Court Opinion

ID: 9714352
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:35:51.198316+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:25.386087
License: Public Domain

CIRILLO, President Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision because I do not believe that the support order should have been increased due to the discovery that Mr. Akers had been working a second job. A person’s ability to pay support should be calculated only from his or her earning capacity at one full-time job.
In the instant matter, Mr^Akers was working forty hours a weék at the United States Steel Corporation (US Steel) as a billing control clerk. In addition, from January, 1983 until April, 1986 Mr. Akers waswrorking approximately thirty hours a week at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena. His duties at the arena included ushering, acting as a security guard, and various maintenance tasks.
*7Mr. Akers failed to disclose to the court the fact that he was working at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena. Consequently, his support order was based only upon his primary full-time job at US Steel. In January, 1986, however, Mrs. Akers filed a petition for an increase in child support alleging that Mr. Akers had deliberately concealed his income from his part-time employment. On April 3, 1986, at a modification hearing held pursuant to the petition, the hearing officer, finding that Mr. Akers had indeed misrepresented his income, increased the monthly support order to $450.00 per month and directed him to pay $75.00 per month on arrearages calculated to be $8,350.00,1 retroactive to 1983. This amount of arrearages represented the accumulated support obligation resulting from the appellant’s unreported income as well as the result of a dispute over the paternity of one child.2 Mr. Akers filed exceptions to the new support order, but the exceptions were denied on May 23, 1986.
Subsequently, Mr. Akers filed a petition to modify the support order claiming that he had resigned from his part-time job at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena as of April 22, 1986 based on his psychologist’s advice, and that he would be laid off from his full-time employment at US Steel effective September 5, 1986. On October 28, 1986, a modification hearing was held. The hearing officer determined Mr. Akers had a total earning capacity of $1,467.00 per month. Of this amount, $967.00 represented the unemployment compensation Mr. Akers was receiving due to his lay-off at US Steel; the remaining $500.00 was income imputed to Mr. Akers for his employment at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena. The hearing officer ordered Mr. Akers to pay $300.00 per month in support (a reduction of $150.00) and $150.00 per month on the arrearages (an increase of $75.00). Timely exceptions to this order were filed and dismissed.
*8Unlike the majority in this case, I cannot condone the gross injustice practiced by the trial court which, in effect, has forced appellant to work two jobs. While one’s initial reaction when fqced with a case where the husband has deliberately hidden his second income from the trial court is to find him to be in contravention of the support laws, I find that closer consideration leads one to the realization that the courts are penalizing a man for being more industrious than is necessary to survive.
Here, Mr. Akers’ initial support payment was properly calculated based on his full-time employment at US Steel. Subsequently, he opted to use his free time each week to work a second job to earn extra money. In working over forty hours each week, Mr. Akers undoubtedly had to sacrifice much of his own private time and the time he would have had to spend with his present family. I cannot accept the idea that the appellant’s extra time has become subject to the court's control simply because he chose to spend it at a second job. The court could not order Mr. Akers to work a second job initially and it should not be able to force him to continue that employment once he has decided that the second job no longer profits him, financially or otherwise.
I would remand for modification of the support order so that Mr. Akers’ payments are based only on his earning capacity at one full-time job and for commensurate reduction in the amount of his payment toward the arrearages. Had appellant timely appealed from the determination of the arrearage amount, I would have remanded to reduce the arrearage in the amount owed, due to Mr. Akers’ part-time employment at the Civic Arena.

. Later the court discovered a miscalculation in the arrearages and decreased the amount to $7,500.00.

. $4,350.00 of the $8,385.00 arrearages was based on Mr. Akers' unreported second income.