Opinion ID: 2301527
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Duration of Maintenance

Text: Although we are left unsure about whether the amount of maintenance may be within discretion, there is no support for the court's decision terminating maintenance when the parties' youngest child turns 18, or a duration of nine years. Because this duration is apparently based on the needs of the children rather than on the needs of mother, the award is inconsistent with the statutory maintenance scheme. A child support award may end upon the children reaching the age of majority, see Knowles v. Thompson, 166 Vt. 414, 422, 697 A.2d 335, 339 (1997), but that temporal event is unrelated to the reason maintenance is awarded. In determining whether maintenance is appropriate, the court must consider whether one spouse lacks sufficient income, property, or both ... to provide for his or her reasonable needs, and is unable to support himself or herself through appropriate employment at the standard of living established during the marriage. 15 V.S.A. § 752(a)(1), (2). The amount and duration of the award are based on factors including the length of marriage, the standard of living during the marriage, the age and physical and emotional condition of the parties, and the skills and earning ability of each party. See id. § 752(b). We have stated there are two principal purposes of maintenance awards: rehabilitation and compensation. First, maintenance can correct the inequalities in the parties' financial positions at the termination of the marriage. See Klein v. Klein, 150 Vt. 466, 473, 555 A.2d 382, 386-87 (1988). Rehabilitative maintenance assists the recipient spouse in becoming self-supporting. See Strauss, 160 Vt. at 339, 628 A.2d at 554. At the same time, spousal maintenance is designed to keep both spouses in the standard of living established during the marriage, to the extent possible. See Chaker, 155 Vt. at 26, 581 A.2d at 740. Second, a maintenance award can look beyond a spouse's support needs and actually attempt to compensate the spouse for contributions made during the marriage. See Klein, 150 Vt. at 474, 555 A.2d at 387. Maintenance awards recognize that one spouse's success in the working world is due in part to the sacrifice made by the other spouse, who made the career possible through contributions to family well-being not otherwise recognized in property distributions. See Stickney, 170 Vt. at 549, 742 A.2d at 1231. In light of the purposes of maintenance, the court's decision to tie the duration of mother's award to the age of majority of her youngest children, without more, is an abuse of discretion. There was no evidence that the duration of nine years will either adequately compensate mother for her contributions to the fourteen year marriage or maintain her at the marital standard of living for a sufficient period. See Strauss, 160 Vt. at 340, 628 A.2d at 556 (reversing maintenance award that did not consider appropriate factors to determine duration of award). Indeed, the only connection between a duration of nine years and this case is that nine years is the time it will take the youngest child to reach eighteen  the court offered no other explanation for its choice. In effect, the duration of the award implies that mother deserves compensation and rehabilitation only as long as she is caring for her children on a daily basis  after that, mother's own needs are irrelevant. The duration of the award gives no consideration to mother's contribution to the marriage other than child rearing, or to her right as an individual to financial security. In other words, through its order the court assured that maintenance would have to be used as child support, rather than awarding an independent amount for that purpose. [5] The dissent sees no error in a disposition that awards the entire amount as maintenance and none as child support. In addition to the problems we have outlined above, such a system undermines the federal-state partnership created to enforce child support orders. Title IV-D of the Social Security Act requires that states receiving certain federal funds create an office for the enforcement of child support (in Vermont, the Office of Child Support), see 42 U.S.C. §§ 601-617, 651-665, and take certain measures to enforce child support orders. See Welfare Reform Act, Pub.L. No. 104-193 (1996). The goal of this program is to empower states to enforce child support orders both within their borders and without, so as to reduce the need for federal welfare to support families that are otherwise owed child support. In conjunction with this system, all fifty states have enacted the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA) (Title 15B, Vermont Statutes). UIFSA coordinates jurisdiction and enforcement of child support and other support orders among the states. Parts of the act specifically address aspects of child support orders as distinct from other support orders. E.g., 15B V.S.A. § 205. If, as the dissent suggests, our family courts need not distinguish maintenance awards from child support awards, we would be actively dismantling this carefully crafted and complex system created to enforce child support orders. If family courts award only maintenance, they have effectively bypassed the mechanisms by which a child support order can be enforced both in our state and in other states. Systematically, then, the wide-spread practice of awards with no child support component would work against the federal-state regime created to protect children and their recipient parents from nonpaying parents. Family courts cannot obviate the need for child support by awarding it as maintenance. Because there should have been a child support award in this case, we must remand to the court to determine a fair allocation. Reversed and remanded. DIMOTSIS, District Judge, Specially Assigned, concurring and dissenting. The majority's conclusion, that the family court failed to separate the maintenance award from the child support award, ignores the clear holding of the family court. After performing several child support calculations, the family court ruled that child support was not warranted based on the respective incomes of the parties and the shared parenting arrangement. Disregarding the outcome determined by the child support guidelines, the majority finds error in the apparent result that part of mother's maintenance will be used toward the support of the children. Both parents, however, are obligated to provide support for their children, and such is the policy behind the child support statute. 15 V.S.A. § 650. Maintenance, as income, must be considered when determining child support, 15 V.S.A. § 653(5)(A)(i), and the guidelines anticipate that both parents will contribute part of their respective incomes, from whatever source, to care for their children. The majority's point that when the amount of maintenance award results in no child support award according to the guidelines, the amount of maintenance must be adjusted to reflect the fact that maintenance and child support are separate awards that serve different purposes, reveals its misunderstanding of the interrelationship between child support and maintenance. The majority's confusion about the role of maintenance in child support calculations results in its requiring an additional maintenance hearing after child support has been determined. This additional hearing, coming after the child support hearing, in addition to imposing additional procedural burdens on the family court and litigants, will result in additional maintenance income that will be effectively sheltered from the child support calculation. Accordingly, I dissent from part I of the majority's opinion. Because I agree that the family court abused its discretion in tying the duration of maintenance to the minority of the children, I concur in part II of the opinion.