Court Opinion

ID: 9581173
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:12:14.281931+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:45.262701
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(concurring). The circuit court ordered the father to pay $5 per child per month for child support — a mere $15 per month, clearly not enough to support one child, let alone three. The father failed to pay $15 per month and offered no justification for his nonpayment. The circuit court would be justified in holding this father in contempt if, after *268proper notice and opportunity to be heard, the father failed to show cause why he should not be punished.
Child support — or, I should say, child nonsupport — is a major problem in society today. This state has been a leader in legislation, court decisions, and scholarly research on the issue of fair and adequate child support awards and their implementation. See, e.g., Melli, Child Support Awards: A Study of the Exercise of Judicial Discretion (University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Paper 734-83, November 1983) ; Tewksbury, Our Child Nonsupport System, Wis. J. Fam. Law 52 (Dec. 1983) ; Zink, Wisconsin Child Support Standards, Wis. J. Fam. Law 37 (Dec. 1983).1
Studies have shown that child nonsupport is a significant cause of the poverty of women and children. Unfortunately in too many cases there is a “very high incidence of nonsupport of legitimate children by affluent fathers, some of whom were professionals with six-figure incomes. These affluent fathers were rarely prosecuted . . . with any intensity. Therefore, many of the women and children became public charges while fathers were relieved of the burden of support.” Tewksbury, Our Child Nonsupport System, Wis. J. Fam. Law 52 (Dec. 1983) 53.2 As a result of small awards of child support and poor enforcement of child support orders, divorced women in the United States bear a far greater burden of supporting children after divorce than do divorced men. Many households headed by mothers after divorce are far less affluent than the new households of divorced *269fathers. Weitzman, The Economies of Divorce: Social and Economic Consequences of Property, Alimony, & Child Support Awards, 28 U.C.L.A. L. Rev. 1181 (1981).
This case presents issues somewhat different from other child support cases, since both the husband and the wife are subsisting below the poverty line. In this case the supporting parent, the father, earned very little per month, both before and after the divorce. Before the divorce proceedings, the father’s income apparently was sufficient to support the family without government assistance; after the divorce proceedings began, the same income was insufficient to support two family units without government assistance for one unit, in this case the unit composed of the mother and children. While I concur in the court’s decision, I have several reservations about the court’s analysis of the issues involved in this case.
First, unlike the majority, I think the circuit court has to issue a written order requiring a parent to show cause (at a date and time and place specified therein) why he or she should not be punished for the misconduct described in the order. The requirement that the order be written is implicit in secs. 767.305 and 785.03(1) (a), Stats. 1981-82, the nature of a contempt procedure, and due process guarantees. The requirement that the order be in writing is explicitly set forth in sec. 807.11, 1981-82. Sec. 807.11(1) states that “an order is rendered when it is signed by the judge.” Sec. 807.11(2) states that “an order is entered when it is filed in the office of the clerk of court.” An order cannot be signed or filed unless it is in writing.
Second, I am uneasy with the majority’s characterization of the circuit court’s order as a “seek-work order” issued for the purpose of enabling the trial court “to make an accurate and informed finding as to the defend*270ant’s ability to earn and what his worth is economically.” Supra, p. 257.
The majority says the trial court was issuing- a “seek-work order” to determine whether other jobs were available to the father and if so how much he could be expected to earn in such jobs so that the trial court could evaluate whether he was diligent or whether he was wilfully disregarding his support obligations. To validate this kind of order the majority relies on dictum in Edwards, supra, 97 Wis. 2d at 120. See supra, p. 258. I agree that under the Edvjards dictum the trial court may issue a reasonable seek-work order to gather information about the income of the supporting parent in order to enter an appropriate support order. But I am concerned that this trial court order does not comport with the Edwards dictum in several respects.
Edwards speaks about examining job opportunities in the same profession in which the parent is trained. Yet the order in this case requires the father to seek employment generally. An order designed to help the trial court ascertain whether the father was fulfilling his earning capacity through diligent work in his chosen trade should have been more narrowly drawn than this order.
Edwards speaks in terms of giving a parent a fair choice of a means of livelihood subject to reasonableness commensurate with obligations. The order in this case was not specifically designed to determine “fair choice” or “reasonableness.” Prior to issuing the order, it appears from the record that the trial court may have concluded that the father had had enough time to make a “go” of work in the car repair field and that his fair choice had been used up.
In any event, the trial court’s order may not be a “seek-work order” for the purpose of information gathering, as the majority says, but an order that the father abandon his occupation and get a different job. The trial court *271may have been issuing- an “abandon your occupation and take a different job order” enforceable by having the father report to the court periodically on his efforts in seeking work. Several parts of the record could be so read. Although the majority is correct in saying the trial court never ordered the father to take a specific job, it did order the father not to refuse “any job which he is physically able to do, even if the job is not in his chosen trade or occupation, or is not full-time, or pays less than the pay he is used to, or is temporary.” Supra, p. 256 and n. 4.3 That the trial court was not merely seeking information to evaluate the father’s diligence and earning capacity but wanted the father to get a job that would net him more than $300 per month can be inferred from some parts of the court’s colloquy with counsel.4
*272If the trial court’s order were interpreted as not merely information gathering but as requiring the father to get another job, the order may not be within the trial court’s discretion under the rules set forth by this court in Knutson v. Knutson, 15 Wis. 2d 115, 118, 111 N.W.2d 905 (1961) ; Balaam v. Balaam, 52 Wis. 2d 20, 187 N.W. 2d 867 (1971), and most recently in Edwards v. Edwards, *27397 Wis. 2d 111, 293 N.W.2d 160 (1980). Knutson, Balaam, and Edwards lay down the following rules for the trial court in issuing a support order:
(1) The award of child support is within the discretion of the trial court.
(2) Support money is fixed on the basis of the needs of the children and the ability of the parent to pay.
(3) The parent’s ability to pay is determined by income, assets, debts, age, and health. These determinations are made upon the basis of the circumstances existing at the time of the support order.
(4) If the supporting parent is honestly engaged in a business to which the parent is properly adapted and is in fact seeking to operate the business profitably, the award should be based on the income which the defendant is actually earning.
(5) If there is a finding based on evidence that the parent was failing to exercise his or her capacity to earn because the parent is not fairly or diligently working at the occupation for which he or she is best suited or because the parent has willfully accepted employment and resultant lower compensation in order to reduce the ability to pay child support, the court may use as the basis for its award earning capacity rather than current income.
(6) A divorced parent should be allowed a fair choice of a means of livelihood and to pursue what he or she honestly feels are the best opportunities even though the parent for the present, at least, is working for a lesser financial return than might otherwise be possible. This rule is subject to reasonableness commensurate with obligations to the child.
(7) A court should not assume that a parent has an earning capacity equal to the minimum wage. The individual equities of each case must be examined. Many *274people cannot find well-paying jobs for reasons beyond their control.
Under these rules, the support order must be based on the actual earnings, $300 per month, unless the trial court finds that the father was not fairly or diligently working at an occupation for which he is best suited or that he has willfully accepted employment and lowered compensation in order to reduce the ability to pay child support. There is no evidence in this record to support such a finding. , To the contrary, the record indicates that the father was diligent, that he was working at the job for which he was trained, and that his income in his chosen trade has remained stable over many years. Under these circumstances the trial court appropriately based its support order on the father’s actual income. For the trial court under these circumstances to order the father to change his trade so as to increase his income so that the trial court can increase the support order may be a clear abuse of discretion under the teachings of these cases.
By characterizing the trial court’s order as a seek-work order, this court need not decide whether a trial court may order a parent to abandon his or her occupation and take a new job when the trial court finds that the parent is diligent, is working in good faith, and is not willfully shirking his or her support obligations but that the children are receiving government assistance and the supporting parent is earning less than the court thinks might be earned at a different kind of job.5 I am concerned that an “abandon your occupation and take a different *275job” order under such circumstances would be an abuse of discretion.
As a matter of constitutional law, strict standards must be met before the highly protected freedom from compulsory work can be infringed. Without a finding of willfulness or lack of diligence an order directing the supporting parent to take alternative employment raises questions of due process, equal protection, and involuntary servitude. An awareness of such problems is shown in the following comment in Edwards concerning the requirement of a finding of intent to disregard support obligations and contempt:
“One justification for the requirement in Balaam that there must be a finding of intent to disregard support obligations before earning capacity rather than actual earnings can be used to determine the spouse’s ability to pay child support is found in the law of contempt. Mere inability to pay child support cannot form the basis for a finding of contempt:
“ ‘. . . it has long been settled in Wisconsin that a person cannot be held in contempt of court for the failure to pay money unless the refusal is willful and contemptuous and not a result of his inability to pay.’ Balaam, supra, 52 Wis. 2d at 29; quoted with approval, Besaw v. Besaw, 89 Wis. 2d 509, 516, 279 N.W.2d 192 (1979).” Edwards, supra, 97 Wis. 2d at 119-20, n. 4.
As to the reasonableness of such an order, I wonder whether a man in this father’s situation is likely to find a much better-paying job than his current one. He is 43 years old; he does not have a high school diploma; he has had 20 years’ experience in the car repair business and has had no other job experience; he is accustomed to operating his own business; his compensation has been at the same level for a number of years; and he is earning $3,600 a year, the most he has ever earned. And even if he is successful in finding a job, I wonder what the prospects for job stability are, considering his employ*276ment history and his being forced to work at a job he does not want. With these reservations, I concur in the holding.

 See also Eckhardt, “Social Change, Legal Controls, & Child Support: A Study in the Sociology of Law” (Ph.D. thesis, 1965), quoted in Mnookin, Using Jail for Child Support Enforcement, 48 U. Chi. L. Rev. 338 (1981).

 See Winston and Forsbar, Nonsupport of Legitimate Children by Affluent Fathers as a Cause of Poverty and Welfare Dependence (Rand Corp. 1971), quoted in S. Rep. No. 93-1356, 93d Cong. 2d Sess. in 1974 U.S. Code Cong. & Ad. News 8133, 8146.

 The court says it will not consider this aspect of the order.

 “THE COURT: Mr. Thexton [district attorney], suppose I had an erstwhile mechanic poet who in eleven years never sold a poem. If he sold two thousand poems would this Court be acting with responsibility if it allows him to write unsalable poetry for the rest of his life and to allow his children to listen to the poetry being read and not get any support ?
“MR. THEXTON: Certainly not. I guess I thought that was the point I was trying to make. This man can continue to work as a mechanic and as far as I am concerned he can continue to have his own shop, but he can’t do it full-time. In addition to finding something that he can work out and—
“THE COURT: Just because he is a poet and just because on occasion he sells poetry and just because in eleven years he hasn’t done that, does that mean that a responsible society ought to wait until somehow through an act of God or some other deity infused with Shakespearean propensity and ability and starts to turn out best sellers — that’s preposterous.
“MR. ERSPAMER [defense counsel]: Your Honor, may I address that briefly ?
“MR. THEXTON: I think that further argument on my part would be repetitious. This man has put his best years into this shop. I think the Court could find and did find that eleven years was long enough to determine whether he was fulfilling the Ed*272wards criteria of trying to make 'his business profitable. We have determined that the business is not profitable. He’s been given his fair shot and I think the Court acted well within its discretion ordering him to seek other routes.
“THE COURT: That’s the ultimate point. That is all the Court did. I didn’t tell him he should go out and go to work for the Indianapolis 500 pit crew. I didn’t tell him that he has to take the first job that he is able to get. All I did was order him to do something to get alternative employment. There was allegation that was an oppressive order: unfair of him to go to ten other places per month. . . .”
“MR. ERSPAMER: I refer the Court to the next paragraph [in the Edwards case] referring to Balaam [case]. ‘Opportunity to have a fair choice of his own type of income.’
“THE 'COURT: He has had it. He has had eleven years. What I have ordered him. to do is to take some steps that will enable him hopefully to do better by himself and better by his children. I have concluded that and Mr. Thexton is correct in making the point that eleven years is enough time to deduce that he isn’t going to cut it.
“MR. ERSPAMER: Eleven years of safe income. It’s quite obviously apparent that it’s likely his income is going to increase.
‘THE COURT: He isn’t improving himself.
“THE COURT: . . . how long society is supposed to wait for somebody to get it through his or her head that your best efforts or what you imagine to be your best efforts aren’t good enough.
“MR. ERSPAMER: . . . There was no intentional disregard of his obligation, to shirk his responsibility. This man worked forty hours a week.
“THE COURT: If there had been, counsel, you would have gotten a different order; gotten an order commensurate with the needs of those children.”

 It may be that the state could have proved, without this seek-work order, that the father was not diligent or was wilfully shirking his support obligations or that the father had unreported income. The court of appeals inferred from the record that “Dennis’ contempt was wilful because he has undisclosed income.” The trial court never made such a finding and neither has the majority.