Court Opinion

ID: 9733433
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:07:36.886436+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:41.463314
License: Public Domain

HOOD, Chief Judge
(dissenting).'
. I, of course, .recognize that the amount a father may be required to pay for the support of his minor child rests largely in the sound discretion of the trial court; but such discretion is not unlimited and any award of support must have some reasonable basis. In my opinion, the award in this case has no reasonable basis and constitutes, an abuse of discretion. Here the father’s earnings approximate $62 a week and he must provide for himself and his two older children, yet he is ordered to pay $20, nearly one-third of his income, for the support of the youngest child. I can perhaps agree with my colleagues that the “needs of a six-year-old child can adequately withstand the test of a twenty-dollar weekly award,” but by the same reasoning the needs of a seventeen-year-old boy and a fifteen-year-old boy can well amount to forty dollars. Having thus taken care of the needs of his three children, the father would be left with $2 a week for his support.
Unfortunately in many cases of this type the needs of the children must be given secondary consideration. Because of the limited earnings of the father, his ability to pay is the primary factor. If he is to contribute anything, he must first earn it; and out of his earnings he must provide the 'basic necessities of life, at least, for himself. To require this father, who is providing for two of his children, to pay $20 a week, out -of his earnings of $62 a week, for support -'of the third child is, in my opinion, unfair •and unreasonable. I think the judgment 'should be modified by reducing the award from $20 a week to $10 a week, a realistic figure suggested to the trial court by the wife’s attorney.