Court Opinion

ID: 9594397
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:29:42.961411+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:10.195034
License: Public Domain

*407ANDERSON, J.
(concurring). I write separately only to stress that this decision is not authority for child support obligors to seek "equitable credit" for gifts and other voluntary expenditures which were not made in the manner precisely established by the child support order or judgment. See O'Brien v. Freiley, 130 Wis. 2d 174, 181, 387 N.W.2d 85, 88-89 (Ct. App. 1986).
The duty to support a child rests upon both the voluntary status of parenthood that the obligor assumed and upon moral law. Krause v. Krause, 58 Wis. 2d 499, 507, 206 N.W.2d 589, 594 (1973). The child support obli-gor who feels a moral obligation, above and beyond the legal obligation of a child support order or judgment, to provide more than the necessities of life to his or her children should fulfill that moral obligation without seeking "equitable credit."
Gifts and voluntary payments made by the obligor, outside of the child support order or judgment, are to be encouraged as one means of continuing the parent-child relationship which is not terminated by divorce. See Hutschenreuter v. Hutschenreuter, 23 Wis. 2d 318, 321, 127 N.W.2d 47, 49 (1964). However, such gifts and voluntary payments alone, even where the custodial parent acquiesces to the generosity of the obligor, cannot be the basis of a request for "equitable credit." To hold otherwise would not serve the "best interest of the children nor any sound public policy that comes to mind." Severson v. Severson, 71 Wis. 2d 382, 391, 238 N.W.2d 116, 122 (1976). As we wrote in O'Brien, 130 Wis. 2d at 181, 387 N.W.2d at 89:
Allowing credit for such payments or expenditures would condone the unilateral modification of court orders and interference with the custodial parent's right to decide how support money should be spent.
*408Payments made under "compulsion of the circumstances or with the express or implied consent of the custodial parent," Schulz v. Ystad, 155 Wis. 2d 574, 584, 456 N.W.2d 312, 315 (1990) (emphasis added), entitling an obligor to "equitable credit" cannot include gifts or voluntary payments commendably made by an obligor. Nor do such payments include the misguided expenses of the "Disneyland parent" who seeks to win the affection of his or her children by providing the frills and luxuries a frugal custodial parent is unable to provide.