Child Support - High Income – Deviation
Husband challenges the high‑income deviation on appeal, characterizing it as excessive and based upon the needs and desires of wife, rather than the needs and best interests of S. G. Again, however, a trial court exercises its discretion in assessing whether a high‑income deviation is appropriate, and it has wide latitude in determining the amount of such deviation. Although husband argues that the $8,520 upward deviation is unconscionable, the total monthly award ($10,690) is only 4 percent of husband's adjusted monthly income ($264,310). Given husband's very high monthly income, we cannot find the award excessive. Moreover, the trial court's order properly “connect[s] the dots to explain ... that applying the presumptive amount of child support would be inappropriate here[.]” The order states that S. G.’s best interests would benefit from wife having the ability to buy stable housing closer to Atlanta, cut back on her work hours, and pay her share of any private school fees, opportunities likely only available with the high income deviation. It further found husband's presumptive child support amount ($2,169.34) inappropriate, noting that a support award at that level would substantially decrease S. G.’s standard of living, not allow S. G. to share in the economic benefit of husband's income, and leave wife unable to pay her share of private school fees.
Child Support - Imputing Income - Evidence - Relevant Job Market
Even if it could be found that the wife was voluntarily underemployed, there was no evidence of her occupational qualifications or of the prevailing earnings level in the community for her type of work, as required by statute. Notably, the income imputed to the wife was based on her wages in North Carolina. But because she had since relocated to the Tampa Bay area in Florida, the court should have considered the latter to be the relevant job market.
Cohabitation - Classification - Partnership Assets
Record did not support the superior court's conclusion that former domestic partners seeking distribution of partnership assets agreed that house and business properties were partnership properties, and thus distribution according to purported agreement was error. Although the parties’ initial property spreadsheet identified the parties' proposed valuations and assignments of property, it did not identify their positions on the property's character, nor did the subsequent property spreadsheet reflect the parties’ positions on, or any agreement about, the character of particular property items, and nothing of parties' conduct or discussion confirmed that they agreed as to the character of the house or business.
Names - Parentage – Hyphenate
The circuit court did not abuse its discretion in ordering a name change in the circumstances of this case. Child was less than one year old at the time the circuit court ordered the name change. There was no testimony that the Child was aware of, or attached to, her existing surname; moreover, because Child was not yet in school, she would not have become known by her existing surname among her peers. Father also testified that it was "very important" to him that Child's name reflect a connection to him and to his family's history. Further, Father evidently desires to maintain a significant ongoing parental relationship with Child, since he initiated this paternity action within weeks of Child's birth in order to formalize their relationship. The parties agreed to a parenting plan which recognizes that Father was a suitable parent to exercise joint legal and physical custody over Child. The joint parenting plan provides Father with substantial parenting time. Father also agreed to assume substantial financial responsibility for Child: he agreed to pay $1,000 per month in child support; to maintain health insurance for Child if necessary; and to reimburse Mother for a share of Child's uninsured medical and dental expenses, and expenses of extracurricular activities.
https://www.courts.mo.gov/file.jsp?id=214453
Property Division - Engagement Ring
This case presents the question whether the issue of "who is at fault" should continue to govern the rights to engagement rings given in contemplation of marriage when the anticipated wedding does not come to pass. More than six decades ago, we recognized that an antenuptial ring generally is understood to be a conditional gift and determined that the donor may recover the ring following a failed engagement, but only if the donor was "without fault." [Citation omitted.] We now join the modern trend adopted by the majority of jurisdictions that have considered the issue and retire the concept of fault in this context; where, as here, the planned wedding does not ensue and the engagement is ended, the engagement ring must be returned to the donor regardless of fault. Further concluding that the same rule applies to the wedding band the donor, Bruce Johnson, gave to the donee, Caroline Settino, and that prejudgment interest on Settino's counterclaim was miscalculated, we reverse in part and remand for recalculation of prejudgment interest.
Property Division - Full Faith and Credit
Wife brought action for divorce and sought equitable division of assets and approval to relocate with children to the Czech Republic. Husband's brother was granted intervenor status in order to protect his interests in certain assets at issue, which had been forfeit by husband in order to satisfy judgment intervenor had obtained against husband in separate action in New Jersey. Held: trial court properly determined that husband had dissipated marital assets; New Jersey trial court orders forfeiting marital home and imposing constructive trust on investment accounts were entitled to full faith and credit; home forfeited by husband and investment accounts placed in constructive trust in separate action in New Jersey were not subject to equitable distribution.
Property Division - Proportion Allotted - Marital Contributions
District court arbitrarily diminished the value of the husband's non-monetary contribution to maintenance of marital assets, and thus abused its discretion, in awarding husband only 20% of the value of real property on which he and wife had built a 6,000‑square‑foot house, in marital dissolution proceedings. The husband used his skills as a contractor to maintain the couple's homes, foregoing business opportunities that might have provided for his retirement to build and design house and to supervise subcontractors, thereby greatly increasing the property's value, and terms of trust in which real property was held showed the parties’ intentions to value each other's contributions to the house more equally than the court valued them.
Property Division - Military Disability Pay
Chlarson v. Chlarso, No. 20230742‑CA, 2024 UT App 160 (Utah Court of Appeals, November 7, 2024): The husband receives concurrent retired and disability pay; the wife argued the entire amount was divisible. The husband argued that CRDP is an eligibility status that allows “qualified retirees” to concurrently receive two kinds of already existing entitlements. Held: CRDP does not change the nature of a member’s Chapter 61 retirement benefit. The benefits come from two sources: Chapter 61 disability retirement and VA disability payments. Neither source is divisible upon divorce.
Property Division - Source of Funds Rule
Husband filed complaint against wife for dissolution of marriage. The trial court awarded the husband two properties that it determined were nonmarital property, and awarded the wife equalization payment for ½ of marital funds used to pay principal on such properties' mortgages. The wife appealed. Held: The Supreme Court would expressly adopt the “source of funds” rule, and the district court failed to consider whether the marital estate's acquisition of equity in the properties acquired a proportionate marital interest that included passive appreciation. Affirmed in part, reversed in part.
Law Review Articles of Interest
- Akshat Agarwal, ‘New Parents' and the Best Interests Principle, 35 Yale J.L. & Feminism 288 (2024).
- Mikayla Jones, Heads Held High and Hands Holding Hope: The Victory and Vulnerabilities of the Indian Child Welfare Act after Haaland v. Brackeen, 103 Neb. L. Rev. 65 (2024).
- Douglas Laycock, Thomas C. Berg, Carl H. Esbeck, Robin Fretwell Wilson, The Respect for Marriage Act: Living Together Despite Our Deepest Differences, 2024 U. Ill. L. Rev. 511 (2024).
- Bailey Ruhm, The Best Interests of the Child Beyond Haaland v. Brackeen, 48 Law & Psychol. Rev. 215 (2023-2024).
- Mark Strasser, Free Exercise, the Respect for Marriage Act, and Some Potential Surprises, 72 Clev. St. L. Rev. 433 (2024).
- Stephanie L. Tang, Consideration of Ameliorative Measures in International Child Abduction Cases Post‑Golan, 54 Seton Hall L. Rev. 687 (2024).
- Rachel Yost, The Indian Child Welfare Act, Political Classification of “Indians,” and Preservation of Tribal Sovereignty: Children, the Most Precious Resource, 48 Am. Indian L. Rev. 43 (2023-2024).
