Opinion ID: 2625357
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Superior Court Abused Its Discretion When Modifying the Child Support Order.

Text: Teseniar contends that the superior court erred both by increasing his child support obligation in retaliation for his refusal to supply Spicer with his tax returns and by making the order retroactive to April 15, 1999. In her March 8, 2000 motion to modify, Spicer sought to increase Teseniar's support obligation effective April 15, 1999 because she maintained that he was supposed to provide tax documents by then for purposes of recalculating support. In her memorandum in support of that motion, she asked in the alternative to make the support award effective as of the filing of the motion on March 8, 2000. The proposed order she submitted contained the April 15 date, and despite striking a proposed finding of contempt for failure to file tax returns, Judge Shortell signed this order with the retroactive April 15 date still intact. When Judge Hunt later presided over the case, she increased Teseniar's obligation from $257 a month to $778.91 to conform to the rate calculated by the Palmer superior court in February 1999 for Teseniar's children from a prior marriage, and she made this increase effective April 15, 1999 in conformity with Judge Shortell's order. We review modifications of child support under an abuse of discretion standard. [10] We will find an abuse of discretion when our review of the record leaves us with a `definite and firm conviction based on the record as a whole that a mistake has been made.' [11] We conclude that both the amount of the increase and the date of retroactivity constituted abuses of discretion.
Judge Hunt arrived at Teseniar's child support obligation by adopting the Palmer court's child support obligation figure for Teseniar's children from a prior marriage, not merely the other court's estimation of Teseniar's income. By adopting the Palmer court's monthly obligation figure, Judge Hunt did not go through the Rule 90.3 calculations using Spicer's income and allowing deductions such as the child support Teseniar paid for his prior children as provided in Rule 90.3(a)(1)(B). [12] It is unlikely that Teseniar's obligation to his two children with Spicer would be identical to his child support obligation to the children from his earlier marriage, given that the prior obligation would be factored into the calculation of his current obligation. [13] Courts must follow the legal standards set forth in Rule 90.3 in determining awards of child support. [14] We therefore conclude that it was an abuse of discretion for Judge Hunt to increase Teseniar's obligation to correspond to the Palmer court's child support obligation figure. [15]
[A]bsent special circumstances..., `courts may not retroactively modify support orders.' [16] Retroactive modification is statutorily permitted only when paternity is disestablished and the modification can be implemented without violating federal law, or on the motion of the obligor when there is a clerical mistake or the support order is based on a default amount. [17] Neither of those exceptions is applicable here. Rule 90.3(h)(2) provides, however, that although retroactive modification is generally prohibited, [a] modification which is effective on or after the date that a motion for modification ... is served on the opposing party is not considered a retroactive modification. [18] By this standard, and as Spicer was apparently aware given the alternative relief she requested, Judge Shortell could not have made Teseniar's child support obligation effective any earlier than March 8, 2000, when Spicer filed her motion to modify. Judge Shortell therefore erred in failing to correct that portion of the proposed order making the obligation effective April 15, 1999. We note that Judge Shortell struck the proposed finding of contempt from his order, making it unlikely that the retroactivity was meant to be a discovery sanction. However, to the extent that it was meant to be a sanction under Civil Rule 37 for Teseniar's failure to provide Spicer with his tax returns, we observe that the parties' agreement required Teseniar to provide his tax return annually only to CSED, not to Spicer.