Havens v. HavensHavens v. Havens
Rendered on July 18, 2013
Laura M. Peterman, for appellee.
Jack L. Moser, Jr., for appellant.
APPEAL from the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, Division of Domestic Relations.
KLATT, P.J.
{¶ 1} Defendant-appellant, Jeff Havens, appeals a judgment of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, Division of Domestic Relations, that denied him a deviation from the guideline child support amount. For the following reasons, we affirm.
{¶ 2} Jeff married plaintiff-appellee, Amy L. Havens, on September 6, 2002. Two children were born during the marriage. In a judgment entry-decree of divorce dated July 25, 2011, the trial court granted the parties a divorce, determined a schedule for shared parenting, and ordered Jeff to pay child support in the amount of $1,487.70 per month, plus a processing charge. The trial court determined the amount of child support by using the basic child support schedule and the shared parenting worksheet.
{¶ 3} Jeff requested that the trial court deviate from that guideline amount. In support of this request, Jeff argued that four
{¶ 4} Jeff appealed the July 25, 2011 judgment to this court and, in part, challenged the trial court‘s definition of extended parenting time. We agreed with Jeff that the trial court interpreted the phrase “extended parenting time” too narrowly. We held that ” ‘extend[ed] parenting time’ as used in
{¶ 5} On remand, the trial court recognized that Jeff had extended parenting time with his children because he parented them more than 25 percent of the time. Nevertheless, the trial court did not grant Jeff a downward deviation. The trial court
{¶ 6} Jeff now appeals the trial court‘s judgment, and he assigns the following errors:
[1.] THE TRIAL COURT ERRED, ABUSED ITS DISCRETION, AND RULED AGAINST THE MANIFEST WEIGHT OF THE EVIDENCE WHEN IT RULED THAT APPELLANT WAS NOT ENTITLED TO DEVIATION FROM CALCULATED CHILD SUPPORT.
[2.] THE TRIAL COURT ERRED, ABUSED ITS DISCRETION, AND RULED AGAINST THE MANIFEST WEIGHT OF THE EVIDENCE WHEN IT FAILED TO BALANCE ALL STATUTORY FACTORS OF
O.R.C. §3119.23 AND§3119.24 WHEN RULING THAT APPELLANT WAS NOT ENTITLED TO A DEVIATION IN CHILD SUPPORT.
{¶ 7} By his first assignment of error, Jeff argues that the trial court erred in not granting him an automatic 50 percent downward deviation from the guideline child support amount. We disagree.
{¶ 8} Generally, if a trial court issues a shared parenting order, the trial court must also order the payment of an amount of child support calculated using the child support schedule and the worksheet set forth in
{¶ 9} In Pauly v. Pauly, 80 Ohio St.3d 386 (1997), the Supreme Court of Ohio addressed whether a previous iteration of
{¶ 10} The statutory language now found in
{¶ 11} Jeff argues that an automatic reduction is logical and necessary in cases where the parent who is obligated to pay child support exercises extended parenting time. In such cases, Jeff contends, the obligor parent pays twice for some of his or her children‘s expenses. The obligor parent pays once through child support payments, and then again when the children incur costs while in the obligor‘s care. According to Jeff, a reduction in child support would eliminate these unfair double payments.
{¶ 12} Jeff sets forth a cogent argument for why the General Assembly should amend the statutes governing child support. For the reason Jeff raises, some states employ statutory formulas to reduce child support when the obligor‘s parenting time exceeds 20 percent. Beld & Biernat, Federal Intent for State Child Support Guidelines: Income Shares, Cost Shares, and the Realities of Shared Parenting, 37 Fam.L.Q. 165, 195-97 (2003). In contrast, under Ohio law, the reduction of child support is left solely to the discretion of the trial court. Therefore, we cannot impose the automatic reduction Jeff seeks, and we overrule Jeff‘s first assignment of error.
{¶ 13} By his second assignment of error, Jeff argues that the trial court erred in not reexamining all of the
{¶ 14} The judgment Jeff now appeals resulted from a limited remand. In its first judgment, the trial court rejected the statutory factors as either inapplicable or not
{¶ 15} A trial court must follow the mandate of the appellate court and, in the case of a limited remand, the trial court may not try any other issue other than that set forth in the mandate. Pingue v. Hyslop, 10th Dist. No. 01AP-1000, 2002-Ohio-2879, ¶ 35. Here, the trial court followed our instructions and conducted a limited review of Jeff‘s deviation request. Essentially, Jeff contends that the trial court should have exceeded those instructions and reevaluated each statutory factor. If the trial court had done as Jeff now argues, it would have erred. Instead, the trial court properly restricted its consideration to whether the extended-parenting-time factor altered its earlier determination not to deviate.
{¶ 16} Jeff next attacks the reason the trial court gave for rejecting Jeff‘s extended parenting time as a basis for deviating from the guideline child support amount. The trial court found that a decrease in child support was not in the best interests of the children because of the disparity in the parties’ incomes. That disparity matters because the expenditures of an obligee parent with a significantly lower income do not decrease in direct relation to the out-of-pocket expenditures of the higher-income obligor parent. The obligee‘s fixed costs, such as housing and utilities, remain the same regardless of the extended time the children spend with the obligor. The higher-income obligor is better equipped to absorb the obligee‘s fixed costs. Keeping the child support at the guideline level ensures that the children enjoy a uniform standard of living while shifting between the obligee‘s and obligor‘s households.
{¶ 17} Multiple appellate courts have refused to find an abuse of discretion in a trial court‘s denial of a deviation request based on extended parenting time when a
{¶ 18} For the foregoing reasons, we overrule Jeff‘s two assignments of error, and we affirm the judgment of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, Division of Domestic Relations.
Judgment affirmed.
TYACK and T. BRYANT, JJ., concur.
T. BRYANT, J., retired, of the Third Appellate District, assigned to active duty under authority of Ohio Constitution, Article IV, Ohio Constitution, Section 6(C).