Opinion ID: 852595
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Alternative Approaches Reflected in Other States

Text: By some estimates, nearly a quarter of all state prisoners are parents who have open child support cases. Re-Entry Policy Council, Report of the Re-Entry Policy Council: Charting the Safe and Successful Return of Prisoners to the Community 190, 198 (2004). [2] It is thus not surprising that several states have dealt with how to treat incarceration for the purposes of determining income when setting or modifying child support obligations. Most of these reported cases deal with whether incarceration should justify the reduction of an existing support order, and we must be careful to distinguish that issue from the case at hand. See Frank J. Wozniak, Annotation, Loss of Income Due to Incarceration As Affecting Child Support Obligation, 27 A.L.R. 5th 540 (1995). Among the relatively small number of cases that deal directly with this issue, a number of separate approaches have been articulated. We examine these approaches here briefly to provide the basis for further discussion. A. Absolute Justification Rule. Some seven states consider imprisonment absolutely sufficient grounds to justify modifying or suspending child support. Yerkes v. Yerkes, 573 Pa. 294, 300 n. 4, 824 A.2d 1169, 1172 n. 4 (2003). A typical example of this approach is the case of Leasure v. Leasure, 378 Pa.Super. 613, 549 A.2d 225 (1988). There, the Pennsylvania Superior Court ordered a non-custodial parent's support obligation suspended during incarceration because imprisonment represented a change in circumstances sufficient to justify modification. Id. at 618, 549 A.2d at 228. The court rejected the argument that imprisonment constituted voluntary unemployment or underemployment, and instead noted that continuing the support order would excessively burden the parent least likely to be able to pay the debt. Id. at 616-17, 549 A.2d at 227. While the Pennsylvania Supreme Court later disapproved Leasure, we mention it here because it typifies other state authority and is roughly analogous to the issue presented here in the sense that the outcome is the same no matter when the support order is set. That is, if incarceration is a sufficient non-voluntary change in circumstances to justify a modification or suspension of the obligation, it could also support an approach where no obligation is imposed on an individual who is imprisoned at the moment the order is set. B. Imputation of Pre-Incarceration Income Allowed. A number of states have concluded that it is appropriate to impute pre-incarceration income to the non-custodial parent. See Wozniak, supra, at 587-91. In most of these cases, the question turns on whether incarceration constitutes a voluntary reduction of income. In In re Marriage of Olsen, 257 Mont. 208, 848 P.2d 1026 (1993), for example, the Montana Supreme Court considered whether a trial court had improperly imputed pre-incarceration income to an individual who was imprisoned at the time the final order was entered. Affirming the decision to impute that income, the court specifically rejected the parent's contention that while his criminal conduct was voluntary, the resulting unemployment . . . was involuntary and unforeseeable under the circumstances. Id. at 215, 848 P.2d at 1031. Instead, the court followed the reasoning of its prior cases that a criminal should not be offered a reprieve from [his] child support obligations when we do not do the same for one who becomes voluntarily unemployed. Id. ( citing Mooney v. Brennan, 257 Mont. 197, 200-01, 848 P.2d 1020, 1022-23 (1993)). Similar decisions linking criminal conduct with the voluntary reduction of income are found elsewhere. See, e.g., In re R.H., 686 N.W.2d 107 (N.D.2004); Proctor v. Proctor, 773 P.2d 1389 (Utah Ct.App. 1989). C. Disallowing Imputation of Pre-Incarceration Income. In at least one case, a state supreme court has cited the state's child support guidelines as a basis for holding that a trial court cannot impute pre-incarceration income to an individual imprisoned at the time the order is set. In State v. Porter, 259 Neb. 366, 372-74, 610 N.W.2d 23, 28-29 (2000), the Nebraska Supreme Court concluded that imposing pre-incarceration income on a felon would conflict with the state's child support guidelines precisely because an imprisoned individual had no earning capacity. It likened the situation to other cases in which it had approved the use of earning capacity instead of actual earnings in an initial determination under [the guidelines] and concluding that in those cases, there has been evidence that the parent had the present ability to achieve his or her earning capacity. Id. at 372-73, 610 N.W.2d at 28. Unlike those cases, the court concluded, a prisoner has no present ability to achieve the income. Id. at 374, 610 N.W.2d at 29. The court specifically rejected the notion that his voluntary choice to commit a crime led to the reduction in his income by stating that so long as earning capacity is used as a basis for an initial determination of child support . . . there must be some evidence that the parent is capable of realizing such capacity. Id. It imposed the minimum child support obligation as outlined in the state's guidelines and noted that income does not consist solely of wages, thus leaving open the possibility for a higher support obligation. Id.