Court Opinion

ID: 9707797
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:21:24.672436+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:41:55.866761
License: Public Domain

SNYDER, J.
(concurring). Because this well-intended child support order attempts to deal with a present absurdity by placing the burden of avoiding a future absurdity on Tommy, I concur that the support order must be revisited.
The family court awarded $66,300 support per year using the one-child seventeen percent standard. Requiring $66,300 to meet a single child's needs for a one-year period using a mechanistic formula is absurd. No one argues that point. Tommy's future tenure in the NFL is unknown. He has already survived an NFL punter's average 4.03 years which could bode well for him. Tukker, however, does not need, nor is he entitled to, a seventeen percent vested interest in all of Tommy's future NFL contracts.
The dissent resorts to a mathematical analysis to support the trial court's order, stating that "[u]nder the family court's base support award of $18,000 per year . . . Tommy's support obligation over eighteen years will total $324,000." Dissent at 467. The family court did not set a support obligation cap of $324,000. If it had, this case would be less troublesome. Neither did the family court set a "base support award" of $18,000. That represents the amount that Mary requested for *462present support and that she will receive directly out of the $66,300 annual support award.
Child support in excess of $18,000 per year goes into a trust. The child support order does not address when sufficient trust funds and support will have been paid by Tommy to meet all of Tukker's minority support needs. Because neither the support order nor the percentage standards address that concern, I would remand the case with the following observations.
First, the family economics experts testified that the total cost of Tukker's minority support needs in Sheboygan county is between $260,000 and $300,000. The dissent's suggested support obligation cap of $324,000 would therefore make sense if that was what the family court had ordered in an effort to accommodate Tommy's present NFL income. Again, that is not what the family court ordered. I read the support order to require excessive ("no kid needs $80,000 a year") annual support payments payable from now until some unknown time within the next eighteen years without any concern about how much of Tommy's money will be absorbed. I cannot read it otherwise. I take no comfort in the dissent's position that Tommy can come back and object in the future. He has already objected.
Second, Tommy's family economics expert, Susan Richards, testified that the question of the fairness of the Wisconsin percentage standards has not been adequately studied relative to incomes in excess of $60,000. She referred to a 1990 study where "98 percent of the people that they surveyed [in the study] had incomes under $60,000." Mary's family economics expert, Donald McNeely, agreed with Richards's statement that "[bjasically, there are no studies that reflect what people actually spend at the higher income levels on their children. The data simply is not available." *463Those experts' concerns are underscored by the van der Gaag study and should not be ignored.
Third, Richards testified that Wisconsin is in the minority of percentage standards states in not having a cap or ceiling on the total amount of support that can be ordered. She stated that ten or twelve of the seventeen states that use the standards have such a limitation. A ceiling or cap incorporated into the Wisconsin percentage standards would eliminate much of the uncertainty and conjecture encountered here and in Hubert without doing harm to Wisconsin's adequate child support goals. Because Wisconsin's percentage standards do not provide that protection, the standards should not be used in Wisconsin high-income provider cases.
Fourth, as to the propriety of using the Wisconsin percentage standards for high-income cases, Richards testified that as income goes up, relative spending goes down and that people will not continue to consume at the seventeen percent per child level because "at each additional level of income, people tend to consume less and less of [their income]." Highlighted by the van der Gaag study as indicated in footnote three of the majority opinion, this is basic to my concerns. The lack of that single consideration being incorporated into Wisconsin's percentage standards creates an inherently unfair situation in the mechanistic application of the percentage standards to high-income provider cases.
The problem here, as in Hubert, is the somewhat mindless attempt to force a square peg into a round hole because we have determined that under lesser financial circumstances the square peg fits into a square hole. In doing so, we create a plethora of conjecture and speculation in high-income provider cases that defies resolve and casts doubt upon the logic and fairness of our family support laws.
*464In sum, our present percentage standards do not accommodate high-income provider cases. Without a total support obligation cap, we cannot cure the inherent absurdity of applying the percentage standards to high-income provider cases by creating innovative funds and trusts on a case-by-case basis. Nor should we try. If we embrace a formula that begets absurd results, we will continue to suffer cases like Hubert and Tommy without concluding much of value or utility for use by the bench and bar. The users of the Wisconsin court system deserve better.
Finally, one might read this case and conclude that unless the family court obtains a lot of Tommy's money up front, Tukker is destined to suffer economically. That conclusion would be contrary to the record and Tommy's clear willingness to provide for Tukker's needs. Tommy's contention that the child support order is unfair to him is well reasoned and he is entitled to equitable treatment in the Wisconsin court system. Unfortunately, the application of our present percentage standards to high-income provider cases frustrates that worthy goal.