Opinion ID: 3188571
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: James’s Gross Income

Text: [¶13] James contends that the trial court either clearly erred in finding that he has annual gross income of $95,000, or abused its discretion by imputing income to him without first determining that he was voluntarily underemployed. [¶14] If a divorce court finds that a party is voluntarily underemployed, the court may impute income to that party for the purpose of calculating that party’s child or spousal support obligations. Koszegi v. Erickson, 2004 ME 113, ¶ 14, 855 A.2d 1168; Wrenn v. Lewis, 2003 ME 29, ¶ 18, 818 A.2d 1005 (citing 19-A M.R.S.A. § 951-A(5)(B), (D), (E) (Supp. 2002) and 19-A M.R.S.A. 8 § 2001(5)(D) (1998)). When a divorce court imputes income to a party and takes judicial notice of facts for that purpose, its judgment should contain findings regarding the amount of and basis for the income imputed. See Payne v. Payne, 2006 ME 73, ¶ 11, 899 A.2d 793. “A court’s determination of a party’s income in a divorce proceeding is a factual finding that we review for clear error.” Id. ¶ 7. In applying the clear error standard, we will vacate a factual finding if it is not supported by sufficient, competent record evidence. See id. ¶¶ 7, 9-11. [¶15] The divorce judgment contains no findings regarding James’s income. The only indication of the court’s income determinations is found in the child support worksheet attached to the judgment, which lists James’s annual gross income as $95,000. We are unable to determine how the court arrived at this figure. James’s financial statement indicates that he has an annual gross income of $87,012. At trial, some evidence was presented that may have raised a question of whether James was voluntarily underemployed, and whether his employment-related expense reimbursements should be included in his income. See 19-A M.R.S. § 2001(5)(B), (D) (2015); Dumas v. Milotte, 2016 ME 3, ¶ 9, --- A.3d ---. However, in the absence of explicit findings and conclusions regarding the factual and legal basis for the court’s gross income determination, we cannot review that determination effectively. Williams v. St. Pierre, 2006 ME 10, ¶ 9, 889 A.2d 1011. 9 [¶16] Because the court denied James’s motion for specific findings regarding his income, we cannot assume that the court implicitly found facts sufficient to support its income determination, and we cannot decide whether the court’s findings were clearly erroneous. See id. ¶¶ 9-10. We therefore vacate the court’s child support order and underlying gross income determination, and remand for the issuance of findings and conclusions on the income issues raised in James’s motion for further findings. See Dumas, 2016 ME 3, ¶ 10, --- A.3d ---.