Court Opinion

ID: 9623822
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:44:08.6968+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:35.146860
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE WHITING,
dissenting.
I dissent for two reasons.
First, the trial court and the majority treat the allocation of the risk of the father’s bona fide job change as an “either/or” proposition, and require the father to assume the entire risk of its success, regardless of whether his job change was a reasonable business decision made in good faith. In doing so, they regard as irrelevant the evidence already in this record that would support a finding that the father’s job change was a bona fide and reasonable business undertaking. I think that this evidence was relevant and should have been considered.
*157Nor can I agree that the Court of Appeals fell into the same “either/or” error by allocating the entire risk upon the children and not the father, as the majority implies. Rather, I believe the Court of Appeals remanded the case for the trial court’s reconsideration of all relevant factors; “along with the other usual factors” is the Court of Appeals’ language.' Antonelli v. Antonelli, 11 Va. App. 89, 95, 396 S.E.2d 698, 701 (1990).
In my opinion, one “usual” or relevant factor to be considered should be an allocation of the burden of the father’s reduced income between the father and his children, if the evidence already before the trial court establishes that the job change was based on a reasonable business decision, made in good faith. Should the trial court find that a reduction was justified in these circumstances, it need not impose the entire burden of the father’s reduced income on either the father or the children. Instead, it should apportion the burden between the two in deciding how much to reduce the father’s support obligation.
This seems fair for two reasons. First, if the father had been a custodian of the children, either before or after the marriage terminated, the children would have shared the benefits and burdens of this risk with their father.
Second, Code § 20-108 authorizes the court to “revise and alter [its] decree concerning the . . . maintenance of the children and make a new decree concerning the same, as the circumstances of the parents and the benefit of the children may require.” Thus, if the father’s job change had increased his income, this “changed circumstance” might authorize an increase in the support payments due the mother as custodian of the children. Because the children can share in the benefits resulting from an increase in the father’s income, a trial court should consider whether the children should bear any burden resulting from their noncustodial father’s decreased income, provided his decision to change jobs was made in good faith and was a reasonable business decision.
My second reason for dissenting is that I do not agree with the majority that the “effect” of the Court of Appeals’ remand of the case was to give the father a second opportunity to prove an element of his case that he had not proven in the first instance. I find nothing in that Court’s opinion which would authorize the father to introduce any additional evidence in this case. Rather, I believe that the Court of Appeals clearly directed the trial court to recon*158sider the previously disregarded evidence in the following language of one of its concluding paragraphs:
The trial court found that Mr. Antonelli had demonstrated a material change of circumstances. It was silent as to the required corollary finding of whether this change justified the reduction sought. The trial court found that Mr. Antonelli’s career change was a voluntary act. It should also have determined whether that change was a bona fide and reasonable business undertaking or whether it was for the purpose of reducing his ability to support his children. It should have determined whether his financial reverses resulted from his wrongful act or neglect. It should have considered the case findings, along with the other usual factors, in ruling on Mr. Antonelli’s petition. Its failure to do so was error.
Antonelli, 11 Va. App. at 94-95, 396 S.E.2d at 701 (emphasis added). Therefore, I believe that the remand was simply one requiring the trial court to apply the proper standard of consideration to the evidence before the court.
As the Court of Appeals did, I would remand this case with instructions that the trial court correct its error by considering the previously disregarded evidence as one of the relevant factors in deciding whether and how much to reduce the court-ordered support payments.