Court Opinion

ID: 9726279
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:40:22.748438+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:24.876574
License: Public Domain

GUSTAFSON, J.
I concur in the judgment and in the opinion except with respect to the order refusing to increase the amount of child support.
There are so many factors which a court may properly consider in reaching its determination whether to increase child support that the discretion of *588the trial court is necessarily very broad and an abuse of discretion is therefore rare. Moreover, appellate courts, I suppose, are very reluctant to find an abuse of discretion for fear that they will be deluged with appeals from child support orders. Nonetheless, I feel that there was an abuse of discretion in this case.
As I see it, it is improper to consider the additional $28 per month which defendant in the past has paid for the child’s support and maintenance. This was a voluntary payment on defendant’s part and may be discontinued at any time. I think it is also improper to consider the fact that defendant may be obligated to spend a considerable amount in the future for the child’s education. That obligation is subject to many contingencies including death of the child and election of the child not to attend college. Moreover, insofar as it operates after the child reaches 21 years of age, it is an obligation which the defendant voluntarily assumed by contract with plaintiff. Defendant was not obligated to undertake support of the child beyond the child’s 21st birthday. The premiums on the National Service Life Insurance policy on defendant’s life, which policy must be maintained with the child as beneficiary for a limited time, are so small that defendant did not even bother to include them in his listed expenses. Similarly of little significance is defendant’s obligation to pay all of the child’s extraordinary medical and dental expenses since, as the court observes, defendant carries “dependent medical insurance’’ with the premium deducted from his gross pay.
In any event, the obligations to provide the child a college education, to maintain an insurance policy for his benefit and to pay his extraordinary medical and dental expenses are exactly the same now as they were in 1960 when defendant earned $14,000 per year and the amount of child support was fixed at $75 per month. We must look to the circumstances which have changed, not to those which remain the same.
In 1960 the child was 18 months old. When the order denying an increase in child support was made the child was over 9 years old. It obviously costs more to maintain a 9-year-old boy than an 18-month-old baby. This is one change in circumstances indicating a need for more child support.
The cost of living increased appreciably from 1960 to 1968 and this is a second change of circumstances indicating a need for increased child support.
The property settlement agreement shows on its face that it was contemplated that plaintiff would obtain employment and that she would also continue her education. She did just that. She worked almost steadily from 1961 to July 1, 1967. She also attended a law school from time to time. *589When plaintiff moved the court on April 21, 1967, for an order increasing child support, one basis was that her health had deteriorated and that she would be unable to work as much as she had in the past. That situation came to pass. At the time of the November 27, 1967, hearing she had been working only part time for several months and was earning about $146 per month. Throughout the opinion of this court it is intimated that plaintiff’s claim that she cannot work because of her health is untrue. For example, the court states that “just prior to the within proceedings, plaintiff quit her job claiming ill health and is now devoting herself to her law studies.” First, the fact is that plaintiff continued to work as long as she could and was working when these proceedings were instituted and at the first hearings (May 15 and 16, 1967). The hearings were recessed for several months and it was during that recess that plaintiff was forced to quit work. Second, the trial court, as I read its opinion and the order based thereon, did not attribute plaintiff’s low earnings to any feigned illness of hers.
The trial court said: “The evidence does not show any actual increase in the need for child support except indirectly as it may result from plaintiff’s present [low] earnings. This would not seem to warrant an increase in the child support payments per se.” As I read the memorandum of the trial court, there is a need for increased child support resulting indirectly from plaintiff’s drastically reduced income due to her inability to work full time. This means that more than $75 per month was needed to support the child and that plaintiff was making up the difference. It is obvious to me from plaintiff’s statement of the child’s expenses, from defendant’s statement of his expenses for his family and from the minimum standards set by the State Department of Social Welfare for payments to a dependent child that $75 per month is insufficient to support a 9-year-old child.
But in addition to the three factors mentioned above clearly indicating a need for increased child support, there is no question about the ability of the defendant to pay an amount greater than $75 per month. As the opinion of the court notes, defendant is now making $16,000 per year more than he did in 1960. Granting that the trial court “was clearly entitled to take into account defendant’s responsibilities arising from his second marriage,” I do not think it is fair that defendant should spend, as his own figures show, an average of $350 per month for each of the four members of his present family and be obliged to pay to his child by a former marriage only $75 per month.
In Winn v. Winn (1956) 143 Cal.App.2d 184 [299 P.2d 721] the husband was earning $20,000 per year and was ordered by the trial court to pay $400 per month for the tuition of his twin 8-year-old boys in *590a private school plus $50 per month “for the support and maintenance of the children for other things beside their tuition.” The appellate court reversed the order for $50 per month as “an obvious and clear abuse of discretion.” It was much too low. It concerns me that the judiciary in the case at bench makes the child eligible to receive welfare payments from the taxpayers when his father is earning $30,000 per year.
I would reverse the order concerning child support and remand the matter to the trial court with directions to allow each of the parties to present such further evidence going to this issue as he or she desires so that whatever order is made would be appropriate for the period from April 21, 1967, to the date of the order.
A petition for a rehearing was denied July 3, 1970.