Court Opinion

ID: 9746617
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:29:50.469432+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:15.379923
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
concurring:
At first the result in this case appears harsh: an unemployed father, in debt and receiving only $173 a month on welfare, is ordered to continue paying $100 a week in child support. However, I believe Judge SUGERMAN has accurately stated both our standard of appellate review and the substantive law, and has reached the correct result. I write separately only to highlight very briefly the portions of the record that lead me to agree with Judge SUGERMAN.
Critical to me are Judge HONEYMAN’s findings that appellant’s earning capacity had not decreased and that appellant had not been sufficiently diligent in looking for work. When appellant failed to appeal Judge HONEY-MAN’s order of July 18, 1978, these findings became res judicata. When appellant was before Judge BROWN, therefore, it was his burden to show that in the five weeks between July 18 and the filing of his second petition, his situation had materially changed. The transcript makes clear that Judge BROWN believed that any difficulties appellant might be facing in the labor market were no *369different from those he had faced in July, and that principles of res judicata therefore precluded a finding that appellant’s earning capacity had decreased. Without a finding of decreased earning capacity, the increased debt incurred by appellant between July and October was not by itself a material change in circumstances. Likewise, as long as appellant’s earning capacity was unimpaired, he was not entitled to either a temporary reduction in the support order or relief from accumulated arrearages.