Tara Jean Davies v. Guy Albert P Davies (mem. dec.), 24A05-1508-DR-1103

Background

Tara Jean Davies (Mother) and Guy A.P. Davies (Father) married in 2002 and had three children; Mother filed for dissolution in May 2013.
Father works long stints offshore drilling (months at a time), returns for ~22–26 day breaks, and has two children from a prior marriage for whom he pays support.
The trial court entered a provisional order (no temporary support ordered) and later conducted final hearings across three dates (Nov 2013, Jul 2014, Sep 2014).
The dissolution court awarded Mother sole custody, granted Father liberal visitation tied to his work breaks, and ordered child support of $442/week commencing April 24, 2015, with reduction by half when Father physically had the children.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals remanded for either a signed child support worksheet or written findings; the trial court issued written findings explaining its deviation from the Guidelines and reaffirmed the $442/week obligation.
Appellate holdings: the court affirmed the decree overall but remanded to (1) order income withholding for support, (2) specify which parent may claim each child as a tax dependent, and (3) allocate uninsured medical expenses; other challenges were rejected as invited error or not supported by evidence.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Mother)	Defendant's Argument (Father)	Held
Calculation of child support	Trial court improperly deviated from Child Support Guidelines and failed to address statutory factors	Court relied on mother's admitted worksheet (Exhibit 2) and evidence about schedules/costs	Affirmed—mother invited error by offering unobjected worksheet; court's deviation explained in findings
Retroactive support	Mother sought retroactive support for bills Father failed to pay during pendency	Father testified he paid expected bills; parties had agreed no provisional support	Affirmed—court credited Father; no abuse of discretion in denying retroactivity
Income withholding order	Mother requested mandatory income withholding for enforcement	No specific statutory exception shown by Father	Reversed in part—court erred by not ordering income withholding; remanded to issue order
College expenses for oldest child	Mother sought contribution for son’s college costs	No evidence of the amount of college expenses presented at trial	Affirmed—no evidence of amounts; error invited by Mother’s presentation
Tax dependency exemptions	Mother argued court should allocate dependency exemptions	No allocation made in decree	Remanded—statute requires the order to specify which parent may claim the child(ren) as dependents
Uninsured medical expenses	Mother argued uninsured expenses should be allocated per Guidelines	No calculation or evidence of extraordinary expenses in record	Remanded—trial court must determine and allocate uninsured medical expenses per Guideline 7

Key Cases Cited

Tisdial v. Young, 925 N.E.2d 783 (Ind. Ct. App.) (prima facie error standard when appellee does not file brief)
Young v. Young, 891 N.E.2d 1045 (Ind.) (standard of review for child support; judgments not reversed absent clear error)
Balicki v. Balicki, 837 N.E.2d 532 (Ind. Ct. App.) (doctrine of invited error prevents complaining about error invited or caused by party)
Laux v. Ferry, 34 N.E.3d 690 (Ind. Ct. App.) (retroactivity and invited-error discussion in child support context)
Hirsch v. Oliver, 970 N.E.2d 651 (Ind.) (factors and discretion for post-secondary educational expense awards)
Fetters v. Fetters, 26 N.E.3d 1016 (Ind. Ct. App.) (effect of sua sponte findings and standards of review)
Hatmaker v. Hatmaker, 998 N.E.2d 758 (Ind. Ct. App.) (trial court discretion on retroactive child support)
Hickman v. Irwin Union Bank (In re Hickman), 811 N.E.2d 843 (Ind. Ct. App.) (effect of post-appeal trial-court action on appellate jurisdiction)