Court Opinion

ID: 9849047
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:33:41.437975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:58.076211
License: Public Domain

Moon, J.,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent because the reversal by the majority is on an issue that was not raised in the trial court and, thus, the question may not be raised upon appeal. Rule 5A:18.
*966When the parties to this case were divorced in 1988, the trial judge had a full hearing and tailored a child support order based upon the unique circumstances of these parties.
Upon the hearing for a modification based upon an alleged change of circumstances, appellant alleged as the change that she had no employment because she had quit her job to follow her husband to Thailand, where she was not qualified for employment. She did not plead or otherwise allege that the old order required her to pay an amount substantially different from that contained in the support guidelines of Code § 20-108.2. At no time in the trial court did appellant refer the trial judge to the guidelines or object to the trial judge’s failure to make written findings supporting deviation from the guidelines.
Under analogous circumstances, where a trial judge failed to make specific findings of fact required by Code § 20-107.3 in order to bifurcate the equitable distribution hearing from the divorce hearing, we have held that the failure to object to the court’s failure to make findings constituted a waiver of the error. Erickson-Dickson v. Erickson-Dickson, 12 Va. App. 381, 404 S.E.2d 388 (1991).
Rule 5A:18 provides that the rule may be waived “[in order] to attain the ends of justice.” The majority has made no such finding. Instead, the majority waives the rule because a deviation existed between the support previously ordered and the presumptive amount in the current guidelines. Our Court has previously followed Supreme Court precedent in determining when to waive the rule concerning non-jurisdictional error. See Mounce v. Commonwealth, 4 Va. App. 433, 357 S.E.2d 742 (1987); Brown v. Commonwealth, 8 Va. App. 126, 380 S.E.2d 8 (1989). I find no case where the Supreme Court or this Court has waived the rule merely because the trial court did not follow a statutory procedure.
In my view, the majority’s decision is in direct conflict with Rule 5A:18 and previous decisions construing the rule. For no stated reason, the majority waives the contemporaneous rule for cases involving a trial court’s failure to apply properly the child support guidelines.
*967The trial judge, after finding no change of circumstances, made no findings regarding a new order. However, the record permits an inference that appellant’s imputed gross monthly income was $2,000 per month and the appellee’s gross income was $4,578 per month. The father testified that the children’s actual expenses were $2373 per month. According to the tables of Code § 20-108.2, the presumed support amount is $1414, of which the mother, appellant, should pay $430. If she paid the same percent of the children’s actual expenses, $2373 per month, her payment would be $721 per month. She is paying $500 per month under the old order. The record does not affirmatively show that if the court had followed the guidelines in fixing support that the amount of support would be less than $500.
Since I cannot find from this record that there was an obvious miscarriage of justice, I cannot conclude that it is necessary to waive the rule in order to attain the ends of justice. Mounce, 4 Va. App. at 434-35, 357 S.E.2d at 743-44; Brown, 8 Va. App. at 131-33, 380 S.E.2d at 10-12.
Therefore, I would affirm the verdict.