A) Commentary 2(c); Ullery v. Ullery, 605 N.E.2d 214, 215 (Ind.Ct.App.1992). Moreover, the Commentary to the Guidelines suggests that [t]he marriage of a parent to a spouse with sufficient affluence to obviate the necessity for the parent to work may give rise to a situation where either potential income or imputed income or both should be considered in arriving at gross income. Child Supp. G. 3(A) Commentary 2(e). At the same time, the Guidelines caution that the trial court must employ a great deal of discretion in its potential income determination. Child Supp. G. 3(A) Commentary 2(c). [D]iscretion must be exercised on an individual case basis to determine if it is fair under the circumstances to attribute potential income to a particular nonworking or underemployed custodial parent. Child Supp. G. 3(A) Commentary 2(d). Although a parent's choice not to work over twenty hours is to be respected by the courts, the marriage of a parent to a spouse with sufficient affluence to obviate the necessity for the parent to work may give rise to a situation where the court should consider either potential income or imputed income or both. Child Supp. G. 3(A) Commentary 2(e). Nonetheless, the Guidelines require a trial court to include potential income only where a parent is voluntarily underemployed. Child Supp. G. 3(A)(3). Here the trial court found that Oeder was not underemployed. Concl. of Law 6. This conclusion is supported by the trial court's finding that Oeder's income was not decreased as a result of her remarriage and that Oeder is earning more now than she has at any time since the birth of Robert [17 years ago]. Child Supp. Finding of Fact 11. See also General Findings of Fact 20 (Oeder is currently employed part-time at the Indiana Eye Clinic as a medical assistant.... She works as many hours as are available for this job. [She] still suffers from back pain and migraine headaches. [She] has never held a 40 hour full-time job since the birth of Robert 17 years ago....). Based on these findings, we cannot concluded that the trial court's resolution was clearly erroneous. Glass also contends that Oeder intentionally deprived herself of income by purchasing a house with the proceeds of a sale of stock that would have otherwise produced investment income. The trial court refused to include in Oeder's income the proceeds from the sale of assets she liquidated to purchase a home, or any imputed income from lost investment assets. The theory Glass advances may be correct in some cases, but it is highly fact sensitive whether the use of financial assets to purchase a non-income producing asset is merely an appropriate step to maintain a family's standard of living or represents a distortion of income potential requiring adjustment by the trial court. We cannot conclude that the trial court's resolution was clearly erroneous.