Court Opinion

ID: 9676665
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:29:50.350607+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:50.090949
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice,
concurring specially.
I concur in the result reached by the majority opinion. If the crime for which a parent obligated to pay support is incarcerated arises out of the family relationship, as it does in this instance, I agree the courts should not forgive the support payments while the obligor is incarcerated. Such a position may be contrary to our previous pronouncements that modification of support payments is justified when a material change in circumstances has occurred, and that a significant factor in making that determination is evidence of a change in the financial circumstances of either party. E.g., Burrell v. Burrell, 359 N.W.2d 381 (N.D.1985). An obligor who is imprisoned and who has no other sources of income with which to pay the child support is unable to earn an income to pay the support obligation and there is thus an *303obvious change in the obligor’s financial circumstances, i.e., the ability to pay the support obligation. Nevertheless, I believe public policy (perhaps public outrage would be a more apt term) demands that we not approve a reduction of child support in those instances in which the obligor is imprisoned for conviction of the crime of incest involving one of the obligor’s children.
But I would leave open the more general question of whether or not a reduction is justified in the support obligation of a parent imprisoned for a crime other than a crime that arises out of the family relationship. The authorities are divided on that issue and there are persuasive policy arguments on both sides of the issue. See e.g., the discussion in Ohler v. Ohler, 220 Neb. 272, 369 N.W.2d 615, 618, wherein the majority, analyzing the authorities from other jurisdictions, concluded that incarceration resulting in reduction or elimination of income or assets does not constitute such a material change of circumstances as to warrant temporary termination of child-support obligation and the dissent by Chief Justice Krivosha concluded that where the incarcerated parent has no assets and can do nothing about paying the child-support judgment the trial court should, at a minimum, be permitted to consider that fact and not be automatically barred from that consideration.
The majority in this instance would appear to prohibit, as a matter of law, any reduction in the support obligation of any incarcerated parent because such incarceration is voluntary and self-induced and, applying equitable principles, should not justify a reduction in child support. Although I agree that may, as a matter of fact, be the result in many instances, I would not require that result as a matter of law except in instances such as this case, in which the incarceration is for a crime arising out of the family relationship. Muehler v. Muehler, 333 N.W.2d 432 (N.D.1983), did espouse, as dicta, the application of equitable principles to the reduction of support obligations, although the basis of the trial court’s decision to reduce the obligation was a change in circumstances resulting from the other parent’s employment and increased income and this Court’s conclusion was that the increased income was not a change in circumstances justifying a reduced spousal support. It is a quantum leap from the facts or even the dicta in Muehler to a holding that parents who are incarcerated and therefore unable to make support payments are ineligible, as a matter of law, for a reduction in those obligations.
Because I fear the majority opinion will, notwithstanding the facts of this case, be read to establish a rule that a parent who is incarcerated is automatically barred from seeking a reduction in support payments and because I believe that decision should ordinarily remain an issue of fact to be determined from the circumstances of the particular case, I concur only in the result reached by the majority opinion.
MESCHKE, J., concurs.