Opinion ID: 2582200
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The first hearing

Text: In March 2004 Superior Court Master Suzanne Cole held an evidentiary hearing on the two motions. Ovitt, who had submitted the motion to modify pro se, was represented by an attorney; Byers represented himself. [2] Ovitt introduced two vehicle loan applications that Byers had submitted to a credit union. The first application, submitted in November 1999, stated that Byers's monthly income was $6,000. The second, submitted in March 2003, stated that his monthly income was $12,000, and that his monthly mortgage payment was $1,222. Byers testified that the loan applications were inaccurate because he had mistakenly listed his annual income instead of his monthly income, and because he did not read the application before signing it. The superior court master found that the loan applications were extremely vague and unclear, and ruled that Ovitt had not yet shown a change in circumstances that would justify altering the child support order. But the master noted that Byers had not submitted his tax return, and determined that an additional hearing was necessary: Well, the way I see things right now is I do not believe that Ms. Ovitt has met her burden of proof currently; however, I do believe that whether this has been neglected in the past or whether CSED has chosen to investigate this through another route ... I do believe that [Ovitt's attorney] is entitled to review [Byers's] entire tax return, including the Schedule C, to determine whether the deductions claimed for business are appropriate or not for child support purposes. Now I still, even after that, I'm going to have to determine that a significant change of circumstances exists. . . . So it appears to me appropriate that you [Byers] do provide the tax return information as part of discovery, and we'll come back to this issue once that is completed. . . . Although the court required Byers to submit his tax return, it denied a request from Ovitt for discovery of Byers's company records going back to 1999.