Court Opinion

ID: 9685662
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:56:02.176804+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:08.853612
License: Public Domain

J. H. Gillis, J.
(dissenting). I dissent. In my view the child support arrearage payments received by plaintiff Gallagher should be considered prima facie her property for purposes of determining eligibility for aid to the disabled. I would affirm circuit court’s determination that defendant Houston properly terminated plaintiff’s welfare assistance.
*569In Renn v. Renn (1947), 318 Mich 230, 236, Mr. Justice Dethmers formulated a rule which is applicable here:
“These payments on the arrears properly belong to plaintiff inasmuch as defendant [husband’s] default in respect thereto necessitated plaintiff’s paying the cost of the child’s maintenance out of her own income.”
My brothers distinguish Renn and its sibling, Sonenfeld v. Sonenfeld (1951), 331 Mich 60, on the ground that in this case no evidence appears establishing that the arrearages were applicable to expenditures by plaintiff for her daughter’s support. To the contrary, the record clearly reflects that Anne returned home from St. Joseph’s Academy on weekends, requiring support expenditures by her mother for food and shelter. The hearing referee noted:
“Mrs. Gallagher testified that Anne returns home weekends and that she is maintaining the home purchased by her husband and she is making mortgage payments on the home.”
These expenditures from Mrs. Gallagher’s own funds would otherwise have been allocable to the support payments required of Anne’s father. Under these circumstances, both the Renn decision and Sonenfeld require the conclusion reached by circuit court:
“[I]n my opinion [Mrs. Gallagher] was not required to use those funds, paid on arrearage, for the support of the child. She could do so if she chose to, but in my opinion they were not subject to such trust that they could not be used for her benefit as well.
“In deciding this, I am not saying that a mother has the right to use the support payments for the children for her own purposes. I am saying, how*570ever, that where a child is supported, a child who is living with the mother and from what sources the child is supported, that when the mother receives an arrearage, those funds need not he accounted for. Payment on the arrearage, I should say, those funds need not be accounted for and they are paid to her and are received by her and are her funds in the Court’s opinion.” (Emphasis supplied.)
That there exists no evidence that any particular portion of the two arrearage payments of $478.18 and $444 were allocable to expenditures by the plaintiff for Anne’s support is not, as the majority apparently conclude, dispositive. For once it appears, as here, that some portion of the arrearage payments were so allocable, the entire amount should then be treated prima facie the property of the mother. I reach this result for two reasons. First, both Renn and Sonenfeld suggest such a rule; for there is in neither opinion any reference to record evidence establishing that the husband’s default necessitated payment by the mother out of her own funds of the cost of the child’s maintenance. Rather, the Court’s pronouncement may very well have been in recognition of an everyday experience. Specifically, where child support payments are in arrears, the mother’s own funds are generally used to meet the cost of child maintenance. And, if I read Renn and Sonenfeld correctly, then the Justices had in mind a rule treating such arrearages as prima facie the property of the mother.
Furthermore, where as in this case of Gallagher, there is record evidence establishing that some portion of the arrearage payments were allocable to expenditures by the mother for child support, a rule treating the entire amount as prima facie property of the mother is warranted, in the absence of proof to the contrary, by reason of plaintiff’s burden to prove *571her eligibility for aid, a burden my Brothers do not deny.
Whether plaintiff Gallagher was or was not compelled by reason of her husband’s default to support Anne from her own funds to such an extent that, as a result, the arrearage payments lawfully accruing to her exceeded $348.55* was a matter of proof for presentation before the hearing referee. And, on this question, plaintiff carried the burden to prove she spent less than this amount. Since no evidence was introduced before the referee establishing that plaintiff’s support for Anne was less than $348.55, I would hold, contrary to my colleagues, that plaintiff failed to meet her burden of proof.
Circuit court should be affirmed.

 If such support exceeded $348.55, then plaintiff would have owned property in excess of the statutory maximum of $750: i.e., arrearages in excess of $348.55 and money in the amount of $401.45.