Opinion ID: 1941482
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Whose Discretion Is At Issue?

Text: There were two significant discretionary rulings made by the trial court in this case. The first, made by Judge Pierson, set the amount of child support at $50 per month. The second was that of Judge Doory, who, by holding a hearing and listening to appellant, did reconsider Judge Pierson's order, but, in the end, refused to disturb it. The complaint with respect to Judge Pierson's decision is that the setting of child support at $50 a month rested on the unlawful consideration of the SSI benefits received by appellant as income to him and the wrongful consideration of the girlfriend's contribution to some of appellant's living expenses. Had a timely appeal been filed from that decision, those complaints could have been addressed  whether, in fact, Judge Pierson did regard the SSI benefits as income, whether he did consider the girlfriend's contribution, and whether, if so, it was error for him to do so. The problem, of course, is that there was no timely appeal from Judge Pierson's order, so even if he did wrongfully regard the SSI payments as income and wrongfully consider the girlfriend's contribution to living expenses, those issues are not before us. The only issue properly before us is whether Judge Doory abused his discretion in refusing to vacate the $50 child support order, and we are not persuaded that he did. The record before Judge Doory could properly have led him to conclude that Judge Pierson did not count the SSI benefit as income. The State conceded that it was not income, and Judge Pierson was obviously aware of the statute that precludes consideration of such benefits in determining actual income. What Judge Pierson apparently relied on were the statutory guidelines themselves, which expressly permit a child support award of up to $150, even when there is 0 actual monthly income, depending on Resources And Living Expenses Of Obligor And Number Of Children Due Support. Based on appellant's own testimony, part of which he did not credit, Judge Pierson concluded that appellant must have resources other than what he claimed, and, indeed, there was some evidence that he did have other resources. The question facing Judge Doory was not whether he would have reached the same conclusion as Judge Pierson, but only whether that conclusion was so manifestly wrong and unjust that failure on his part to vacate the award would constitute an abuse of the wide discretion that attaches to rulings denying motions to vacate existing judgments, even those not yet enrolled. We have defined abuse of discretion in a variety of ways, all of them setting a very high threshold. In Schade v. Board of Elections, 401 Md. 1, 34, 930 A.2d 304, 323-24 (2007), quoting from several earlier cases, we defined abuse as occurring when the discretion was manifestly unreasonable, or exercised on untenable grounds, or for untenable reasons, or when no reasonable person would take the view adopted by the [trial] court. In Touzeau v. Deffinbaugh, 394 Md. 654, 669, 907 A.2d 807, 816 (2006), quoting Jenkins v. State, 375 Md. 284, 295-96, 825 A.2d 1008, 1015 (2003), we said that abuse occurs when the judge exercises discretion in an arbitrary or capricious manner or when he or she acts beyond the letter or reason of the law. Citing In re Adoption/Guardianship No. 3598, 347 Md. 295, 312, 701 A.2d 110, 118-19 (1997), we added in Touzeau that abuse may be found when the court acts `without reference to any guiding rules or principles' or where the ruling under consideration is `clearly against the logic and effect of facts and inferences before the court,' or when the ruling is `violative of fact and logic.' Touzeau, 394 Md. at 669, 907 A.2d at 816. Judge Doory's ruling does not even approach any of those standards. ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION AFFIRMED, WITH COSTS.