Court Opinion

ID: 9740014
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:25:42.255874+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:15.393095
License: Public Domain

SCHUMACHER, Judge
(concurring in part, dissenting in part)
I respectfully dissent from three aspects of the majority’s opinion.
1. The portion of the district court’s order stating that appellant did not claim a decrease in his income is consistent with what appellant’s attorney told the district court. Counsel stated appellant’s motion to modify support was based on a claim that respondent did not have the children as often as indicated by the visitation schedule and twice stated that appellant’s motion was not “economically driven.” Because appellant functionally withdrew any income-based claim, the district court did not need to address that claim.
2. Clerical errors may be corrected on a court’s own initiative. Minn. R. Civ. P. 60.01. Here, a clerical error caused an improper extension of respondent’s maintenance award. That award was used to *730calculate respondent’s child-support obligation under Tweeton v. Tweeton, 560 N.W.2d 746 (Minn.App.1997), review denied (Minn. May 28, 1997). Therefore, to not correct the support obligation when the maintenance error was corrected would have left a support obligation in place that was not based on the parties’ current incomes. See Thomas v. Thomas, 407 N.W.2d 124, 127 (Minn.App.1987) (requiring support obligations to be based on “current net income”); see also State Inc. v. Sumpter & Williams, 558 N.W.2d 719, 723 (Minn.App.1996) (district court did not abuse its discretion in correcting judgment based on clerical error), review denied (Minn. Nov. 20,1996).
3. The district court’s award of the tax dependency exemptions to respondent is supported by the findings that the “continued award of all three income tax exemptions to [appellant] would not be in the children’s best interests” and that respondent needed increased “cash flow to allow her to have sufficient accommodations for overnight visitation with the children.” This award explicitly considers the custodial situation and is consistent with case law. E.g., Crosby v. Crosby, 587 N.W.2d 292, 298 (Minn.App.1998) (award of tax-dependency exemption to noncustodial father upheld where physical care of children equally divided, mother had greater financial resources, and exemption was of no benefit to mother), review denied (Minn. Feb. 18, 1999); Joneja v. Joneja, 422 N.W.2d 306, 310 (Minn.App.1988) (award of tax-dependency exemptions is discretionary with district court).
Because the district court did not abuse its discretion on these issues, I would affirm.