Court Opinion

ID: 9737934
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:37:19.049255+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:02.568371
License: Public Domain

HABHAB, Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur with the majority except that part that remands this cause for hearing pursuant to the Uniform Child Support Guidelines. As to that part, I dissent.
This cause was tried to the court on June 12, 1989. The temporary child support guidelines were not adopted as permanent child support guidelines by the supreme court until September 29, 1989. Under the circumstances here, I see no reason to remand for the guidelines were nonexistent at the time of trial.
The supreme court order that adopted the guidelines provided that when the amount prescribed was used by the trial court as the basis of an award, a rebuttable presumption of correctness was established. Since it is a rebuttable presumption, the litigants should be afforded the opportunity to make their record as to why the amount as prescribed should serve as the amount to be awarded as child support or whether that amount, because of the special circumstances of the case, should be adjusted either upward or downward. I believe that when an amount is granted that is inconsistent with the guidelines, the trial court, if it does not employ the guidelines, should be afforded the opportunity to explain by written findings why the guidelines are unjust or inappropriate. For these reasons I agree that we, as an appellate court, should not for the first time impose those guidelines. I also agree to the extent that In re Marriage of Jennings, 455 N.W.2d 284 (Iowa App.1990), conflicts with the majority opinion, it should be overruled.
However, under the circumstances here, I see no reason to remand. The trial court fixed child support under the law as it existed at trial time. The support issue was litigated in accordance with the then statutory and case law. Merely because the guidelines were adopted after trial and during the course of the appeal is not sufficient reason to remand for rehearing on the issue of child support. I, of course, would require adherence to the supreme court’s order of September 28, 1989, on all cases tried on and after the date of its adoption.