Court Opinion

ID: 9682484
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:11:52.443039+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:39.648130
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion in its holding that social security payments be automatically credited against a child support obligation.
The trial court had credited social security payments to the support obligation of the father’s estate without any motion or showing by the estate, but merely in response to the mother’s motion for collection on arrears. The exclusive method for modifying a child support order is found in KRS 403.250(1), which requires that a child support order can be modified “only upon a showing of changed circumstances so substantial and continuing as to make the terms unconscionable.” Thus, although the trial judge has the right to make a set-off, he can do so only upon the motion of the paying parent which shows sufficient changed circumstances.