Court Opinion

ID: 9717878
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:12:02.564761+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:13:49.144547
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
concurring.
I agree with the decision the majority reaches in this case. Nevertheless, I am prompted to make some observations upon the issue of child support. Michael has two children, ages six and nine, from a previous marriage. He also has a younger child born of his marriage to Anita, the dissolution of which is at issue here. Both older children live with Michael. The crucial factor in the child support dispute in this case concerns the amount of support Michael must pay to the two older children, as it may affect the support obligation owed to the younger child. *239Therefore, although the Child Support Guidelines are particularly helpful in assessing Michael's support obligation to the two older children, they do not apply in the same sense or in the same degree of presumptive application as they would in computing child support due under the dissolution decree the trial court entered in this case.
In any event, it is not mandatory that a court apply the Indiana Child Support Guidelines when arriving at an amount of support in a dissolution decree. See Indiana Child Support Guidelines Statement of History at 1115, Burns Ind.Stat.Ann., Court Rules Ann. (Code Ed.1994). Rather, the Guidelines are an evidentiary rebuttable presumption, which courts should follow absent extenuating circumstances. See Indiana Supreme Court Order No. 95800-8904-MS-288 (April 12, 1989). See also Indiana Child Support (Guidelines Support Guideline 1 Commentary. It would therefore seem appropriate that a trial court properly may consider the collateral sources of support that one of the spouse's children from a prior marriage receive when fixing the support due a child of the marriage being dissolved.
The Guidelines themselves clearly contemplate that a court should consider various factors that are not susceptible to precise, rigid determination and application. Because the amount of support a court should award largely depends upon available financial resources, it is clear that the court should examine the totality of the circumstances when applying the Guidelines. As the Commentary to the Guidelines notes, it is for this reason that a court may impute income to a parent in some instances. Seq, eg., Indiana Child Support Guidelines Support Guideline 3, Commentary 2e. While the Commentary observes that it "may be inappropriate" to consider occasional gifts or other contributions from collateral sources, the cautionary language does not absolutely preclude a court from considering collateral source income under certain cireumstances. It is my view that a situation similar to that before us might well constitute such civreum-stances.
The collateral source payments here, are definite and fixed and are certain to continue unless and until the child or children reach eighteen years, marry or die. They are therefore unlike the speculative gratuitous support sources which will not ordinarily result in diminishing one's support obligation. Under certain cireumstances it may be reasonable to conclude that a custodial parent whose children receive substantial support payments from an independent source, e.g., Social Security Death Benefits, will have disposable income of his own which otherwise would be required for the support of the children living with him. It is not unreasonable to require him to apply a portion of that additional disposable income to the support of the child of the recent marriage. When a combination of certain and non-speculative payments from a collateral source and the contributions of the custodial parent (the father in this case) fully, if not handsomely, support the children of the former marriage, the child of the more recent marriage living with the other parent should not have his support needs slighted.
Be that as it may, as the majority points out, courts from other states do not permit social security benefits not directly attributable to the obligor himself to be credited against the support obligation. Because the weight of that authority has not, to my knowledge, been challenged, my views do not engender such conviction as to prompt a dissent. For this reason, I concur with the majority's decision that the trial court erred in offsetting Michael's support obligation to his two older children by the social security benefits they receive on behalf of their deceased mother.