Court Opinion

ID: 9763036
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:35:48.216399+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:39.017102
License: Public Domain

BECK, Judge,
concurring:
At issue here is whether the trial court acted properly by awarding child support significantly lower than the presumptive guidelines figure. In view of the function of the guidelines and their underlying rationale, I find the trial court’s deviation from the guidelines amount unjustified. Although I agree with the majority that the child support order entered here must be reversed and the case remanded for a redetermination of support, my reasons differ substantially from those of the majority.
The majority holds that child support cases which fall within the guidelines can be decided under a variety of approaches, including the Melzer formula, and that the “traditional broad discretion in the trial court to determine these matters remains unrestricted.” The majority’s view represents a serious and detrimental retreat from the enlightened guidelines approach to child support determinations. The guidelines were an intelligent response to the indisputable crisis for our nation’s children. Broad reform *266for child support was critically needed. Use of the guidelines promises fairness, uniformity and clarity coupled with flexibility. The majority’s opinion would retain the old support determining system, but add the guidelines as yet another tool. The majority’s opinion keeps in place an antiquated system which has proved to be unfair to the children it is intended to assist.
Before elaborating on the central considerations regarding the child support guidelines, I believe a more complete statement of the facts which give rise to the instant appeal is important. Appellant Teresa Ball (“wife”) and appellee Thomas Minnick (“husband”) separated in 1980 and have been divorced for approximately four years. They have two children, ages 15 and 10, who reside with wife. Both parties are remarried. Wife has a child from her second marriage. She, her new husband, their child and the children of the former marriage all live together. Husband’s present wife has two children from a previous marriage for whom she has not sought and does not receive child support.
Numerous child support awards have been ordered and modified since the parties separated in 1980. This appeal stems from a petition for modification which was filed by wife in October, 1989. A domestic relations hearing officer recommended that child support in the amount of $500.00 per month be paid by husband to wife. This figure approximated the guidelines amount which is $513.00 per month based on the incomes of the parties. Husband sought a hearing de novo before the trial court, claiming that the recommended amount was excessive. A hearing was held on March 6,1990. Wife and husband testified. Thereafter, the trial court entered an order for child support in the amount of $400.00 per month. It is from this order that wife appeals.
The testimony at the hearing went solely towards establishing the income of the parties and the estimated expenditures of each household. Wife’s earning capacity was stipulated to be at the minimum wage and the parties agreed *267that her income potential was $400.00 per month. Wife is a waitress who was, at the time of the hearing, unable to work due to recent surgery. She testified that although she regularly worked twenty hours a week, she wanted to work increased hours but that her employer could not guarantee her more work.
Wife testified that her present spouse was unemployed, was looking for work but was unable to drive. Therefore, he was dependent on her to drive him around in search of employment. Wife further testified that she and her family depended on food stamps to supplement her monthly income and also received state assistance in paying their heating costs. Wife enumerated her approximate monthly expenditures, which totalled about $850.00 per month for five people. This figure did not include expenditures for food which were covered by food stamps nor did it include the energy assistance the family was receiving.1
At the hearing it was concluded that husband’s income was about $1700.00 per month. His present wife recently began working as a nurses’ aide to help cover household expenses. Husband’s monthly expenses, although spent on a household smaller than wife’s, were almost double wife’s monthly budget. Husband did not testify to any extraordinary obligations or unusual or special needs and the trial court made no findings regarding a particular disability by husband to pay the guidelines level of support.
In its opinion in support of the $400.00 per month child support it ordered, the trial court explained its reasoning as follows:
*268The total monthly budget of [wife’s] household is $850.00 per month. The parties’ children constitute forty per cent of that household, and the sum of $340.00 per month reflects their reasonable needs. The Court has concluded that the reasonable needs of the children are about $400.00 per month.
This Court is aware that the guidelines are a starting point only. The Court has considered the expenses of both parties and their standard of living. It is clear that an Order of $400.00 per month meets all the basic needs of the children, so that that any contribution made by [wife] will serve to enhance the standard of living of the children. The Court believes that aft award in the guideline amount would require this [husband] to pay 60% of the expenses of [wife’s] household, and thus subsidize [wife’s] current husband and their child.
The trial court’s opinion does not reflect an understanding of the guidelines scheme. The guidelines approach assumes that an average family with a specified income spends a certain amount for child support. Therefore, the guidelines formula adds the mother’s and father’s income and uses that figure as the sole basis for the support determination. The precise expenditures of the mother’s and father’s households are not relevant since the guidelines have built into the formula hypothetical expenditures that an average family consisting of a certain number of children would spend. In the instant case, the fact that under the guidelines the father’s expenditures for a household smaller than the mother’s was greater than hers would not mean that the father would pay less support. Nor under the guidelines would the fact that the mother lives more frugally and has fewer expenses penalize her by an award for a lesser amount. Since average child expenditures are built into the formula, the judge can determine the proper range of support by reference to the parties’ incomes alone.
*269The commentary to the Pennsylvania rules which establish the guidelines recognizes this principle and emphasizes it as follows.
The guidelines make the support of a child a primary obligation. They assume that parties with similar net incomes will have similar reasonable and necessary expenses. After the basic needs of the parents have been met, the child’s needs shall receive priority. A party will not be rewarded for making unnecessary expenditures for his or her own benefit by having his or her support obligation reduced. Neither will a party be penalized for living frugally by receiving less support. In most cases, the parties’ living expenses are not relevant in determining that party’s support obligations because a support obligation is not based upon the amount of money the parties are actually spending on themselves and their children. Rather, as the statute requires, the obligation is based upon the reasonable needs of a dependent spouse or child and the reasonable ability of the obligor to pay.
Pa.R.C.P. 1910.16.1, Explanatory Comment — 1989, (B)(1) (emphasis added).
The guidelines represent a radical shift in the way support determinations are made. An understanding of this requires a discussion of the theoretical and historical roots of the child support guidelines, their goals and their proper application. The movement toward uniform state guidelines represents a significant departure, as well as an advance, in family law. Therefore, although the majority’s recitation of the history of support matters is elucidating and no doubt accurate, it fails to take into account the bright signal for fundamental change which the guidelines manifest.
The impetus behind the nationwide enactment of child support guidelines is well-known but bears emphasizing here. An economic crisis of almost overwhelming scope faces the women and children of this country who comprise *270female-headed, single-parent families.2 The number of such families living in poverty grossly exceeds the national average.3 Moreover, the rate at which women and children are descending into poverty is so severe that studies have predicted that, unless the present trend is slowed or reversed, nearly all Americans living in poverty in the year 2000 will be women and children in single-parent families.4 Finally, the impoverishment of this segment of the population represents a problem of immense dimension for the entire nation, for it is estimated that one-half of the children in the United States will spend a portion of their childhood living in a single-parent home.5
Inadequate, unenforced and inequitable child support awards have contributed significantly to the crisis of poverty which confronts single-parent families.6 Many custodial *271parents have never been awarded child support. Others have been unable to collect the awards ordered. Finally, the awards, even if paid, often have been far too low to approach even poverty-level subsistence standards, much less the true cost of reasonable child-rearing.7
In addition to the inadequacy of child support awards, the inconsistency of such awards drew criticism. Often the existence or the amount of a child support order depended upon the individual and diverse attitudes of the judges before whom the cases were heard. These disparities engendered perceptions of unpredictability and unfair treatment of children whose parents were divorced. Finally, because courts and the parties had little guidance in setting and predicting the levels of awards, the efficiency of the court process was undermined and settlements were made more difficult.
As a partial response to these problems, Congress initially enacted the federal Child Support Enforcement Amendments of 19848 which required each state to adopt child support guidelines based on “specific descriptive and numeric criteria and [which would] result in a computation of the support obligation.” Four years later, the federal Fami*272ly Support Act of 19889 required that states’ guidelines operate as a rebuttable presumption beginning in October 1989.
Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure 1910.16-1 et seq. represents this Commonwealth’s compliance with federal law regarding child support guidelines. The rule creates a rebuttable presumption regarding what constitutes an appropriate level of child support based on the combined net incomes of both parties. The guidelines provide the parties in usual circumstances with an exact figure of the amount of support. This preciseness will enable many parties to settle their differences and arrive at an agreed support amount without intervention of the courts.10 However, the guidelines also provide a mechanism to deviate from the indicated amount. Where flexibility is required the trial court may permit such deviation upo.i a specific finding that the guideline amount would be “unjust or inappropriate.” Pa.R.C.P. 1910.16-l(b). This permissive deviation provides judges with the necessary flexibility to assure that the award of support is fair.
The child support guidelines adopted by this Commonwealth are based upon the Income Shares Model developed by the Child Support Guidelines Project of the National Center for State Courts.11 The income shares model has as *273its fundamental precept that, following a divorce, children should receive the same proportion or “share” of parental income that would have been received had the household remained intact.12 This model is consistent with a recurring but difficult to achieve objective in family law which is to insulate children, wherever possible, from the negative economic impact of divorce.13
The income shares model operates as follows. The income of the two parents is determined and then combined.14 This figure is then used to calculate a basic child support obligation. These guideline figure calculations are based on extensive economic studies which establish the estimated average expenditures on children in a two-parent family living in one household. The cost of supporting children reflected in the computations has been determined by studying families of varying size and at varying income levels. The basic child support obligation then is a figure which represents the proportion of the combined parental income which parents living together in the same household ordinarily spend on their children. The formula also flexibly permits adjustment to the basic child support obligation for special expenses or needs. That amount is then divided between the parents in proportion to their respective net incomes. Where, as here, the children reside with one parent, that custodial parent’s share of the child support obligation is retained and presumed to be spent directly on the children. The non-custodial parent’s share is expressed *274in terms of a monthly child support award payable to the custodial parent.15
At the heart of the economic principles underlying our guidelines is a move away from a case-by-case, expense-based approach to child support determinations and toward an income-based model. See Blaisure v. Blaisure, 395 Pa.Super. 473, 477, 577 A.2d 640, 642 n. 1 (1990) (“new guidelines assign a percentage of income, rather than a need determination, as the basis of the award”). This shift has been prompted by a number of problems inherent in an expense-based approach. First, as the comments to the guidelines observe, “[bjecause household spending on behalf of children is intertwined with spending on behalf of adults for most expenditure categories, it is difficult to determine the proportion allocated to children in individual cases, even with exhaustive financial affidavits.” Pa.R.C.P. 1910.16-1, Explanatory Comment — 1989, Part A. A large portion of household expenditures fall into categories which do not lend themselves to reliable apportionment between adults and children. Moreover, in part because there are numerous hidden costs to child-rearing, parents regularly underestimate the amounts they spend on their children.16
In addition, expense-based calculations of child support unnecessarily engage judges and litigants in controversies involving subjective judgments about what constitutes a reasonable expense either for the parent or the child. Experience has taught us that parties can easily control and even manipulate expenses and as a result child support determinations have often been inconsistent, arbitrary and inequitable.
The guidelines approach adopted by our Commonwealth was designed to eliminate the need to examine on a case-by-case basis the ordinary expenses of raising children. Be*275cause the guidelines grid and formula are based upon what an ordinary family spends to raise a child, ordinary expenses have already been taken into account. The quantitative computations already reflect a judgment regarding the reasonable needs of children in order to maintain minimal standards of well-being. It is clear from this discussion and also for reasons of practicality, consistency and predictability, that cases which fall within the income-level limits of the guidelines17 are to be decided by the guidelines grid or formula, and not from previous need-based case law formulas.
Where a case falls within the guidelines, I conclude that the guidelines were intended to replace the Melzer formula which has as its basis the calculation of the “reasonable needs” of the child in each discrete case. The majority which continues the viability of the Melzer formula has done a disservice to families whose income falls within the guidelines. It has needlessly complicated the support calculation. It has weakened if not erased the remedial purpose of the guidelines and returned us to a situation when child support awards were formulated haphazardly with concomitantly inequitable results.
The guidelines seek to promote predictability, uniformity, and most importantly, adequate levels of support. The majority is in error when it argues that to give the guidelines strong presumptive weight would somehow encourage the formulation of unjustifiably high awards upon which the obligee could not “collect”. The majority identifies the cause of the impoverishment of children as the failure of the support enforcement system. The majority asserts, without support, that “[a]t least one-half of the problem [of the impoverishment of women and children] lies with the collection process rather than the Order of support itself.” *276While the enforcement system has been defective, research has shown that the cause of the impoverishment of children lies more squarely in the inequity of support orders and only partially in the failure of the enforcement system. (See footnote 7.) A recent study in exploring the reasons for impoverishment of children finds that the “adequacy gap” exceeded the “compliance gap” several fold.18 The Advisory Panel on Child Support Guidelines19, which prepared the seminal report to the United States Office of Child Support Enforcement under the auspices of the National Center for State Courts, supports this conclusion and states “the inadequacy of child support awards is a much more serious issue than was previously understood.”
It is important to note that the drafters of the guidelines did not view them as static. The exhaustive economic studies which resulted in the present guidelines will continue and the guidelines will be subject to revision and rethinking. Built into the guidelines is the concept of restudy and reevaluation. Presumably, should a time come when guidelines amounts overcompensated custodial parents and the children in their care, corrective measures would be taken to form a more equitable scheme.
Turning to the instant case with these principles in mind, it is clear that the trial court impermissibly deviated from the presumptive guidelines. The trial court employed the expense-based method the guidelines were meant to eliminate.
The trial court concluded that the “reasonable needs of the children” are about $400.00 per month. This conclusion is not borne out by the record. More importantly, in a *277guidelines case, the needs of the children have already been calculated into the formula and a needs or expense analysis is therefore irrelevant. The court also considered other irrelevant factors. Explicit in the court’s deviation from the guidelines is its concept that were father required to pay the full guidelines support amount he would be “subsidizing” appellant’s new family. Under the guidelines father’s obligation is based on what would have been spent on the children had the marriage not dissolved. The guidelines attempt, insofar as is possible, to approximate the standard of living the children would have enjoyed had the family stayed together. Father would therefore merely be paying his share, in the same proportion as his income compares to appellant’s, of the costs of raising his children. The fact that father’s child support obligation may indirectly impact on the standard of living of the people with whom his children now share a home does not provide a basis for depriving the children of their requisite share of support from him. If such support overburdened the father or was unnecessary for the support of the children then deviation from the guidelines should be considered. See Pa.R.C.P. 1910.16-1, Explanatory Comment — 1989, (B)(8), Allowable Deviations. Clearly, no matter how comprehensive a guidelines scheme attempts to be, it cannot embrace every circumstance. Special expenses or special needs might well justify departures from the guidelines. The record here, however, reveals nothing which would warrant a departure from the guidelines.
Furthermore, I appreciate that for the father in this case, payment of the guidelines level of child support would represent a significant financial burden. Neither party to this dispute has adequate economic resources. But the policy of our law is clear — children are the first priority. Whenever possible, children of a divorced family are not to be impoverished as a result of the family dissolution. Absent special circumstances, I conclude that appellee must provide support for his children proportionate to his income and in line with the presumptive guidelines amount. There*278fore, I find the court in error. The judge considered irrelevant factors in order to deviate from the guidelines. I would remand to the trial court for reconsideration of the support amount in accordance with the guidelines.
This court must decide whether the antiquated system for determining child support should be retained. The majority’s opinion would retain the system despite the fact that it directly conflicts with the policy of our state and nation, and continues a support determining system which has proven to be systematically unfair for the children of divorce.
While I too would reverse the order of child support, I cannot support my colleagues’ rationale and the regrettable direction it portends.

. The entire extent of wife’s testimony regarding monthly household expenditures was as follows: rent — $200.00; electricity — $58.00; car insurance — $181.00; gas — $100.00; food (over and above her $138.00 food stamp allotment) — $200.00; medical insurance — $40.00; heating (over and above unspecified energy assistance) — $75.00. Notably, these figures do not include any expenditures for telephone, clothing, dental care, school-related purchases, or medicine, all of which are basic, recurrent needs. The trial court expressed surprise that wife’s monthly budget "would be so low.” Unfortunately, the trial court then used this bare-bones, subsistence-level monthly figure to justify a reduction in the amount of child support to which the children were presumptively entitled under the statewide guidelines.

. In the vast majority of divorce cases, women receive custody of the children. Various studies conclude that roughly between 80-90% of custodial parents are women. See Goldfarb, What Every Lawyer Should Know about Child Support Guidelines, 13 F.L.R. 3031 (1987) citing Bureau of the Census, U.S. Dep’t of Commerce, Household and Family Characteristics: March 1985, Current Population Reports, Series P-20, No. 411, at 11, Table G (1986); J. Wallerstein & J. Kelly, Surviving the Breakup: How Children and Parents Cope with Divorce 121 (1980); Weitzman & Dixon, Child Custody Awards: Legal Standards and Empirical Patterns for Child Custody, Support and Visitation After Divorce, 12 U.C.D.L.Rev. 473, 502-503 (1979). Thus it appears that "single-parent family is almost always synonymous with “female-headed, single-parent family”.

. See Billings, From Guesswork to Guidelines — The Adoption of Uniform Child Support Guidelines in Utah, 4 Utah L.Rev. 859, 867 (1989), citing Bureau of the Census, U.S. Dep’t of Commerce, Money Income and Poverty Status Of Families and Persons in the United States: 1985, ser. P-60, no. 154, at 4, 6 (1986).

. National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity, Critical Choices for the ’80s 1 (1980).

. See Goldfarb, Child Support Guidelines: A Model for Fair Allocation of Child Care, Medical, and Educational Expenses, 21 Fam.L.Q. 325, 349 (Fall 1987), citing H.R.Rep. No. 527, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. 30 (1983).

. Of course, additional factors also add to the economic woes of single-parent families, such as the discrepancy between the earning power of women and men, the lost earning potential inherent in the custody of minor children, and the increased but often hidden costs of child-rearing in single-parent households. See, McLindon, The Economic Disaster of Divorce for Women, 21 Fam.L.Q. 351, 396 (Fall *2711987) citing Fineman, Implementing Equality: Ideology, Contradiction and Social Change, Wisc.L.Rev. 789, 830 (1983).

. One commentator noted:
According to recently released Census Bureau statistics, the average amount of court-ordered child support due in 1985 was only $2390 per year, or $199 per month. These meager awards covered an average of 1.7 million children. Average child support orders are inadequate to raise children even at the poverty level and amount to only a quarter of the average expenditures on children in a middle-class household.
Goldfarb, What Every Lawyer Should Know About Child Support Guidelines, supra note 3, at 1301 (footnotes omitted); see also Williams, Guidelines for Setting Levels of Child Support Orders, 21 Fam.L.Q. 281, 283-284 (Fall 1987); Billings, From Guesswork to Guidelines — The Adoption of Uniform Child Support Guidelines in Utah, supra note 4, at 863-869.

. Child Support Enforcement Amendments of 1984, PL 98-378, 98 Stat. 1305 (codified at 42 U.S.C. § 667 (Supp.V.1987)).

. Family Support Act of 1988, PL 100-485, 102 Stat. 2343 (codified at 42 U.S.C.A. §§ 651-669 (Supp.1989)).

. One of the considerations in devising social policy is the transactional cost of that policy. The guidelines represent social policy which, if followed, will reduce transactional costs substantially. If . the parties know with some certainty the outcome of their case, they will more likely settle than have the matter resolved in the courts; thereby saving legal fees, court costs, and judicial resources. The instant case represents a matter where both parties have meager resources. One can speculate that a strict policy of adherence to the guidelines would have permitted the parties to direct their financial resources to better use than litigation.

. See Pa.R.C.P. 1910.16-1, Explanatory Comment — 1989, Introduction Part A. This approach has also been adopted by the Family Law Section of the American Bar Association. See Report to the House of Delegates on Child Support, 1986 A.B.A.Sec.Fam.L.Rep. 1. This method is not the only existing model for establishing support guidelines. In fact, a state-by-state study of the varying approaches to support *273computations reveals an enormous assortment of formulas and methods. See Child Support Guidelines: A Compendium — March 1990, National Center for State Courts.

. See Pa.R.C.P. 1910.16-1, Explanatory Comment — 1989, which notes that: “[The Income Shares] Model is predicated on the concept that the child should receive the same proportion of parental income that he or she would have received if the parents lived together."

. See Pharoah v. Lapes, 391 Pa.Super. 585, 592, 571 A.2d 1070, 1074 n. 6 (1990); Maurer v. Maurer, 382 Pa.Super. 468, 475, 555 A.2d 1294, 1297 (1988).

. Our guidelines are based on net income figures and provide for permissible deductions in order to arrive at monthly net income. Pa.R.C.P. 1910.16-5(b).

. The guidelines provide for additional methods of calculation if the parties have divided or split custody of the children. These methods are not at issue here.

. See Billings, supra note 4, at 890 citing L. Weitzman, The Divorce Revolution: The Unexpected Social and Economic Consequences for Women and Children in America, at 272 (1985).

. The guidelines grid and/or formula only applies to those parties whose incomes fall within a certain range. As the guidelines themselves provide, parties whose joint monthly income exceeds $8,000 must have their child support obligation determined on the basis of existing case law rather than the guidelines computations. Pa.R-C.P. 1910.16-5(d). This exception does not apply to the instant case.

. Robert G. Williams, Development of Guidelines for Child Support Orders: Advisory Panel Recommendations and Final Report, Part I, National Center for State Courts, 1987, at 1-6.

. This advisory panel was established by the U.S. Office of Child Support Enforcement in early 1984 at the request of the House Ways and Means Committee. It consisted of officials from the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of government as well as representatives of custodial and non-custodial parents, a legal scholar and an economist.