Court Opinion

ID: 9753399
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:12:39.140979+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:35.880935
License: Public Domain

Dooley, J.,
¶ 16. dissenting. This case is entirely controlled by Lambert v. Beede, 2003 VT 75, 175 Vt. 610, 830 A.2d 133 (mem.), and the suspension of mother’s operator’s license should be reversed because of her inability to pay the child support arrearage. While I agree that the magistrate acted within her discretion in denying the motion to continue, the record before her conclusively showed inability to pay.
¶ 17. Under the child support enforcement statute, a current inability to pay is a complete defense to a license suspension to enforce child support orders. 15 V.S.A. § 798(a) (“An inability to comply shall be a defense in an action brought under this subsection.”). We summarized the applicable law in Lambert:
Although the payment of child support is a serious obligation, the state enforces payment orders against noncompliants through various civil rather than criminal sanctions____To avoid qualifying as punishment, a civil sanction such as license suspension “must be capable of being avoided by defendants through adherence to the court’s order.” Sheehan v. Ryea, 171 Vt. 511, 512, 757 A.2d 467, 468 (2000) (mem.); see also Russell v. Armitage, 166 Vt. 392, 399, 697 A.2d 630, 635 (1997) (citing ability to comply as one of three issues requiring consideration in every hearing regarding civil contempt for failure to pay child support).
In contrast to criminal sanctions, civil sanctions aim to compel compliance rather than *634to punish those in contempt. A court must therefore consider a child support debtor’s ability to pay before imposing a civil sanction. Sheehan, 171 Vt. at 512-13, 757 A.2d at 468-69 (declaring incarceration an improper sanction for an individual in contempt of child support obligations who does not have the ability to pay these obligations); Spabile v. Hunt, 134 Vt. 332, 335-36, 360 A.2d 51, 52-53 (1976) (sanction for noncompliance with child support payments inappropriate where it does not contain any findings as to the husband’s ability to meet his eour1>deereed obligations); Andrews v. Andrews, 134 Vt. 47, 49, 349 A.2d 239, 241 (1975) (“Civil contempt can be found where a party, though able, refuses to comply with a valid, specific court order.”). We have also required courts to consider ability to comply before ordering sanctions that are less restrictive than incarceration. Mayo v. Mayo, 173 Vt. 459, 463-64, 786 A.2d 401, 407 (2001) (mem.) (rejecting modification of a noncompliant’s final divorce order as an inappropriate child support enforcement sanction where evidence did not establish financial ability to make support payments). We must therefore administer § 798(c)’s license suspension provisions consistent with our other civil sanctions, recognizing ability to comply as a prerequisite to enforcement.
The purpose of the child support enforcement statutes is to ensure that children enjoy the “standard of living [they] would have enjoyed had the marriage not been dissolved.” 15 V.S.A. § 650 (setting out the purpose of all child support provisions and enforcement measures). Here, where an individual is unable to pay due to an income of only $796 per month in disability benefits and his children have reached the age of majority, the statutory purpose can no longer be satisfied. Along with producing little benefit, upholding the decision below would improperly convert § 798 into a punitive measure, as Beede cannot pay his outstanding arrearage of $29,269.28 or regress in time to make the good faith efforts required of him by the magistrate. If Beede should ever receive an inheritance, or should he win the lottery, 33 V.S.A. §§ 3902(e) and 3903 will ensure that these funds go towards settling his arrearage. In the meantime, Vermont law does not allow the state to continue his license suspension under 15 V.S.A. § 798 as a punishment for his past behavior.
2003 VT 75, ¶¶ 11-13. The majority holds that the requirements of Lambert have been met in this case because the magistrate and the family court explicitly found that mother has the ability to pay the outstanding child support arrearage on which the license suspension is based.
¶ 18. I agree that the magistrate checked a box to find that mother has the ability to pay the arrearage, and the family court affirmed. The majority concedes, however, that the license suspension order “does not contain specific findings regarding mother’s ability to pay.” In fact, there is no evidence to support this conclusion, and the findings are inconsistent with the conclusion. The *635magistrate found orally that mother’s income is “support through the church but... she herself receives no wages or other means of income which is subject to any remedy that the court has tried to exercise.” This magistrate was also the magistrate in 2002 when OCS last sought enforcement of mother’s child support obligation. The magistrate found then:
At all times since the nominal support was first ordered in 1991, Mother has been a member of the Twelve Tribes Community. The Community is a religious group in which the members live together and share all things in common. As a member of the Community, her needs (food, shelter, etc.) are met by the other members, and Mother devotes her efforts to meeting the needs of the Community by providing care to the children of the Community, cooking, and taking care of other members.
Mother is physically healthy. She is a high school graduate. She is 51 years old. She has not worked outside the Community since she joined in 1983.
As a member of the Community, Mother receives a pro rata share in the income that the Community generates. Her share in 2000 was $4889. Her share in 2001 will not exceed $5000.
If the latter finding involved cash to mother, there would be support for the magistrate’s conclusion that mother has the ability to pay the child support arrearage. It is undisputed, however, that mother has no actual income as the magistrate found in this proceeding. OCS acknowledged this reality in its oral argument to this Court. The pro rata share to which the magistrate referred in 2002 is only the paper value of mother’s services as the church reported for tax purposes.2 That amount was $4,889 per year.
¶ 19. This brings us to the heart of the matter. The majority concludes that mother has the ability to pay “based on mother’s pro rata share of the Community income and her age, health, and education.” Ante, ¶ 8. Specifically, it holds that ability to pay must be determined based on the statutory definition of available income in 15 V.S.A. § 653 to include “in-kind payments” and the “potential income of a parent who is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed.” In doing so, the majority has written the ability to pay requirement out of the statute for everyone except welfare recipients.
¶ 20. There is no evidence in this case of the value of the shelter, food and clothing provided in-kind by the Community to mother; the evidence is only a tax calculation of the value of mother’s labor as a share of the Community’s income. Thus, like the family court, the majority is counting income to the Community as if it were income to mother.
*636¶ 21. More significant, “ability to pay” necessarily involves a determination of net available income unless we are holding that no living expense, including food or shelter, can take priority over paying child support. The evidence is that $4,889 of income was attributed to mother in 2001. That amount is about 60% of the poverty level for a single person in 2001. 66 Fed. Reg. 10695 (February 16, 2001) (poverty level is $8,590 per year). If we are saying that a person living at well below a subsistence level has the ability to pay based on that income, there is no meaningful ability to pay requirement.3
¶ 22. Nor is it an answer that mother is underemployed and the court can impute income to her. The requirement is that there be “present ability to pay.” Hunt v. Hunt, 162 Vt. 423, 436, 648 A.2d 843, 853 (1994). No such finding is possible here with respect to an obligor who has no money and no assets that can be turned into money. Nor is there a finding that a fifty-one year old high school graduate, with children, who has worked as a cook and caretaker, can make substantially more money. Finally, the court must find that the underemployment of the parent is not in the best interest of the child, 15 V.S.A. § 653(5)(A)(iii)(III), essentially a value judgment of whether the children are better raised within the religious community or without. There is, of course, no finding on this point; such a finding would inevitably second-guess mother’s religious choice.
¶ 23. In essence, the majority has said that the determination of whether there is a child support obligation, determined under the definitions of income in § 653(5), governs whether there is an ability to pay. Since some child support obligation is always imposed, no matter how low the obligor’s income, 15. V.S.A. § 656(b), it is tautological that there is always some ability to pay. This analysis is directly contrary to the holding in Lambert, which held that the obligor was unable to pay as a matter of law because he had “an income of only $796 per month in disability benefits.” 2003 VT 75, ¶ 13. Thus, under Lambert, where the obligor had an income almost twice that attributed to mother in this case, the ability to pay was determined by the amount of the income. Nowhere does the decision talk about the obligor’s inability to earn more income. As I said in the opening of this dissent, Lambert should govern here.
¶ 24. Although unsaid directly, the majority’s affirmance of the suspension of mother’s license rests on its conclusion that mother should be required to leave the Community, reside on her own outside the communal living situation of the Community and earn income independently to pay the child support arrearage. We rejected exactly this result in Hunt v. Hunt in relation to a family court holding that a Community resident was in contempt of court for failing to earn money outside the Community to pay child support. 162 Vt. at 437-38, 648 A.2d at 853-54. We held:
In the contempt hearing, the State offered no evidence that it was pursuing the least restrictive alternative. Essentially, the State sought a harsh sanction in a case of imputed income. At oral argument before this Court, counsel for OCS acknowledged that his office exercises considerable discretion in pursuing delinquent obligors. OCS generally follows up on cases with a “reasonable possi*637bility” of successful collection —■ generally, not delinquent obligors without assets or employment. The State has failed to establish that contempt and jail are the least restrictive means to further the state’s compelling interest in enforcing the child support obligation. Contempt and incarceration are not, per se, impermissible infringements on free exercise, and may be imposed provided the State makes the requisite showing as mandated by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In this case, however, the State has failed to make this showing, and therefore the contempt order impermissibly burdens defendant’s free exercise rights as guaranteed by the federal constitution.
Id. at 437-38, 648 A.2d at 854.
¶ 25. A substantial part of the magistrate’s hearing in this case was taken up by her asking the OCS representative what alternative to license suspension OCS had pursued. OCS’s response was that it had not, and would not, pursue an alternative. Essentially, its position is that license suspension is an alternative to contempt, and OCS can pursue it irrespective of the presence of any other remedy. OCS argued this position at the family court hearing:
[I]t’s also not clear to me that the statute isn’t ... or can’t be imposed entirely for what amounts to punishment reasons. I — again, this is not civil contempt. No one is going to be jailed and although there is a right... an interest that a person has in having or obtaining a driver’s license it’s not the same.
¶ 26. The OCS position, and the majority’s acceptance of it, is contrary to our analysis in Lambert where we held that we must “administer § 798(e)’s license suspension provisions consistent with our other civil sanctions, recognizing ability to comply as a prerequisite to enforcement.” 2003 VT 75, ¶ 12. Specifically, we held that license suspension cannot be used as a punishment. Id. ¶ 13. The responsibility of OCS to show the absence of an alternative enforcement method should be as strong for license suspension as it is for contempt.
¶ 27. The majority’s answer to the conflict between mother’s religious practices and the demands upon her to avoid license suspension is that mother can serve the Community without a driver’s license. That finding is irrelevant to the basic conflict and reinforces the conclusion that mother must abandon her religious convictions or lose the right to drive an automobile. Under these circumstances, the license suspension is purely a punishment for mother’s adherence to her religion. As we held in Lambert, § 798 does not authorize using license suspension to punish behavior which the State finds undesirable. Id. ¶ 13. This holding is particularly pertinent when that behavior is compelled by religious beliefs.
¶ 28. I dissent from the majority’s holding that grounds existed to suspend mother’s driver’s license. I would reverse.

 The evidence for this finding was mother’s testimony. She filed a letter from the treasurer of the church community in connection with her financial disclosure. His letter stated that the pro rata share of the church’s income allocated to mother was as found by the magistrate. During the 2002 hearing, the magistrate asked mother “for the year 2000 the pro-rata share of income of the order allocated to you was $4,889 and that a schedule K1 was filed with the IRS confirming that amount. Do you agree with the contents of this letter that’s what happened?” (Emphasis supplied.) Mother answered ‘Yes.”

 The holding is even more extreme where the “income” is in-kind receipt of food, clothing and shelter as if these necessities could be sold to produce cash to pay child support.