Court Opinion

ID: 9772208
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:10:27.656611+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:42.623279
License: Public Domain

KAROHL, Judge,
dissenting in part.
I dissent only in that part of the opinion which affirms an award of retroactive child support. Wife never mentioned an award of retroactive child support in any part of any pleading and the issue was not tried by consent.
As a matter of law the failure to award child support at the pendente lite hearing did not foreclose the award of retroactive child support at the time of the dissolution hearing. We have held a failure to award child support in a dissolution decree does not bar such awards in modification proceedings. Plunkett v. Aubuchon, 793 S.W.2d 554 (Mo.App.1990). The reasoning applied in Plunk-ett, also applies when considering a PDL followed by a decree. However, the failure to make such award is relevant on the issue of trial court discretion to make such award on the authority of § 452.340 RSMo Cum. Supp.1992. That section authorizes an award retroactive to the date of filing a petition for dissolution. All three districts of the Missouri .Court of Appeals have considered and approved the denial of retroactive child support, an • award partially granting retroactive child support and awards granting complete retroactive child support. The focus of these opinions has been on the discretion authority granted by the statute. No case has previously held that the award of retroactive child support may be granted by a dissolution court where the issue was not mentioned in pleadings. No court has considered whether the statute relieves the petitioner of proving need and ability to pay during the period from the date of filing the petition to the date of the decree. The retroactive portion of the award should be reversed because there was no request in the pleadings that the child support award be made effective on the date of filing. The issue was not tried by consent and there was insufficient proof to support the award.
The facts relative to the retroactive child support issue are as follows. The original petition was filed on April 12, 1990. Wife alleged that no arrangements for custody and child support had been made by the parties and she lacked sufficient property and income to totally support the four children of the marriage. Similar allegations were made in the first amended petition filed on May 9, 1990. In both petitions a request was made for reasonable child support. No mention was made of retroactive reasonable child support. On February 1, 1992, wife filed a second amended petition. Significantly, in the second amended petition she alleged that husband failed “to obtain or keep some sort of steady, gainful employment during the last few years of the marriage.... ” The request for relief was broadened to request that wife should have a substantial portion of the parties’ marital property “in the absence of any effort or apparent ability of Respondent to provide any meaningful child support.”
In the judgment and decree, the court made the following findings and award:
12: Because of the needs of Petitioner in raising and supporting the four minor children of the parties and because of the marital fault of Respondent the court is allocating the marital assets approximately 60% to Petitioner and 40% to Respondent.
The court honored the alternative request for a greater property award where husband’s ability to support was limited.
*610This ease was tried on April 7,1992. Wife testified the income and expense and property statement she filed with the court on March 6, 1992, was accurate. There was no testimony that these figures had any retroactive validity. The only other financial statements in the legal file were property and income and expense statements filed by husband on October 30, 1990. His statements were not made evidence at trial but reflect monthly expenses with no income. Husband is a high school graduate. Wife has a masters degree. Wife testified that both of the parties worked and contributed to the marriage, with some time off during child care, until husband was fired in 1987. She knew that he last worked a 40 hour week at that time. She also acknowledged his treatment for psychiatric problems. There was no evidence husband had any special skills. After he was fired in 1987, an attempt to operate a family business failed. His effort at part-time work was of no consequence. She directly testified that the most money he had earned since 1987 was approximately $6000 and that was an estimated sum.
The court imputed $10,392 per year income to husband for purposes of determining child support. It ordered child support of $63.50 per month per child. Without evidence to support a retroactive application, the court applied the same child support retroactively for a period of twenty four months. For the following reasons it was error to order retroactive child support.
First, retroactivity was never mentioned in the pleadings.
Second, there was no evidentiary support that the amount determined at the time of the hearing would be the appropriate amount to be applied retroactively. Wife never was asked to apply her current financial information backward to the date she filed her petition.
Third, wife altered her request for relief by a second amended petition filed nearly two years after the original petition and a few months before the hearing at which husband appeared pro se. In view of the requirements of Rule 88.01, this may be interpreted as an alternative remedy to retroactive child support. Such award could be a substitute for non-payment of child support dining pendency of the case.
Fourth, on the issue of statutory discretion to make a retroactive reward, the express refusal to grant pendente lite child support is a relevant consideration and suggests an abuse of discretion where the matter was not mentioned in pleadings. It is also relevant that husband did not have and was not awarded an asset which could be used to pay the retroactive child support award.
The majority opinion suggests that a court may make retroactive child support awards, if supported by the substantive allegations in the pleadings and the evidence, even if not included in the prayer. But this rule does not fit this case where there was no substantive allegation regarding retroactive award and where (1) there was no evidence directed to a retroactive award and (2) wife sought an alternative award. In accord with the standard of review set forth in Murphy v. Carron, 536 S.W.2d 30, 32 (Mo. banc 1976), the retroactive portion of the child support award should be reversed.