Opinion ID: 2542248
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Ivy's Guidelines-Determined Support Obligation May Be Reduced If Properly Determined To Be Unjust or Inappropriate.

Text: Turning first to that part of the family court's order reducing Ivy's support obligation, we note that under KRS 403.211 and 403.212, child support is to be determined by applying the guidelines to the parents' combined, adjusted gross incomes. The guidelines provide a statutory child support obligationthe table amount, not less than sixty dollars ($60) per monthand that obligation is then divided between the parents in proportion to their gross incomes. KRS 403.212(3). Under KRS 403.212(2)(b), gross income is defined to include Supplemental Security Income. Pursuant to these provisions, in April 2008, Ivy and Barnes were found to have a combined monthly income of $2489.50, including Ivy's SSI benefit of $637.00. That income yielded a guidelines support obligation of $411.74, which was apportioned $305.74 to Barnes and $106.00 to Ivy. Under KRS 403.211(2), this guidelines-determined result enjoys a presumption of correctness. Given that presumption, there are only two ways in which Ivy's support obligation could deviate from the guidelines-determined $106 per month. First, under KRS 403.213, a substantial and continuing change in the parties' incomes, expenses, or other material circumstances could necessitate a recalculation of their support obligations under the guidelines. Alternatively, KRS 403.211(2) permits the court to deviate from the guidelines where their application would be unjust or inappropriate. The family court invoked neither of these statutes, and it is not immediately clear from its ruling which route it meant to take. On the one hand, the reference in its order to a change of circumstances, suggests that the family court had KRS 403.213 in mind. If so, however, it failed to identify the circumstances that had changed and failed to show how the guidelines as applied to the new circumstances resulted in a reduction of Ivy's obligation to $60 per month. In particular, the family court did not find that Ivy's adjusted gross income had changed or had initially been miscalculated. Indeed, as noted, KRS 403.212 defines gross income as including SSI benefits and does not distinguish between benefits paid directly to the beneficiary and benefits paid through a payee such as Mr. Anderson. Ivy's gross income, therefore, includes the full amount of her benefit, however paid, and it thus appears that, as far as the guidelines are concerned, her $106 per month obligation was correctly determined. This suggests that, despite the reference to changed circumstances, the family court meant to invoke KRS 403.211(2) and to deviate from the guidelines because, with its new understanding of Ivy's circumstances, it deemed application of the guidelines unjust or inappropriate. The court's surprise at learning of Mr. Anderson's role and of the fact that Ivy has direct access to only a small portion of her SSI benefit confirms this impression. It was apparently the family court's sense that it would be unjust to apply the guidelines where, whatever Ivy's income under the guidelines, her actual, discretionary income was a small fraction of that amount, was inadequate for her own needs, and was not even half of her guidelines-determined child support obligation. The court went on to rule, however, that while $106 per month was too great an obligation, $60 per month was appropriate because Ivy is able-bodied and capable of providing support. As noted, the court did not indicate the evidence upon which it relied to reach these last conclusions, nor did it explain how it arrived at the $60 per month figure. Although the Court of Appeals did not discuss the statutory underpinnings of the family court's order, it essentially upheld that court's decision to deviate from the guidelines, but reversed because in its view the family court had not deviated enough. The Cabinet attacks both aspects of the Court of Appeals' decision. It argues, first, that by deviating from the guidelines the Court of Appeals (and by implication the family court as well) effectively excluded from Ivy's income the SSI benefits which the General Assembly has expressly stated should be included. It also argues, alternatively, that in rejecting the amount of the family court's deviation, the Court of Appeals erroneously gave preclusive effect to the Social Security Administration's determination that Ivy is disabled and otherwise improperly substituted its view of the facts for that of the family court. In general, of course, the family court enjoys broad discretion in the establishment, enforcement, and modification of child support. Artrip v. Noe, 311 S.W.3d 229, 232 (Ky.2010). We review its decisions, accordingly, as does the Court of Appeals, only for abuse of that discretion. Id. While that discretion extends, pursuant to KRS 403.211(2)-(4), to deviations from guidelines-determined child support amounts, the family court may not, under the guise of deviation, disregard or modify the intentions of the General Assembly as expressed in the child support statutes. Keplinger v. Keplinger, 839 S.W.2d 566 (Ky.App.1992). The Cabinet maintains that the deviation effected in this case by the family court and by the Court of Appeals runs afoul of this principle. To understand the Cabinet's position, it is necessary to recall that prior to 1994, SSI benefits, like other means-tested welfare benefits, were expressly excluded from Kentucky's (and most other states') statutory definition of a parent's gross income, and thus had no bearing on the determination of child support. In 1994, however, the entire country was deeply concerned with welfare reform and particularly with the link between welfare and child support. See Drew A. Swank, The National Child Non-Support Epidemic, 2003 Mich. St. DCL L.Rev. 357 (2003); Angela F. Epps, To Pay Or Not To Pay, That Is The Question: Should SSI Recipients Be Exempt From Child Support Obligations? 34 Rutgers L.J. 63 (2002). At that time, our General Assembly amended the KRS 403.212 definition of gross income to include rather than to exclude SSI benefits. In the same legislationHB 472 (1994)the General Assembly amended the child-support guidelines so as to provide for a minimum support obligation of $60 per couple, even when the parents' combined income is zero. These amendments contemplate that child support may be ordered and may accrue even against a parent with no present ability to pay. This legislation is powerfully symbolic, of course, underscoring the duty of every parent to provide support for his or her children. By making a support obligation possible for virtually all parents, moreover, the General Assembly may have hoped to provide some incentive against what has been referred to as procreation out of control, the unrestrained having of children in the belief that someone else, the state if need be, will support them. Epps, To Pay Or Not To Pay at 80. But beyond its symbolism, the legislation recognizes that present circumstances need not be permanent, that disabled parents may improve physically or mentally, that unemployed parents frequently find jobs, and that parents without resources frequently acquire them. If and when they do, the General Assembly has decided, it is not unjust that they be required to repay some of the child support others, often times taxpayers, have provided for them. Given this apparent legislative intent to allow the accrual of child support in some amount regardless of the parent's present ability to pay, and given the General Assembly's express inclusion of SSI benefits in the income from which the support obligation is to be calculated, the Cabinet argues that Ivy's guidelines-determined support obligation is appropriate and should be permitted to accrue against her at the guidelines rate notwithstanding her inability to pay it. The trial court and the Court of Appeals erred, according to the Cabinet, by failing to distinguish between the accrual of child support, on the one hand, and its collection, on the other, and by incorrectly basing a deviation from her support obligationan accrual questionon her ability to paya question bearing only on collection. Although we agree with the Cabinet that the support statutes evince a strong legislative determination that parents be held accountable for the support of their children and that the guidelines authorize support orders even against parents presently unable to meet them, we do not agree that the General Assembly intended to mandate such orders in all cases or to limit what has long been the trial and family courts' broad discretion to deviate from the guidelines where their strict application would be unjust or inappropriate as provided in KRS 403.211(2). While the 1994 amendments to the support statutes sharpened the distinction between the accrual of child support and its collection, we are not persuaded that the General Assembly meant to divorce those concepts or to preclude the trial courts from determining that the accrual of child support and not merely its collection is unjust or inappropriate in a given case. The accrual of child support, after all, can have serious consequences, not the least of which is the possibility of criminal prosecution. Trial courts need not be blind to that fact. Moreover, it bears noting that the 1994 legislation left the deviation statuteKRS 403.211(2)intact, and that statute is as meaningful as any other section of the child support statutes. The purpose of that grant of authority is to allow a trial court to do justice when the guidelines-determined amount just does not work. The guidelines amount, after all, is just thata guidelinenot an amount graven in stone. On the other hand, while KRS 403.211(2) authorizes the trial court to deviate from the guidelines amount, the court should not do so without good reasons, and those reasons should be sensitive to the General Assembly's abiding concern that parents be held accountable for the support of their children. The court, moreover, should be able to articulate its reasons both for rejecting the guidelines amount and for imposing some particular alternative amount. Here, the family court clearly deemed it unjust for support arrears to accrue against Ivy at a rate far in excess of what she could hope to afford from the small residue of her SSI payment left to her each month. We agree with the Court of Appeals that a deviation from the guidelines on this ground was not an abuse of the family court's discretion. The family court went on to rule, however, that, while the guidelines amount of $106 per month was too much, the lesser amount of $60 per month was just and appropriate. The Court of Appeals disagreed. As the panel's majority saw it, Ivy's very limited means left her no more able to afford $60 per month than $106, and accordingly it ruled that Ivy's support obligation should be extinguished altogether. The Cabinet contends that by so ruling the Court of Appeals usurped the family court's role as the finder or fact and failed to give deference to the family court's discretion. Notably, the family court provided little, if any, rationale for the $60 figure. It may well be that the family court meant to impose what it regarded as the minimum amount the child support statutes allow. [4] Any such statutory minimum, however, like any other guidelines amount, is only presumptively appropriate and is subject to deviation under KRS 403.211(2). If we assume that the family court meant to invoke a supposed minimum, its order does not give assurance that it recognized its authority to deviate from that minimum, and thus it is not clear that it based its order on the proper standard. In fact, the family court said nothing about a statutory minimum. That court simply said that Ivy is able bodied and capable of providing support. It meant, apparently, both that Ivy had been capable of providing support, thus making her past failure to do so contemptuous, and that she would continue to be capable, thus justifying a continuing, albeit reduced, support obligation. The Court of Appeals rejected both findings, which it believed had no evidentiary support. The Cabinet maintains that the Court of Appeals has merely, and improperly, substituted its view of the evidence for that of the family court. While the family court made no reference to any evidence whatsoever, the Cabinet insists that the record, very broadly construed, adequately supports the family court's rulings and thus that those rulings should be upheld. With respect to the family court's contempt ruling, we reject the Cabinet's position as we explain in detail below. With respect to the family court's $60 per month prospective modification of Ivy's support obligation, rather than parsing a spare record and attempting to divine from it what may have led the family court to rule as it did, particularly since circumstances are very likely to have changed, we deem it best simply to vacate the modified award and to remand the matter to that court for reconsideration and findings under the standards discussed in this Opinion.