Court Opinion

ID: 9522136
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:18:23.177947+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:02:19.743548
License: Public Domain

Reiber, C.J.,
¶ 12. dissenting. I would uphold the family court’s determination that husband’s incarceration due to his voluntary criminal acts against the parties’ daughter should not be considered an unanticipated change of circumstances relieving him of his maintenance obligation.2 Both our law and public policy considerations compel me to conclude that an obligor may not avoid a support obligation as the result of criminal acts that lead to the obligor’s incarceration — particularly where, as the family court found, husband’s acts were the pivotal causal factor in the parties’ divorce and ensuing support obligation. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
¶ 13. Many, if not a majority of, jurisdictions have adopted the “no justification” rule precluding the elimination or reduction of support obligations based on the obligor’s incarceration. See Staffon v. Staffon, 587 S.E.2d 630, 631, 632 n.7 (Ga. 2003) (holding that “obligor’s imprisonment for voluntary criminal acts is not grounds for a downward modification of child support obligations” based on changed circumstances, and noting that “[a]t least seventeen jurisdictions that have considered this issue adhere to *26this approach”); Yerkes v. Yerkes, 824 A.2d 1169, 1172 n.3, 1173 (Pa. 2003) (adopting “no justification” rule and noting that “[a]t least fifteen jurisdictions appear to adhere to this approach”), superseded by rule as stated in Plunkard v. McConnell, 2008 PA Super 282, ¶ 9, 962 A.2d 1227; see, e.g., Knights v. Knights, 522 N.E.2d 1045, 1046 (N.Y. 1988) (mem.) (concluding that trial court did not abuse its discretion in determining that father’s incarceration and ensuing financial hardship were not changed circumstances warranting reduction or suspension of child support payments); Ohler v. Ohler, 369 N.W.2d 615, 618 (Neb. 1985) (stating that incarceration “is certainly a foreseeable result of criminal activity” and that child support obligor may not be relieved of payments “by virtue of the fact that he or she engaged in criminal conduct”), superseded by statute as stated in Hopkins v. Stauffer, 775 N.W.2d 462, 466 (Neb. Ct. App. 2009).
¶ 14. Most of these cases concern child support obligors, but because neither child support nor maintenance obligations are punitive in nature and both are aimed at “meeting the reasonable needs of the obligee,” there is no reason to apply the “no justification” rule to child support but not maintenance. Willoughby v. Willoughby, 2004 PA Super 439, ¶¶ 1, 15-16, 862 A.2d 654 (“We hold that an obligor’s incarceration due to criminal activity does not alone represent a ‘change of circumstances’ to justify complete relief from the obligor’s spousal support obligations.”). Indeed, the public policy principles concerning equity and fairness, discussed below, that favor applying the “no justification” rule in child support cases also favor applying the rule to maintenance obligations. Id. ¶ 17.
¶ 15. Courts adopting the “no justification” rule have reasoned that it would be unfair to obligees to suspend support obligations as the result of the obligors’ voluntary criminal activities that could foreseeably lead to incarceration and loss of income. See, e.g., Staffon, 587 S.E.2d at 633; Yerkes, 824 A.2d at 1176-77. I agree that it would be anomalous to offer criminals a reprieve from their support obligations “when we would not do the same for an obligor who voluntarily walks away from his job.” Yerkes, 824 A.2d at 1176 (quotation omitted). Moreover, by waiving support payments for incarcerated obligors, we would effectively subordinate those payments to other financial obligations that under the law are not affected by the incarceration of the obligor. See id. at 1175 (“[W]e simply cannot justify relieving incarcerated *27parents of their child support obligations when they are not relieved of their other financial obligations.”); see also Staffon, 587 S.E.2d at 633 (“When people are incarcerated, they are not relieved of their other financial responsibilities, such as the making of restitution, car or mortgage payments, and the duty to support a child should be afforded at least the same legal status as these obligations”).
¶ 16. In situations involving incarcerated obligors, we have two choices — we could suspend their support obligations and thereby eliminate any chance of the obligees obtaining the support that they were granted or we could refuse to suspend the obligations and allow the payments to go into arrears if necessary. In either situation, an obligee most likely would receive no support during the obligor’s incarceration, but at least the obligee would have some hope of being reimbursed in the future for arrears in situations where the support obligation had not been suspended. Yerkes, 824 A.2d at 1174 (noting that “the ‘no justification’ rule at least provides for the possibility that the obligor will repay the support” obligation). Indeed, in this case, the trial court noted in support of its findings that at some point husband might begin to receive a future stream of income from Social Security or pension benefits that could allow him to make payments toward any support arrearage. For all of these reasons, we should not consider incarceration to be an unanticipated changed circumstance sufficient to relieve an obligor of support payments.
¶ 17. This approach is supported by our law. The governing statute provides that a court may modify a maintenance order “upon a showing of a real, substantial, and unanticipated change of circumstances.” 15 V.S.A. § 758. “A change is unanticipated if it was not expected at the time of divorce.” Knutsen v. Cegalis, 2009 VT 110, ¶ 33, 187 Vt. 99, 989 A.2d 1010 (quotation omitted) (referring to identical clause in child custody and support modification statute). Here, if husband committed the charged criminal acts against his daughter, his divorce, incarceration, and loss of income stemming from those acts could certainly be expected.
¶ 18. In support of its holding, the majority relies primarily on retirement and loss-of-job cases. According to the majority, because the divorce courts in those cases did not take into account the potential financial repercussions of the obligor’s possible retirement or job loss, the retirement or job loss had to be considered “unanticipated.” But, for the reasons stated above, the *28situation is qualitatively different when an obligor’s voluntary criminal activity led to the loss of income. When the obligor’s voluntary criminal acts result in incarceration and loss of income, we should not, as a matter of public policy, compel the trial court to weigh the financial repercussions of the incarceration before the incarceration can be considered anticipated. In essence, in such situations, we should hold that public policy considerations preclude a finding that the incarceration is unanticipated.
¶ 19. The principal case upon which the majority relies, Shaw v. Shaw, is entirely consistent with my position. 162 Vt. 338, 648 A.2d 836 (1994). In Shaw, the family court refused to modify the obligor’s maintenance obligation after he was terminated from his job, at least in part, for job-related wrongdoing that had occurred years before the divorce. We expressly acknowledged that “[wjrongdoing that results in diminished income may fall within the category of voluntary termination of employment and bar modification of maintenance on grounds of changed circumstances,” but agreed with the husband that “the wrongdoing in this case would not support a conclusion that his loss of employment was voluntary.” Id. at 340, 648 A.2d at 838. In so ruling, we noted that (1) “[t]here was no evidence that, at the time of the divorce, either party had any reason to believe husband would lose his job because of his prior actions”; and (2) the testimony at the divorce hearing did not suggest that the parties’ settlement agreement had been affected in any way by the possibility of a later job loss. Id.
¶ 20. In contrast, hére, in issuing the divorce decree, the family court specifically noted the “pivotal causal connection” between husband’s molestation of his daughter and the parties’ divorce. Moreover, there can be no doubt husband was aware that his acts against his daughter, if revealed, would likely lead to the parties’ divorce, a maintenance obligation, and incarceration. The obligor in Shaw could not have anticipated that his unauthorized purchase of a truck from a company vendor would lead, years later, to either his loss of employment or his divorce. The same cannot be said of husband’s actions here.
¶ 21. In short, the facts in Shaw are different from the facts in this case, but the rationale underlying Shaw supports affirming the trial court’s decision here. In the event that husband is ultimately convicted and incarcerated for sexually assaulting the parties’ daughter over the course of several years, he should not *29be relieved of the very obligation that resulted from such heinous acts. Cf. Waskin v. Waskin, 484 So. 2d 1277, 1278-79 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1986) (concluding that modification of alimony was not warranted where husband’s reduced finances resulted from expense in defending against criminal charges alleging that he hired someone to murder his wife, as cited in Shaw).

 This Court reversed husband’s conviction and denied the State’s motion for reargument; thus, husband’s future incarceration is once again uncertain.