Court Opinion

ID: 9566758
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:42:48.470851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:39:17.591284
License: Public Domain

*298Brailsford, Justice
(dissenting in part) :
I concur in the disposition of the issues on this appeal by the opinion of the Chief Justice, except for so much thereof as appears to hold that the divorce court lacked authority to award child support, in excess of the amount awarded in the prior action, without proof of a change of conditions warranting the increase. This was the view taken by the trial judge, who refused to consider the evidence tending to show that the allowance of $50.00 per week for the support of the three children, supplemented by the earnings of the mother, was wholly inadequate to enable her to provide a suitable home for them. This basis of judgment is made plain by the language of the decree. “(T)he first Order determined the (issue) of . . . child support. . . . There has been no change of conditions which would justify an increase in the child support payments.”
The relevant section of the divorce statute, Section 20-115, Code of 1962, imposes no such limitation on the power of a divorce court to “make such orders touching the care, custody and maintenance of the children ... as from the circumstances of the parties and the nature of the case and the best spiritual as well as other interests of the children may be fit, equitable and just.” Such orders may issue “at any stage of the cause, or from time to time after final judgment. . . .” While the language of some of our decisions suggests that change of conditions must be shown to justify modification of order for child support payments, no case has been cited, and I have found none, in which the point was actually involved and decided.
Significantly, Section 20-116 does require a change of conditions as a prerequisite to an application by either party for modification of the provisions of a judgment of divorce for periodic payments of alimony. If the legislature had intended this limitation to apply to child support payments, it surely would have said so.
In any event, I am satisfied that the divorce court’s authority and responsibility under Section 20-115 to weigh *299the evidence and make fit, equitable and just provision for the maintenance of the children was not limited by the judgment in the prior action for legal separation. I would reverse for error in the court’s contrary conclusion and remand the case for de novo consideration of fit, equitable and just provision for the. maintenance of the children.
Bussey, J., concurs.