Court Opinion

ID: 9742038
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:05:40.490105+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:27.978102
License: Public Domain

LEVINE, Ju¡ fice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I disagree with the majority’s treatment of income withholding and its direction to the trial court to reconsider whether good cause exists here not to require immediate income withholding. I also disagree that remand is required on the issue of payment of child support by guaranteed instrument. I therefore dissent from those portions of the opinion but concur in the rest.
Section 14-09-09.24, NDCC, creates a strong preference for income withholding. The statute requires income to be withheld even if all prior child support payments were timely. Although it allows an obligor to establish a good-cause exception to income withholding, it makes proof of the exception extremely difficult. The obligor must persuade the trial court that (1) it is in the best interests of the child (not the obligor) not to withhold income and (2) past payments have been timely. These are the two minimum requirements for showing good cause. Should the trial court find good cause, the statute also requires the trial court to explain why income withholding is not in the child’s best interests. I cannot readily think of a circumstance where it would be in the child’s best interest to forgive income withholding.
The majority underestimates the stringency of the statutory scheme. First, despite its recitation of the statute’s income-withholding mandate “regardless of whether the obligor’s support payments are delinquent,” the majority suggests that income withholding is not proper when payments have been timely. Next, the majority says the court must explain why good cause does not exist. But the statute directs the opposite. The statute requires “an explanation of why[] imple-*550meriting income withholding would not be in the best interests of the child.” In other words, the court must explain why there is good cause, and not, as the majority directs, why there is not good cause.
Finally, and most telling, the majority states, “Given Sven’s meticulous payment history, his employer’s computer problems, and the minimal risk of arrears to Jennifer, it may be in the child’s best interests and a good cause to avoid immediate income with-holding_” Ante at 548. The so-called problems with the employer’s computer are not the stuff of good cause and the majority acknowledges as much. What the majority does is meld into one the two separate requirements for good cause: that income withholding is not in the child’s best interests and that the obligor’s previous support payments were timely. The legislature very clearly expressed its intent that timely payments alone do not constitute good cause. Yet, the majority distorts the clear legislative intent by equating timely payments with the child’s best interests. It suggests that “the minimal risk of arrears to Jennifer” because of Mickels’ “meticulous payment history” makes income withholding not in the child’s best interests. In effect, the majority disregards the requirements of section 14-09-09.24 and instead encourages the trial court to find good cause here based only on Sven’s record of timely payments. I would affirm the trial court’s withholding order. The legislature has created an onerous burden to find good cause not to withhold an obligor’s income. It is not this court’s function to reduce that burden.
I believe the majority also wrongly remands on the issue of the proper form of child support payments. A trial court need not expressly decline to exercise “its power to allow payment by personal check in worthy cases.” Ante at 549. I would not second-guess the trial court’s recognition of its power and would assume that because it did not exercise its power under NDROC 8.2(e), it chose not to exercise it. This court should not remand every time a trial court does not exercise a discretionary power on the ground that it “may not have recognized its power.” Ante at 549. I do not find the trial court’s order of payment ambiguous, given the local judicial mandate of payment by guaranteed instrument. Because I would not remand for reconsideration of income withholding or the form of payment, I respectfully dissent. I join in the rest of the decision.