Opinion ID: 2206708
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: In its modification order, the district court found the original award of child support to be insufficient in 1981. The court concluded that the defendant was financially able to pay support of $125 per child, per month, and that he was to pay support until each son reached the age of twenty-one years, in order that they might receive a college education. The defendant claims the district court erred in concluding the plaintiff had sustained her burden of proof on these particulars. This court's review is de novo, see Iowa R.App.P. 14(f)(7), although the district court's findings may be entitled to more-than-usual weight because the only testimony received was from the plaintiff. The original decree of 1967 required the defendant to pay $50 per child, per month. At that time, he was a staff sargeant in the United States Air Force earning $600 per month, and the plaintiff, presumably a waitress, was earning $400 per month. After their divorce both parties remarried, and according to their federal income tax returns at the time of trial, both are financially sound: for 1979 the defendant's joint return stated total income of over $25,000 and the plaintiff's joint return stated total income of $32,000. Specifically, the defendant's income from his employment and his pension in 1979 amounted to roughly $14,500; while the plaintiff reported a loss of over $3800 in 1979, her income from her life insurance sales in 1978 was $9500 to $10,000. The oldest son was a freshman studying accounting at a small, private college, which charged almost $5000 a year for room, board, and tuition. He had obtained a student loan, co-signed by the plaintiff, of $2300 from the government; payments on it are not due until after his graduation. The youngest son, a junior in high school, had hopes of eventually enrolling in medical school. Both sons worked in the summer at a drive-in theater, the oldest one earning approximately $1000 there in 1980. Both have automobiles, registered in their mother's and stepfather's names, and each son, with the aid of the plaintiff, makes payments on his respective vehicle. The defendant argues that the provision in the original decree only requiring payment of child support to continue until each child graduates from high school indicates the district court, at the time the decree was entered, considered the changed conditions relied upon by the plaintiff. See, e.g., Simpkins v. Simpkins, 258 Iowa 87, 90, 137 N.W.2d 621, 623 (1965) (the changed circumstances relied upon must be such as were not within the knowledge or contemplation of the court when the decree was entered). The plaintiff argues that it is the fact of the parties' increased incomes which has made the sons' college education more than just a remote possibility, as it was when the decree was entered, and that the district court could not have foreseen such circumstances. It has been held that a child's graduation from high school and actual enrollment in junior college, coupled with a parent's increase in income, constitutes a sufficient change of circumstances to justify modification of a decree to require that parent to increase the amount of child support. See Beasley v. Beasley, 159 N.W.2d 449, 452 (Iowa 1968) (§ 598.14, The Code 1966: Subsequent changes [in the original decree of divorce for child support] may be made by [the district court] . . . when circumstances render them expedient.); see § 598.1(2), The Code 1981. [3] The plaintiff sustained her burden of proof; and the district court's award was equitable in view of the circumstances.