Court Opinion

ID: 9534307
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:38:30.921102+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:30:15.984154
License: Public Domain

ROBB, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The majority acknowledges the established case law holding that incarceration due to voluntary criminal conduct is not a valid reason to *1026abate an existing child support order. See op. at 1023-24 (citing Murphy v. Murphy, 860 N.E.2d 927 (Ind.Ct.App.2007); Holsapple v. Herron, 649 N.E.2d 140 (Ind.Ct.App.1995); Davis v. Vance, 574 N.E.2d 330 (Ind.Ct.App.1991)). The majority also acknowledges that in the recent decision of Lambert v. Lambert, 861 N.E.2d 1176 (Ind.2007), our supreme court limited its holding that courts should not impute potential income to an imprisoned parent “specifically to the initial determination of a child support order.... ” Op. at 1024 (emphasis added). Nonetheless, despite noting that “our supreme court was very firm in distinguishing its holding from the situation at hand,” id., the majority concludes that the rationale of Lambert applies equally to a request for modification of a child support order based upon changed circumstances due to incarceration. I cannot agree.
The facts presented by Lambert were that when the parties’ dissolution decree was entered, father was incarcerated. The trial court entered a child support order based upon father’s pre-incarceration income. In considering whether the trial court’s support order was in error, our supreme court noted that most reported cases regarding how to treat incarceration for the purpose of determining income deal with an existing support order and whether incarceration justifies a reduction. The court then stated that it “must be careful to distinguish that issue from the case at hand,” which dealt with the impact incarceration has on setting a support order. 861 N.E.2d at 1177. Given Lambert’s deliberate and careful distinction between existing and new support orders, I believe it is our supreme court’s exclusive province to expand the parameters of Lambert in such a way as to include the situation presented in this case. Until it does, I believe that the existing case law holding that an abatement of an existing child support order is not warranted due to incarceration of one of the parties, see Ross v. Ross, 581 N.E.2d 982, 983 (Ind.Ct.App.1991), continues to control. I would affirm the trial court.