Court Opinion

ID: 9704258
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:28:26.091593+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:19.932554
License: Public Domain

LEVY, J.,
dissenting.
[¶ 22] I respectfully dissent because the trial court’s findings regarding Carolan’s imputed income were supported by competent evidence in the record and were not clearly erroneous.
A.Income Imputed for Value of Rent Reduction
[¶ 23] Carolan testified that her parents charged the previous tenant of her house $1300 per month, but that they charge her $1000 per month. When asked whether she was “doing certain things for them to get the rent reduction,” she testified that she was “doing lots of yard work” and was “in the process of painting some of the rooms.” Carolan also testified that she and her parents never discussed the $300 as a rent reduction, and that it was her own choice to perform services for the home because she intended to buy the home. However, when she was asked, “Well, they reduced the rent by three hundred dollars for you, correct?” she responded, “They charge me a thousand dollars a month. Yes.”
[¶ 24] The trial court’s decision to treat the rent reduction as imputed income was not, as the Court suggests, based on mere speculation about prevailing rental rates, but was instead based on Carolan’s testimony that indicated that the rent reduction may be in exchange for her services. The trial court had the opportunity to observe Carolan and judge her credibility, and it reasonably could have inferred from her testimony that she received the rent reduction as part of a tacit agreement to provide home services. See Jenkins, Inc. v. Walsh Bros., Inc., 2002 ME 168, ¶ 7, 810 A.2d 929, 933 (“The meaning and weight to be given the exhibits and the testimony of the witnesses is for the fact-finder to determine and must be upheld unless clearly erroneous.”); Sturtevant v. Town of Winthrop, 1999 ME 84, ¶ 9, 732 A.2d 264, 267 (“[T]he function of an appellate court is not to review a cold transcript and draw its own factual inferences”) (quotation marks omitted). The trial court did not commit clear error in treating the $300 rent reduction as imputed income.
B. Income Imputed for Value of Health Insurance
[¶25] I agree with the Court’s conclusion that the trial court did not err in imputing the value of Carolan’s employer-provided health insurance to her as income because it is an “in-kind payment[] received by a party in the course of employment ... [that] reduce[s] personal living expenses.” 19-A M.R.S. § 2001(6)(B) (2006). I write separately on this point to note that there is no requirement that a party prove that, in the absence of the health insurance, the employer would have paid the employee compensation in an amount equal to the value of the benefit provided. We should conclude simply that where, as here, an employee receives employer-paid health insurance as a benefit of employment that reduces personal living expenses, a court has the discretion to consider the value of the same when determining that employee’s gross income for purposes of section 2001(5)(B).
C. Income Imputed for Additional Hours of Work
[¶ 26] Carolan testified that she does not work Fridays because her employer does not have hours on Fridays and she chooses not to work so that she can take her son to *952and from school in Auburn: “I want to spend time with my son. And the time that I’m allotted to spend with him is Thursday evening, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So I will not get another job while I have my son.” She also appeared to concede the possibility that she could “find employment [on Fridays] between eight-thirty and three o’clock in Auburn.”
[¶ 27] Based on the majority’s review of the written trial record, it concludes that Carolan’s decision to not work on Fridays is reasonable, and that it is not unjust to use her existing earnings to calculate the amount of child support Bell should pay. As an appellate court, we do not review “cold transcript[s],” Sturtevant, 1999 ME 84, ¶ 9, 732 A.2d at 267, and superimpose our collective assessment of the weight to be given to the witnesses’ testimony and the exhibits, and the meaning to be drawn from the evidence as a whole. The majority’s approach begs the question of whether the trial court committed clear error when it determined that Carolan was underemployed. Carolan’s own testimony establishes that she need only work an additional four to eight hours per week to achieve a forty-hour work week, and it is reasonably possible for her to do so on Fridays, albeit with an employer other than her current employer.8 Because there was competent evidence from which the trial court could infer that Carolan could readily work additional hours without substantially disrupting her and her son’s existing schedules, the court did not commit clear error.
[¶ 28] Our standard of appellate review requires that we uphold factual findings if there is any competent evidence in the record to support them. See Wrenn v. Lewis, 2003 ME 29, ¶ 13, 818 A.2d 1005, 1009. We should affirm the judgment.

. Carolan testified that, as indicated in her most recent pay stub, she was paid for approximately thirty-six hours per week. She explained that some of those hours were taken from her account of paid time off, which accumulates based on hours worked and can be used for vacation days or sick days, but which she sometimes uses to supplement her pay-