Court Opinion

ID: 9553438
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:29:42.767798+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:31:05.916130
License: Public Domain

ORME, Judge
(concurring in the result):
I concur in the court’s judgment but do not subscribe to all of its analysis. Specifically, I am concerned that the majority's unqualified statement concerning the effects of § 78-45-7(1) on stipulated child support adjustments goes too far.
The stipulated adjustment provision in this case is admittedly problematic in two respects. It purports to permit an adjustment up or down any time income changes, up or down. It also is not drawn precisely enough to be self-executing. Thus, I agree it is ineffective, in the face of § 78-45-7(1) and otherwise.
Not before us, but potentially subject to the same general prohibition under § 78-45-7(1) articulated by the majority, is a stipulated arrangement whereby support would increase annually in accordance with the percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index or an arrangement whereby support would increase annually in proportion to any increase in the obligor’s adjusted gross income. Such arrangements are on a different footing than the one before us and ought to be permitted.
Child support is ultimately for the benefit of the children and their parents cannot stipulate away their fundamental entitlement. Section 78-45-7(1) is both for the benefit of the children, so that the amount of their support can be, hopefully, increased on occasion, and for the protection of the obligor, to insulate him from recurring reassessment every time there is some minor change in circumstance. Arrangements of the sort mentioned in the immediately preceding paragraph, in which the obligor stipulates away his protection under § 78-45-7(1), while the children benefit from an increase even absent a material change in circumstance but are protected from any decrease unless a material change can be shown, simply do not violate the purpose of the statute and should ordinarily be enforced in accordance with their terms. See Christensen v. Christensen, 628 P.2d 1297 (Utah 1981) (Supreme Court reversed modification of child support provision in decree, leaving in place stipulated provision whereby support would be automatically increased on annual basis in amount of 50% of obligor’s income if income increased beyond stated level).
Technically speaking, this discourse should be altogether unnecessary since the case before us does not involve an arrangement of the sort I would approve. Nonetheless, unqualified pronouncements made in one case often come back to haunt in cases involving different facts. Thus, it is appropriate to point out that in properly condemning a provision which is not automatic and would by its terms permit decreases, as well as increases, when § 78-45-7(1) would not, it is unnecessary to paint with as broad a brush as the majority has selected. Stipulations of other sorts, specifically including the kind I have in mind, are not before us, from which it follows that nothing in the main opinion should be taken as necessarily prejudging their enforceability under § 78-45-7(1).