Court Opinion

ID: 9744288
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:59:24.298561+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:48.247143
License: Public Domain

ROBB, Judge,
concurs in result with separate opinion.
I concur in the majority's result regarding whether Mother received notice that child support would be at issue alongside college expenses. The majority notes that "oftentimes child support and college expenses are linked." Op. at 565 (emphasis added). I believe this is one of those cases in which they were not necessarily linked. When Father filed his petition for modification, both boys were living in Father's home, and the child who was soon to attend college intended to continue living in Father's home. Under those circumstances, college expenses could have been addressed without the need for considering a change in child support because all the same living expenses would have been incurred by Father for the boys' support. The majority determines that Father "clearly viewed college expenses and child support as related," id. at 566, and regardless of how he styled his motion, this case involves interrelated questions of child support and college expenses, so "Mother could not have been surprised that child support was addressed." Id. at 567. When it comes to notice of the issues that will be tried, what Father believed he was asking for is not as relevant as what Mother believed was being asked. Had cireum-stances remained the same, I would hold that Mother did not receive adequate notice from Father's petition that child support would also be considered. -
By the time a hearing was held on the petition, however, one of the boys had already moved out of Father's home and the other was planning to, and a reconsideration of child support was warranted. If the trial court was to abate child support for the period after the boys moved from Father's home, it was also able to reconsider child support in total for the period after Father's petition was filed. That the child support Mother was obligated to pay for the retroactive period increased is a vagary of the particular cireumstances of these parties. More specific notice ultimately would not have made a difference in the outcome because of the specific facts of this case, and I therefore concur in the majority's result that the trial court properly addressed both child support and col*572lege expenses, and I concur fully in the remainder of the opinion.