Court Opinion

ID: 9692732
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:02:26.644526+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:36.375864
License: Public Domain

Justice EAKIN,
concurring.
I join the majority opinion, which properly holds that, “incarceration, standing alone, is not a ‘material and substantial change in circumstances’ providing sufficient grounds for modification or termination of a child support order.” Yerkes v. Yerkes, 151 MAP 2001, at 13 (footnote omitted). Although I completely agree with this statement, I cannot agree that incarceration is not a substantial change of circumstance; it clearly is, and we should not, and need not, avoid saying so.
We need not because the heart of the matter is the second half of the phrase, not the first. The proper question is whether this is a change that allows an existing support obligation to be modified or terminated. While incarceration should be acknowledged to be a significant change of circumstance, it may not be grounds for modification or termination of a child support order, as a matter of public policy.1