Opinion ID: 1961324
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Statutory Scheme for Child Support Awards

Text: When called upon to interpret a statute, we adhere to our well established principles of statutory construction. Recently, in Witte v. Azarian, 369 Md. 518, 801 A.2d 160 (2002), we stated that: [W]hen engaged in [statutory interpretation], our goal is to ascertain and implement, to the extent possible, the legislative intent. In so doing, we look first to the words of the statute, on the tacit theory that the Legislature is presumed to have meant what it said and said what it meant. If the true legislative intent cannot readily be determined from the statutory language alone, however, we may, and often must, resort to other recognized indiciaamong other things, the structure of the statute, including its title; how the statute relates to other laws; the legislative history, including the derivation of the statute, comments and explanations regarding it by authoritative sources during the legislative process, and amendments proposed or added to it; the general purpose behind the statute; and the relative rationality and legal effect of various competing constructions. 369 Md. at 525-26, 801 A.2d at 165. The relevant statutes in the case sub judice are silent on the subject of whether guardian ad litem fees may be described as child support, so we must look beyond the mere language of the statute to elucidate legislative intent. In arriving at its conclusion, the Court of Special Appeals relied, almost exclusively, on the maxim of statutory construction known as expressio unis est exlusio alteris (i.e., the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another). Although we recognize this maxim to be a useful interpretive device, it should be used with caution and not as a rule of law. Hylton v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 268 Md. 266, 282, 300 A.2d 656, 664 (1972); Kirkwood v. Provident Savings Bank, 205 Md. 48, 55, 106 A.2d 103, 107 (1954); see Stanford v. Maryland Police Training & Correctional Comm'n, 346 Md. 374, 379, 697 A.2d 424, 426 (1997). Accordingly, we prefer to focus on other recognized indicia of legislative intent, such as the statutory scheme for child support, its relation to other laws, and the legislative history. We find it instructive to examine briefly, at the outset, the background of child support in Maryland. This Court has long recognized the parents' obligation to support their minor children. See Carroll County v. Edelmann, 320 Md. 150, 170, 577 A.2d 14, 23 (1990); Kriedo v. Kriedo, 159 Md. 229, 231, 150 A. 720, 721 (1930); Blades v. Szatai, 151 Md. 644, 647, 135 A. 841, 842 (1927). This obligation imposes a duty on the parent to provide support and confers a right on children to receive it. Middleton v. Middleton, 329 Md. 627, 632, 620 A.2d 1363, 1365 (1993) (quoting Edelmann, 320 Md. at 170, 577 A.2d at 23-24). In Middleton, we stated that the child support obligation is not perfunctory, to be performed only at the voluntary pleasure or whimsical desire of the parent.... Id. at 633, 620 A.2d at 1366 (citations omitted). In accordance with these principles, treating an award as child support significantly elevates the level of protection it receives under the law. For example, if a court order is deemed to be child support, the one to whom the obligation is owed can collect the obligation through the court's contempt powers. Lynch v. Lynch, 342 Md. 509, 519, 677 A.2d 584, 589 (1996) (Thus, notwithstanding that the proceedings are civil in nature, a defendant may be imprisoned for civil contempt.); see Md. Rule 15-207(e) (2001) (allowing a court to find one in constructive civil contempt for failure to pay spousal or child support). Indeed, under the Constitution of Maryland, which prohibits imprisonment for debt, only child support and alimony awards are explicitly exempted from the meaning of debt. Md. Const. Art. III, § 38. A court, therefore, may employ its contempt powers, including the power to imprison, against one who refuses to comply with an order to pay child support. Rutherford v. Rutherford, 296 Md. 347, 364, 464 A.2d 228, 237 (1983). Because an obligation to pay child support creates an enforceable duty of the parent, a trial court may not select, at its complete discretion, which of its orders should be deemed child support. Instead, the trial court must adhere to the Legislature's plan for calculating the amount and character of a child support award. See Drummond v. State, 350 Md. 502, 511-12, 714 A.2d 163, 168 (1998); Walsh v. Walsh, 333 Md. 492, 498, 635 A.2d 1340, 1343 (1994) (observing that the court is required to apply the statutory guidelines in determining child support). This structure, commonly known as the Child Support Guidelines (the Guidelines), first appeared in Maryland law in 1989 to provide courts with a standard formula for determining child support awards. 1989 Md. Laws ch. 2. In Voishan v. Palma, 327 Md. 318, 609 A.2d 319 (1992), Judge Chasanow, writing for this Court, described the purpose and impetus for enacting the Guidelines: The General Assembly enacted these guidelines in 1989 to comply with federal law and regulations. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 651-667 (1982 & 1984 Supp. II) and 45 C.F.R. § 302.56 (1989). The federal mandate required that the guidelines be established and based on specific descriptive and numeric criteria and result in a computation of the support obligation. Id. When drafting the guidelines, the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee had before it Development of Guidelines For Child Support Orders: Advisory Panel Recommendations and Final Report, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Child Support Enforcement. This report explained that the need for the guidelines was threefold: (1) to remedy a shortfall in the level of awards that do not reflect the actual costs of raising children, (2) to improve the consistency, and therefore the equity, of child support awards, and (3) to improve the efficiency of court processes for adjudicating child support.... 327 Md. at 322, 609 A.2d at 321 (footnote omitted). The Guidelines provide courts with uniform criteria that they must consider in awarding child support. The enumerated criteria consist of calculations to be used in computing the amount one party owes to another in child support. Petrini v. Petrini, 336 Md. 453, 460, 648 A.2d 1016, 1019 (1994). The calculations include: (1) the schedule of basic support obligations, which provides the court with an amount of child support based on the combined actual income of the parents and the number of children needing support, id. § 12-204(a)(f); (2) any actual child care expenses due to either parent's employment, id. § 12-204(g); (3) extraordinary medical expenses, id. § 12-204(h); (4) any special or private school expenses, id. § 12-204(i); and (5) any expenses for the transportation of the child between the parents' homes, id. § 12-204(i). Without question, the General Assembly intended any award based on these enumerated factors to be treated as child support. Outside of the Guidelines, the Legislature has provided two other possible sources of child support awards. The provisions addressing these sources, not surprisingly, are found under the Child Support Title, Title 12 of the Family Law Article. Under Section 12-102(b), the trial court may include in any support order a provision requiring either party to include the child in the parent's health insurance coverage. Code, § 12-102(b) of the Family Law Article (emphasis added). The effect of such an order is to require one party to pay the costs associated with maintaining a health insurance policy for the child. The plain language of this section expressly allows the court to order a parent to include the child within that parent's health insurance coverage and to undertake to pay these costs as child support. Consequently, like the enumerated factors under the Guidelines, an order to include a child in a parent's health insurance coverage may be treated as child support. An order to pay child support may also include, under Section 12-101(d)(1)(ii), any expenses related to medical support for the child, including neonatal expenses. Code, § 12-101(d)(1)(ii) of the Family Law Article. Although the words of the statute do not expressly provide that an award of these expenses may be treated as an award for child support, the legislative history of this section makes it clear that medical support and neonatal expenses were intended to be part of the child support scheme. In 1994, the General Assembly passed an extensive act affecting various titles of the Family Law Article. 1994 Md. Laws ch. 113. The act's central purpose was to strengthen Maryland's child support enforcement system. See Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, Floor Report of Senate Bill 312 (1994). One of the reform measures it adopted empowered the court to order a parent to pay for the medical support and neonatal expenses of a child. 1994 Md. Laws ch. 113. The Legislature enacted this new power of the courts as an addition to the child support provisions of Title 12, under which all other court orders related to the maintenance and support of a child were located. Id. The placement of the court's authority to order the payment of medical support and neonatal expenses under the child support provisions of Title 12 demonstrates that the Legislature also authorized these expenses to be treated as child support. One provision under Title 12 of the Family Law Article provides for an award that may not be treated as child support, however. Section 12-103(a) allows the court, at its discretion, to award counsel fees to either party of a domestic case where issues of child support, custody, or visitation are involved. Code, § 12-103(a) of the Family Law Article. Section 12-103(a), though, does not concern attorney's fees that a court may award to a guardian ad litem. See Petrini, 336 Md. at 467-68, 648 A.2d at 1022-23. Rather, it refers to any counsel fees accrued by one party in applying for or defending a matter involving child support, child custody, or visitation. Code, § 12-103(a) of the Family Law Article. The party, therefore, rather than the child, receives the immediate benefit from an award under this section, unlike the expenses the Legislature addressed under Section 12-101(d)(ii), which governs medical support and neonatal expenses, and Section 12-102(b), which governs orders to required health insurance coverage for a child. Thus, courts may not treat an award under Section 12-103(a) as child support. Utilizing the fact that health insurance premium costs, medical support costs, and neonatal costs are not specifically included within the Guidelines but may be considered child support, Goldberg argues that we then should extend the list of what may be treated as child support beyond Title 12 to guardian ad litem fees. This argument misconstrues the Legislature's statutory scheme for calculating child support. We have found no evidence in the legislative history of the child support and guardian ad litem provisions suggesting that the fees awarded for guardian ad litem service were ever intended to be treated as child support. Rather, the history of the child support provisions suggest that the Legislature declined to include guardian ad litem fees as child support. The statutory basis for guardian ad litem fees originated in 1976 with the enactment of a Maryland Code, § 3-604 of the Courts & Judicial Proceedings Article (1976), the provisions of which were designed to assist the court in determining the best interest of the child. See 1976 Md. Laws ch. 250; Nagle v. Hooks, 296 Md. 123, 128, 460 A.2d 49, 51-52 (1983). [4] In 1984, when the General Assembly completely overhauled the Maryland Code and created the Family Law Article, it placed the guardian ad litem provisions under Title 1 rather than in the child support provisions of Title 12. See 1984 Md. Laws ch. 296, § 2 (codified under Code, § 1-102 of the Family Law Article). When the Legislature, in 1989, developed the Guidelines, it excluded guardian ad litem fees from the child support calculus. See 1989 Md. Laws ch. 2. To this day, despite numerous other amendments to the Family Law Article and, specifically, to the child support provisions of Title 12, the guardian ad litem provisions remain separate from the child support provisions. Code, § 1-202 of the Family Law Article. The Legislature, in fact, recently rejected a proposed amendment to the Guidelines that would have allowed the court to include guardian ad litem fees in the computation of child support under the Guidelines. Md. H. 626, 2002 Gen. Assembly (Feb. 25, 2002) (receiving an unfavorable report from the House of Delegates Judiciary Committee). The fact that the child support provisions of Title 12 contain all of the possible sources of child support and that the Legislature, time and time again, has preferred to maintain the guardian ad litem provisions under a different title supports the conclusion that the Legislature did not intend guardian ad litem fees to be included as child support. [5] Allowing such a treatment would be imputing to the Legislature an intent that never existed. [6]