Court Opinion

ID: 9532189
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:18:58.99277+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:42.104342
License: Public Domain

NIX, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I must express my strong disagreement with the majority’s unwise and unwarranted attempt to transform the highly sensitive process of determining the equitable allocation of responsibility for child support into a rigid and sterile mathematical exercise. Moreover, the soundness of the proposed mechanistic formula has yet to be satisfactorily demonstrated.1 The formula approach urged by appel*479lant and embraced by the majority is primarily influenced by the views of a single practitioner in the field.2
The majority’s hastily concocted guidelines are thus being promulgated without the benefit of adequate guidance from those with expertise in this highly complex and controversial area. Nor can this Court realistically lay claim to the expertise which would assure the reliability of its equation. Moreover, a determination as to the wisdom and necessity of adopting such mandatory guidelines would normally rest with the legislature. Even if the Court could properly make that judgment, it should do so through the rulemaking process and only after thorough study and input from bench and bar.3
I can discern no basis for the majority’s conclusion that mathematical certainty is an adequate surrogate for judicial sensitivity. It is essential to our system of justice that such determinations be made on an individualized basis, according proper weight to all relevant factors and recognizing the unique characteristics of each family situation. The uniform guidelines imposed upon the process relieve the court of its responsibility to balance the equities in each case, allowing the court to hide behind a mathematical formula and detracting from actual consideration of the parties’ situation. Thus I am constrained to conclude that reliance on such a formula is jurisprudentially unsound and constitutes an imprudent exercise of this Court’s supervisory power.

. Although the factors identified are legitimate, the majority has failed to establish the appropriateness of assigning each factor a fixed value in an equation to be uniformly applied in all cases. The proper weight to be given such factors depends on the facts of the individual case.

. Appellant relies on three articles by Maurice R. Franks, Esquire, a Colorado attorney. See Franks, Summing Up Child Support: A New Formula, District Lawyer (July-August, 1983); Franks, How to Calculate Child Support, 86 Case & Comment 3 (1981); Franks, The Mathematical Calculation of Child Support, 2 Family L.Rev. 260 (1979). The majority’s formula is strikingly similar to the one developed by Mr. Franks in those articles.

. Although it can be argued that the majority has offered this formula only as an aid to the trial court in reaching its decision, experience demonstrates that undue reliance will be placed upon the results of the mathematical computations, particularly in close cases, rather than upon the wisdom and the experience of the jurists entering the order.