{¶ 2} Appellant filed his brief pro se, but retained counsel to appear at oral argument before this court. Appellee has failed to file an appellate brief, nor has she defended herself on appeal. Although appellant has filed a brief, it fails to comply, even minimally, with App.R. 16(A) in either form or substance.2 Specifically, appellant's brief fails to include: (1) a table of contents; (2) a table of authority; (3) statement of the assignment of errors presented for review; (4) statement of the issues presented for review; (5) statement of the case; and (6) citations to legal authorities that support appellant's contentions. Because an appeal is decided on the merits of the assignments of error presented, and, here, appellant has not presented any for our review, we would be well within our discretion to dismiss the instant appeal. App.R. 12. Nevertheless, in the interests of justice, we will consider the issues raised by appellant, albeit, in a consolidated fashion.
{¶ 3} Turning to the merits, the following facts and procedural history are germane to our discussion. The parties to this action were married on September 9, 1988, and have two minor children. The marriage was terminated by decree of divorce on December 10, 1992, and since then, there have been numerous post-decree proceedings. A more *3
complete history of the action is set forth in this court's most recent opinion, titled Tonti v. Tonti, Franklin App. No. 03AP-494,
Imputed Child Care Expenses
{¶ 4} In Tonti /, appellant's fifth assignment of error charged that the trial court erroneously imputed child care expenses to appellee.4 Specifically, appellant contended that the trial court: (1) had no authority to impute child care expenses to appellee; (2) improperly modified the child care provisions of the shared parenting plan; and (3) abused its discretion in imputing child care expenses to appellee because she had no plans to return to the workforce. We found that the trial court did not exceed its authority or abuse its discretion in imputing child care costs to appellee, but did find such was an improper modification to the parties' shared parenting agreement because neither the court nor the magistrate made a finding that doing so was in the best interests of the children as required by R.C.{¶ 5} Upon remand, the trial court referred the matter to the magistrate, and on June 9, 2006, the magistrate issued a decision. The magistrate found that it was in the children's best interest to modify the shared parenting agreement to require appellee to pay her own child care expense when the children were in her possession, explaining:
The legislature long ago determined that daycare costs are part of child support and should be included on the worksheet when calculating child support. See former R.C.
3113.215 now R.C.3119.022 . In this case for purposes of calculating child support, Plaintiff's income was imputed, her local income tax was computed based upon imputed income and her daycare was imputed based upon the need for daycare if Plaintiff worked fulltime. A legal fiction was created to arrive at the child support worksheet amount.The parties' original shared parenting plan provided that Defendant was to pay all daycare expenses. It is not it in the children's best interest for Defendant to receive a childcare deduction based upon Plaintiff's imputed income and need for daycare in the event Plaintiff worked fulltime. In fact there is not income received by Plaintiff, there is no local tax paid on imputed income and there is no need for daycare because Plaintiff is not working fulltime. Therefore the Magistrate finds it in the children's best interest to modify the plan to require Plaintiff to pay her own daycare expenses during the time periods of the worksheet calculations.
(Mag. Decision, June 9, 2006, at 2.) On June 10, 2006, the trial court adopted the magistrate's decision. No objections were filed.
{¶ 6} When a party has not filed objections to a magistrate's decision and the trial court has entered judgment, appellate review is limited to plain error analysis. See Buford v. Singleton, Franklin App. No. 04AP-904,
{¶ 7} We fail to find plain error in the case at bar. This is not the extremely rare case that involves exceptional circumstances. Nor do we find any error in law or fact on the face of the magistrate's report. Accordingly, appellant has waived any appellate review of the trial court's adoption of the magistrate's decision.
Constitutional challenges to former R.C. 3113.215
{¶ 8} Another issue remanded to the trial court in Tonti I concerned the dismissal of appellant's motion challenging the constitutionality of former R.C. {¶ 9} On remand, the trial court rejected appellant's arguments that R.C.
* * *[N]ot only is Defendant's argument misplaced and mis applied, it is also fatally flawed in several aspects. Defendant's argument is based on a faulty premise, for O.R.C. §
3113.215 does not require a presumption that only one parent, in shared parenting cases, must pay child support. Furthermore, parents in "equal time" shared parenting cases are not similarly situated individuals solely due to spending the same amount of time with the child(ren). Even if such parents were to somehow qualify as similarly situated individuals, they are nevertheless not subjected to disparate treatment since courts are allowed to, in qualifying cases, deviate from the child support amounts calculated pursuant to the worksheet set forth in O.R.C. §3113.215 . Finally, even if such parents were similarly situated individuals, who are arguably subjected to disparate treatment by way of their respective child support obligations, the Court finds that O.R.C. §3113.215 is nevertheless not uncon stitutional as it is rationally related to a legitimate government interest.
(Trial Court decision, May 18, 2005, at 11-12.) The trial court also found appellant's argument that the statute was unconstitutionally vague to be without merit.
* * *[A]s the statute makes plainly obvious, and as numerous courts to interpret the statute have held, in shared parenting cases neither parent is to be designated as the nonresidential parent since both parents are residential parents. Thus, since the presumption Defendant speaks of does not arise in *7 shared parenting cases because no designation of residential parent is allowed in such cases, Defendant's vagueness argument is moot.
Id. at 25 (emphasis in the original).
{¶ 10} We begin our analysis with the principle that statutes carry a strong presumption of constitutionality. Harrold v. Collier,
{¶ 11} The Equal Protection Clause of the
{¶ 12} In determining whether a statute passes muster under the equal protection clauses, "[t]he general rule is that legislation is presumed to be valid and will be sustained *8
if the classification drawn by the statute is rationally related to a legitimate state interest." City of Cleburne v. Cleburne LivingCtr. (1985),
{¶ 13} With respect to the void for vagueness doctrine embodied in the due process clause, to pass constitutional muster, a statute must "give the person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly," as well as "provide explicit standards" for the police officers, judges, and jurors who enforce and apply them." Grayned v. Rockford (1972),
{¶ 14} In challenging the trial court's determination that R.C.
{¶ 15} Putting aside appellant's briefing and technical failures, consideration of the merits leads us to the same conclusion. Upon review, we conclude that former R.C.
{¶ 16} For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, Division of Domestic Relations, is affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.