Court Opinion

ID: 9535061
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:45:05.474733+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:09.725752
License: Public Domain

BECK, Judge
dissenting.
This is an appeal from an order for the support of appellee wife and her two children in the amount of $474.00 per week. Appellant husband alleges that this figure is based on an erroneously high calculation of his income. He contends that the trial court erred in calculating his income by improperly including in that calculation a portion of the depreciation expenses of Blue Valley Lanes, Inc., a corporation in which husband is a fifty percent shareholder. Blue Valley Lanes owns and operates a bowling alley which Husband manages on a fulltime basis.
The majority agrees with husband and remands for a recalculation of husband’s income and, therefore, of his support obligation. I disagree with this conclusion on two grounds. First, although the majority faithfully recites the standard of review applicable to an appeal from a support order, the majority fails to comply with that standard in reviewing this case. Second, the majority’s resolution of the substantive *627issue presented in this case is inconsistent with this court’s clear precedent on that issue.
The majority sets forth the applicable standard of review as follows:
A trial court has broad discretion concerning support payments and we will not reverse its decision unless there is insufficient evidence to sustain it or the trial court abused its discretion in fashioning the award. More than mere error of judgment is required, discretion is abused only if the law is overridden or misapplied or if the judgment exercised is manifestly unreasonable.
Maj.Op. at 616 (quoting Caplan v. Caplan, 400 Pa.Super. 352, 355, 583 A.2d at 823, 824 (1990)).
This is an accurate statement of the law. See Crawford v. Crawford, 429 Pa.Super. 540, 633 A.2d 155, 158-59 (1993). It is not, however, all that may accurately be said of our standard of review, particularly in a case such as this where the issue is whether the trial court erred in assessing the income of the party against whom a support order is to be entered. In such a case, a panel of this court has recently stated, “[w]here the trial court finds that claims of reduced income are simply not credible, a reviewing court will generally not disturb this determination on appeal.” McAuliffe v. McAuliffe, 418 Pa.Super. 39, 42, 613 A.2d 20, 22 (1992).
Rather than curtailing its review of the instant matter so as to remain within these parameters, the majority reanalyzes the only testimony provided on the issue of appellant’s income, which was the testimony of appellant himself, and reaches a conclusion contrary to that reached by the trial court.
Moreover, in reaching this conclusion, the majority fails to follow the dictates of Pennsylvania case law in which the proper treatment of depreciation expenses in determining the income of a support obligor is clearly set forth. Older Pennsylvania cases established the principle that “depreciation is not to be considered in determining the income from which the wife may seek support.” Commonwealth ex rel. ReDavid v. ReDavid, 251 Pa.Super. 103, 106, 380 A.2d 398, 399 (1977) *628(quoting Commonwealth v. Turnblacer, 183 Pa.Super. 41, 44, 128 A.2d 177, 179 (1956)). See also Parkinson v. Parkinson, 354 Pa.Super. 419, 512 A.2d 20 (1986); Commonwealth ex rel. Hagerty v. Eyster, 286 Pa.Super. 562, 429 A.2d 665 (1981).
More recent cases have refined the current standard used to evaluate depreciation expenses in calculating the income of a support obligor. In Cunningham v. Cunningham, 378 Pa.Super. 280, 548 A.2d 611 (1988), appeal denied, 522 Pa. 576, 559 A.2d 37 (1989), a panel of this court opined:
It is well established that depreciation and depletion expenses, permitted under federal income tax law without proof of actual loss, will not automatically be deducted from gross income for purposes of determining awards of alimony and equitable distribution. In determining the financial responsibilities of the parties to a dissolving marriage, the court looks to the actual disposable income of the parties:
[T]hat income must reflect actual available financial resources and not the oft-time fictional financial picture which develops as the result of depreciation deductions taken against ... income as permitted by the federal income tax laws.
Depreciation and depletion expenses should be deducted from gross income only where they reflect an actual reduction in the personal income of the party claiming the deductions, such as where, e.g., he or she actually expends the funds to replace worn equipment or purchase new reserves.
Id. at 282, 548 A.2d at 612-13 (citations omitted). See also Heisey v. Heisey, 430 Pa.Super. 16, 633 A.2d 211 (1993) (actual available financial resources are correct basis for calculation of support obligor’s income).
This standard was even more recently supplemented by the decision in McAuliffe v. McAuliffe, 418 Pa.Super. 39, 613 A.2d 20 (1992). There, the issue was whether the trial court had erred in refusing to accept the testimony of the husband concerning the necessity of certain major expenditures he had made in purchasing new equipment for his business, thereby *629allegedly reducing his income available for spousal support. After stressing the narrowness of the standard of review applicable to support matters and quoting the pertinent language from Cunningham, the McAuliffe court explained:
Furthermore, the “new reserves” contemplated above should not be read to mean an allocation for future expenditures or the expansion of a party’s business. To the contrary, the cash outlays for “new reserves” must be necessary for the continued operation and smooth running of the business. Id. As this court has previously stated:
To allow husband to shield substantial income of his business from consideration in determining his support obligation without more evidence as to a legitimate need to do so would allow spouses with support obligations to evade their obligations by unilaterally reducing their income. This is obviously impermissible under Pennsylvania law.
King v. King, 390 Pa.Super. 226, 568 A.2d 627 (1989). Id. at 44, 613 A.2d at 22.
The McAuliffe court affirmed the trial court’s decision that approximately $200,000 spent by husband in purchasing new equipment for his business was not proven to be “necessary to maintain or preserve the business,” id., and, therefore, could not be excluded from husband’s income for purposes of setting his support obligation. The McAuliffe court specifically refused to interfere with the trial court’s assessment of the credibility of husband’s testimony.1
The McAuliffe court’s requirement that expenditures be shown to be “necessary to preserve and maintain the business” before they may be deducted in calculating the income of the business owner is not a new concept in Pennsylvania support law. In fact, the selfsame language is found in an *630older case, Williams v. Williams, 175 Pa.Super. 409, 104 A.2d 499 (1954), where the court opined:
Although depreciation must not be treated as an expense, neither can it be treated in the same category as profit. If, for the purpose of complying with a court order, a man is . compelled to expend or exhaust his capital, without opportunity to maintain and preserve that which makes his business possible, it will eventually work to the detriment of both the parties.
Id. at 413, 104 A.2d at 5Ó1 (emphasis added). Clearly the McAuliffe court was on solid ground in determining that only amounts expended on necessary maintenance and preservation of a business are properly excluded in calculating the owner’s income.
Surprisingly, the majority makes reference to McAuliffe only in response to this Dissent and then dismisses the case as not apposite to the case before us. Rather, the majority crafts its own new standard and ultimately draws a conclusion that contradicts the clear mandate of McAuliffe and Cunningham. The majority requires that two questions be answered in the affirmative before depreciation expenses may properly be excluded from a support obligor’s income — first, do the expenses represent an actual reduction in the obligor’s income, and second, were the expenses underlying the reduction reasonable or were they an attempt to shelter income for the purpose of avoiding a support obligation. Maj.Op. at 621. Thus, the majority concludes that “a finding of unreasonable depreciation expense by the court should be limited to those cases where there is evidence of blatant unreasonableness or vast change in expenditures from one year to another.” Id. at 781.2
*631This is not the standard of decision established by Cunningham and McAuliffe. As the foregoing discussion indicates, although it is proper to ask whether the expenses represent an actual reduction in income, the second question is not whether the expenses were reasonable and not an intentional attempt to evade a support obligation. Rather, we must ask whether the expenses were necessary to preserve and maintain the business. McAuliffe, 418 Pa.Super. at 43, 613 A.2d at 22. In other words, the standard is clear. Unless the amounts expended were reasonably necessary to preserve and maintain the business, they may not be used to reduce the income available for support.
Clearly it is reasonable, as the majority states, for a business owner to invest money in the expansion of the business and in the improvement of its facilities. However, the business owner, who is also a support obligor, may not improve and expand at the expense of those to whom he or she owes a legal duty of support. That duty comes first and is “well nigh absolute.” In order to expand or improve the business, the owner may be required to seek other sources of funds, such as bank loans or the owner may have to rely on his or her own resources. However, the law is clear that the overriding limitation is that it is impermissible for the owner to expand or improve the business if it means reducing the support obligations to the family. It is also impermissible for the business owner to increase the equity in the business, to his or her sole advantage, to the detriment of the support obligees. There is inherent wisdom in the principle enunciated in McAuliffe which the majority erodes. It provides a family with a stable source of support. It prevents a business person from using an accounting mechanism in order unilaterally to reduce the support obligations. Under the McAuliffe standard the business person can deduct reasonable sums to maintain and preserve the business. To expand or improve it, the business person/support obligor must rely on funds other than those necessary to support the family. The McAuliffe principle recognizes the need of maintaining a business as the source of *632family support without sacrificing reasonable support to the family.
In this case, the trial court heard the testimony of husband to the effect that the depreciation expense at issue yielded a cash flow that was reinvested in the business. Husband testified that he and his partner had purchased the business in poor condition in a highly leveraged transaction and now needed continually to update and improve the physical plant and services of the business in order to generate income with which to pay off long and short term debt as well as to provide the community with a better bowling facility. I agree with the majority that this represents a highly reasonable course of pure business decisionmaking. However, we are not reviewing husband’s decisionmaking as a business person. We are reviewing the trial court’s attempt to fashion a fair and equitable support award. In doing so, we must ascertain what income husband has available for the support of his ex-wife and children, without reduction for amounts expended to achieve husband’s personal goals for the expansion of his business or service to his community.
I find no error in the trial court’s conclusion that in this case, husband’s share of the depreciation expense of the corporation should not be subtracted from his income for purposes of calculating his support obligation. The trial court obviously did not believe that the money yielded by the depreciation expenses in this case was required to be reinvested in the business in order to preserve and maintain it. The court found instead that Husband was attempting to enhance his equity in the business at the expense of his wife and children. This is a reasonable conclusion, and certainly repre- • sents no abuse of discretion or error of law.
Since I also find no merit to either of husband’s other claims of error,3 I would affirm the order of the trial court.

. The McAuliffe court noted that the trial court had assumed that all of the depreciation expense claimed by husband had been properly spent to replace fully depreciated equipment or otherwise to preserve and maintain the business and had thereby made husband’s job of proving that his expenditures were necessary much easier. Since this assumption by the trial court was not challenged on appeal, the McAuliffe did not specifically review it.

. The majority cites Snively v. Snively, 206 Pa.Super. 278, 212 A.2d 905 (1965), in support of this proposition. The issue in Snively was whether a father could receive a reduction in his child support obligation so that he could go to college. The court refused the reduction. The case includes no commentary whatsoever on depreciation expenses or the proper manner of calculating the income of a business owner who claims a reduced income as a result of amounts expended on the improvement of the business.

. Husband also contends: 1) that the trial court’s decision in this case contradicts an earlier decision by the trial court in an action between husband and another woman to whom he was previously married; and 2) that the trial court erred in adding back into Husband’s income an entertainment expense for music played at Husband’s bowling alley. I *633would affirm on the basis of the trial court opinion on both of these issues.