Court Opinion

ID: 9750028
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 14:14:12.890456+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:01.725586
License: Public Domain

Morse, J.,
dissenting. Because I believe the Court misconstrues the child support guidelines law, I respectfully dissent.
Under 15 V.S.A. § 659(a), the trial court may exercise discretion in establishing child support only if it “finds that a child support order based on the support guidelines would be inequitable.” This determination of inequitability is a prerequisite to the court’s exercise of discretion in setting an amount more or less than the guideline figure.
The legislature did not define what it meant by “inequitable.” Nonetheless, a reading of the statute as a whole sheds light on the legislature’s intent on this critical issue. As is well established in our law, the primary objective in interpreting a statute is to give effect to the intent of the legislature. State v. Yudichak, 147 Vt. 418, 420, 519 A.2d 1150, 1151 (1986). If doubt exists as to the plain meaning of statutory terms,
or if the statute is ambiguous, the legislative intent “should be gathered from ‘a consideration of the whole and every part of the statute, the subject matter, the effects and consequences, and the reason and spirit of the law.’”
Paquette v. Paquette, 146 Vt. 83, 86, 499 A.2d 23, 26 (1985) (citations omitted).
In adopting the new child support statute, the legislature stated its purpose as follows:
The legislature ... finds and declares as public policy that parents have the responsibility to provide child support and that child support orders should reflect the true costs of raising children and approximate insofar as possible the standard of living the child would have enjoyed had the marriage not been dissolved.
*11615 V.S.A. § 650 (emphasis added). That policy is reiterated in § 654 of the legislation:
The rule shall be based on the concept that children should receive the same proportion of parental income after separation or divorce of their parents as they would receive if their parents were living together in one household.
The priority is clear. Children come first. Their living standard should not drop “insofar as possible.”
To accomplish this overriding purpose, the Secretary of Human Services is charged to “prescribe by rule a guideline for child support which reflects the percent of combined gross income which parents living in the same household in Vermont ordinarily spend on their children.” 15 V.S.A. § 654 (emphasis added). That amount shall then be “divided between the parents in proportion to their respective gross incomes.” § 656(a). “The noncustodial parent shall be ordered to pay, in money, his or her share of the total support obligation to the custodial parent.” Id. Because this figure is derived from what Vermont parents ordinarily spend on their children, it necessarily reflects their other ordinary expenses. The guideline thus already takes into account expenses such as home mortgage payments and purchases of common consumer goods. These expenses, therefore, do not justify a departure from the guidelines. By relying on them for just that purpose, the trial court — and this Court today — contravened, in my view, the core purpose of the legislation, to protect the children of a divorced family by assuring that their standard of living does not plummet. This priority is given lip service today by the Court, but that’s all.
Defendant concedes on appeal that his “expenses were all related to a purchase of a home and furnishings for that home.” Notably, defendant has not alleged the existence of any involuntary expenses such as unexpected medical costs, nor has he alleged an involuntary reduction in disposable income, such as would arise from being laid off. In fact, his gross income from his primary job had increased about forty-five percent since the divorce decree, from $18,000 to $26,000 per year. (In addition, he earned $2,000 a year from a part-time job.) His claim that a guideline-based order would be ineqhitable is based solely on *117voluntary undertakings, expenses common for one in his circumstances. Cf. Garrow v. Garrow, 150 Vt. 426, 428-29, 553 A.2d 569, 571 (1988) (voluntary reduction of income not grounds for reducing support order). These expenses include payments on his $37,700 home mortgage as well as considerable short-term consumer debt on his four credit cards.
Defendant’s brief purports to compare the parties’ financial situations, alleging that plaintiff currently has a monthly disposable income of $8 while defendant suffers a shortfall of $642. This alleged discrepancy is not determinative of the issue. The courts should not further burden a custodial parent for living frugally in order to provide for her children in need and reward the noncustodial parent who, despite a higher gross income, has gone into debt. The legislature has determined that his children come first, before the obligations of his new home and furnishings; he must share, in the same proportion as his gross income compares to plaintiff’s, in the cost of their upbringing.
While I agree with most of what is said in the Court’s opinion, I do not construe § 659, which permits deviations from the guidelines “[i]f the court finds that a child support order based on the support guidelines would be inequitable,” to allow a deviation on this record. The Court’s holding today will lead to irrational results, rendering the child support law less effective and fair; indeed, it undermines the explicit purpose of the legislation. If defendant’s new house and furnishings came before his children, he would not be honoring his “responsibility to provide child support [where] child support orders should reflect the true costs of raising children,” § 650, and the children’s needs would not be met by “the parents in proportion to their respective gross incomes,” § 656.
In light of the legislation as a whole and its evident purpose, § 659 must be given a more narrow reading. The trial court’s discretion to deviate from the legislative scheme is constrained. The determination of inequitability cannot be supported by the sorts of facts already considered in arriving at the support guideline figure. As stated above, that figure depends on what parents “ordinarily spend on their children,” an amount that necessarily reflects their other ordinary expenses. The legisla*118ture therefore did not intend that ordinary expenses incurred by the noncustodial parent could support a finding that a guideline-based order would be inequitable. Only extraordinary expenses can justify a departure from the guidelines. This record reveals no extraordinary expenses. What they might be should be left to subsequent cases.
Whether or not defendant has a duty to support his stepson pursuant to 15 V.S.A. § 296, such a duty should not dilute his duty to pay child support to his natural children under 15 V.S.A. § 656(a). As I have emphasized, the guideline figure is based on the parties’ gross incomes. “Gross income” is defined to include “income from any source.” 15 V.S.A. § 653(5)(A). There is no exemption for income that a parent spends on a stepchild, unless that amount constitutes “preexisting ... child support obligations actually paid.” § 653(5)(E)(i). Here, of course, any amount defendant is obligated to pay his stepson does not constitute a preexisting support obligation. Indeed, his duty to his natural children is the preexisting obligation vis-a-vis his stepchild.
I am not of the view that defendant has no obligation to support his stepson. I would hold only that any such obligation must not be subtracted from his gross income in calculating the guideline child support figure. In this sense defendant’s obligation to his stepchild is no different than his obligation to pay taxes. He may have a legal duty to pay both, but neither enters into the calculation of his child support obligation under the statutory guidelines.
It may be useful to compare the situation of a parent who is subject to a child support order stemming from a former marriage. In such a case, the earlier child support obligations, if actually paid, may reduce the parent’s obligations to the children of the second marriage under the new statutory framework. See 15 V.S.A. § 653(5)(E)(i). Children of the second marriage receive diminished support relative to children of the first marriage. The legislature had to choose where to place the inevitable hardship — all things being equal — resulting from the assumption of second-family responsibilities. It chose to keep child support, as dictated by the guidelines in the usual case, *119intact for children who were already the beneficiaries of a child support order. This is as it should be. The decision to assume added familial responsibilities should include an evaluation of the added cost, without factoring in a reduction in support to children of the divorce to help finance the second family. In short, the Court’s decision today reduces the cost equation at the expense of children of divorce.
I would not fashion a per se rule. Expenses for children in a second family in some instances might well warrant a departure from the guidelines. It is not necessary to broaden discretion under § 659(a)’s inequitability standard, however, to, in the words of the Court, “prevent[ ] the guideline system from being wholly arbitrary.” This case involves expenses related to defendant’s stepchild and second wife which were neither onerous nor extraordinary. The trial court found that the stepson’s mother — a college graduate, a violinist, and experienced as a secretary with administrative skills, who wished to be with her family rather than work the six months prior to the hearing— has “financial resources as represented by her education and her former work experience.” We cannot ignore this finding unless it is clearly erroneous, V.R.C.P. 52, and no one argues that it is clearly erroneous. Moreover, as defendant concedes in his brief, “Mr. Ainsworth’s expenses were all related to a purchase of a home and furnishings for that home.” It is on these facts that I would conclude that the trial court’s determination of inequitability under § 659(a) was not permitted.
Defendant emphasizes that the motion for modification was brought less than eighteen months after the original divorce decree. There may indeed be some “unfairness” to the noncustodial spouse inherent in these circumstances. He may not have expected a sudden increase in child support obligations, and he may have planned his life accordingly. But the legislature made a deliberate policy choice to prefer this “unfairness” over the unfairness both to children whose living standards would drop without sufficient support and to custodial parents bearing more than their fair share of the cost of raising their children. Besides, while defendant may not have expected the law on child support to change as it did, the law did not “strike out of *120the blue.” The law was enacted on May 13, 1986, to go into effect on April 1,1987. The purpose for the delay was to allow the Secretary of Human Services to prepare the guidelines, 15 V.S.A. § 654, and, perhaps, to give notice to those who may be caught in a transition from the old way of deciding child support issues. Thus, defendant was on notice that he might have to pay more support if what he agreed to pay in 1986 varied more than fifteen percent from what the guidelines showed when promulgated in 1987. Moreover, the guidelines had been in effect nearly five months when defendant remarried and purchased a house.
Under today’s ruling, determination of child support is subject in large measure to the vagaries of individual judgment as to what is fair, given all the facts and circumstances of each case. The guidelines, however, are designed to give child support determinations a measure of predictability and equality and to reduce litigation. They are intended to ensure that like cases will be treated alike by judges who do not think alike in this area of subjective value judgments. If the guidelines are circumvented under the “equitable” rubric of § 659(a), we will return to the inequities, waste and drain of preguideline litigation. Exceptions' to the guidelines should not be based on a judge’s opinion of the fairness of the guidelines per se or upon voluntary undertakings by a party to establish and support a second family with funds that would otherwise go to support existing children. This policy may not appear romantic, but it reflects the pragmatic belief that new obligations should not be created or assumed at the expense of existing ones.
Accordingly, I would reverse and remand for an order setting child support at $141 per week.