Court Opinion

ID: 9884214
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:47:51.758143+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:36.584156
License: Public Domain

POPOVICH, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent and would affirm the trial court:
1.I am troubled by the majority’s finding the trial court erred when finding it had no power to increase support obligations for children between the ages of 18 and 21. While this court has ruled reduction can be made for child support between 18 and 21 in Streitz, I found no supreme court case holding that increases are authorized too. In Fairbum, the trial court increased child support to the age of 18, but reduced it to the original stipulated amount for the period of 18 to 21. We approved the reinstating of the stipulated amount at the age of 18. No authority has been cited by the majority to permit application of the guidelines for support between 18 and 21. Neither has the legislature addressed the question. Without case law or statutory authorization to do so, I believe the trial court was correct in its finding. Eventually, perhaps, the supreme court will give us a definitive answer.
2. Our scope of review in these matters is limited. We should reverse only when there is clear error and not because we might have arrived at a different result had we been the trial court. If the record is sufficient to affirm, we should do so.
3. The parties’ marriage was dissolved in 1971. The issues were resolved based upon a stipulation between the parties, including maintenance, property settlement, and child support in the amount of $200 per month per child. Subsequently, each party remarried. The decree was amended in 1975 to eliminate the maintenance amount because of petitioner’s remarriage. It was not until 1984 that petitioner sought an increase in support from $200 per child to $700 per child per month.
An evidentiary hearing was held on January 8, 1985. Both parties testified and 32 exhibits were received. The trial court denied petitioner’s motion to raise the child support. The trial court found “that there had been a substantial change in the circumstances of both parties and the children of the parties but that such changes do not make the original terms of the judgment and decree unreasonable or unfair.”
At the time of the dissolution, petitioner was a homemaker and her sole income consisted of trust income between $8,000 and $10,000 per year, maintenance of $9,600 per year, and child support of $8,400 per year. She graduated from law school in 1975, engaged in the private practice of law, and became a referee of the family division of the Hennepin County District Court where she currently earns in excess of $54,000 per year.
In 1979 she received a substantial inheritance from her grandfather and created the Mary D. Winter Revocable Trust of 1980. She may revoke the trust, have the assets turned over to her at any time, and enjoys the right to obtain the income and invade the principal at her discretion. In 1983, she received more than $70,000 from that trust and her yearly income from the trust is *82approximately $22,000. The trust’s value currently exceeds $350,000.
She also continues to receive income from the A.H. Davidson Trust in the amount of $11,800 per year. She remarried in 1977 and her current husband is an assistant county attorney whose salary is in the mid $40,000 range.
4. The children also are the beneficiaries of sizeable trusts which, by their terms, can be used for their care and support. If children have sizeable assets and income of their own, it affects the needs and changed circumstances test. The trial court found the total principal balance of the childrens’ trusts currently exceeds $355,000. While the respondent’s income has likewise increased since 1971, so has his marital status and needs. Changed circumstances alone do not support an upward support modification. Giencki v. Haglund, 364 N.W.2d 433, 436 (Minn.Ct.App.1985). The income and resources available to petitioner and the children amply provide for the childrens’ needs.
The majority misconstrues the dissent’s position by claiming under the theory that the fairness of the decree ends if the chil-drens’ needs are being met, a decree would never be unfair if the custodial parent provides for more than the childrens’ basic needs. They do not discuss the effect on the needs test when children have assets and income of their own. Here the children have trust assets exceeding $355,000.
The principle that concerns this dissenter is whether assets and income of the children should also be considered, not only the changed circumstances of the custodial and non-custodial parent. Here the childrens’ trusts were created after the 1971 dissolution. The majority imply that the dissenter requires the noncustodial parent to provide for all of the childrens’ needs. That is an incorrect assumption. In my opinion, if children have assets and income of their own, that should be considered in evaluating whether the custodial or noncustodial parent is required to pay more simply because their circumstances have changed too.