John VOISHAN v. Margaret Voishan PALMA
No. 99, Sept. Term, 1991
Court of Appeals of Maryland
July 22, 1992
609 A.2d 319
JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS AFFIRMED IN PART AND REVERSED IN PART. CASE REMANDED TO THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS WITH DIRECTIONS TO REVERSE ONE OF THE STOREHOUSE BREAKING CONVICTIONS.
COSTS IN THIS COURT AND IN THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS TO BE PAID BY PRINCE GEORGE‘S COUNTY.
William M. Ferris, argued and on brief (Lynn T. Krause, Krause & Ferris, on brief), Annapolis, for appellant.
Ralph S. Tyler, Deputy Atty. Gen., argued and on brief (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen. and Carolyn A. Quattrocki,
Bruce A. Kaufman, Baltimore, argued and on brief (Thomas C. Ries, Baltimore and Beverly Anne Groner, Bethesda, on brief), as amicus curiae for American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.
Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, McAULIFFE, CHASANOW, KARWACKI and ROBERT M. BELL, JJ.
CHASANOW, Judge.
John and Margaret Voishan were divorced on June 26, 1981, by decree of the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County. Margaret was awarded custody of their two daughters and John was ordered to pay $250 per week toward the girls’ support. Over four years later, an order dated October 7, 1985 increased the amount of John‘s obligation for the support of both children to $1400 per month. The circuit court‘s order also awarded John certain detailed visitation rights.
On March 8, 1991, the circuit court‘s intercession was again sought to address John‘s request to find Margaret in contempt for violating the visitation order as well as Margaret‘s motion to modify child support. The Honorable Raymond G. Thieme, Jr. presided at that hearing and shortly thereafter entered an order finding that Margaret was not in contempt of court. That order also increased John‘s child support obligation for the one daughter who was still a minor from $700 per month to $1550 per month. John then appealed the modification of child support to the Court of Special Appeals. Because of the important issues raised on appeal, this Court granted certiorari before consideration by the intermediate appellate court. While Margaret failed to file an appellee‘s brief or respond to John‘s oral arguments, both the Maryland Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and the Attorney General of Maryland filed amici curiae briefs and presented oral argument.
This dispute requires the Court, for the first time, to address
After considering several different models recommended by the Advisory Panel on Child Support Guidelines, the General Assembly chose to base Maryland‘s guidelines on the Income Shares Model. See Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, Bill Analysis, Senate Bill 49 (1989). The conceptual underpinning of this model is that a child should receive the same proportion of parental income, and thereby enjoy the standard of living, he or she would have experienced had the child‘s parents remained together. Id. see also Robert G. Williams, “Child Support Guidelines: Economic Basis and Analysis of Alternative Approaches,” Improving Child Support Practice I-12 to I-13 (A.B.A.1986). Accordingly, the model establishes child support obligations based on estimates of the percentage of income that parents
Following the Income Shares Model, Maryland‘s guidelines first require that the trial judge determine each parent‘s monthly “adjusted actual income.”
“‘Adjusted actual income’ means actual income minus:
(1) preexisting reasonable child support obligations actually paid;
(2) except as provided in
§ 12-204(a)(2) of this subtitle, alimony or maintenance obligations actually paid; and(3) the actual cost of providing health insurance coverage for a child for whom the parents are jointly and severally responsible.”
After determining each parent‘s monthly “adjusted actual income,” the judge then adds these two amounts together to arrive at the monthly “combined adjusted actual income” of the parents. See
While John‘s primary contention is that Judge Thieme abused his discretion in setting the monthly obligation at $1550, he first argues that the judge could not modify the amount of child support without making a threshold finding that there was a “material change of circumstance.” See
Having disposed of John‘s preliminary argument, we now reach his primary contention. John contends that the $1550 monthly child support award is inconsistent with the spirit and intent behind the Income Shares Model, and concludes that Judge Thieme abused his discretion in awarding that amount. John maintains that Judge Thieme accurately found that the parties’ earnings created a ratio of 83 to 17 for John‘s and Margaret‘s respective percentages of their $175,000 combined annual income. John contends, however, that Judge Thieme erred in the manner in which he applied these percentages to arrive at the amount of $1550 per month for John‘s share of the obligation. Judge Thieme examined expense sheets for each of the parties and concluded that the “reasonable expenses of the child” were $1873 each month. The judge then calculated 83% of that figure and rounded John‘s share of the obligation down to $1550.
John argues here, as he did below, that a “reasonable approach” would have been for the trial judge to assume that the maximum basic child support obligation listed in the schedule is not only applicable to combined monthly incomes of $10,000, but also applies to those in excess of $10,000 per month. Under the schedule in
Alternatively, John argues that Judge Thieme should have extrapolated from the guidelines to determine what the support obligation would have been had the schedule extended up to the parties’ $14,583 monthly income. John notes that at the upper levels in the guidelines, the basic child support obligation for one child increases by $5 for every $100 rise in combined adjusted actual income.3 Extrapolating on that basis, John argues that the basic child support obligation would be $1270 per month ($4583/
The legislature has clearly enunciated that the policies of the guidelines are those embodied in the Income Shares Model. John also argues that this model relies on the assumption that the percentage of income expended on children decreases as parental income increases, and therefore the General Assembly could not have intended to permit an award in this case to exceed 10.4% of combined monthly income, the percentage represented by the schedule‘s maximum support obligation for one child. The legislative history, however, indicates that the General Assembly did not intend to impose a maximum percentage of income or any similar restraint on the judge‘s discretion in setting awards where the parents’ combined adjusted actual income exceeds $10,000 per month. In the hearings on the guidelines, the General Assembly was asked repeatedly to circumscribe the discretion granted in
“[i]mplicit in this judgment is the view that at very high income levels, the percentage of income expended on children may not necessarily continue to decline or even remain constant because of the multitude of different options for income expenditure available to the affluent. The legislative judgment was that at such high income levels judicial discretion is better suited than a fixed formula to implement the guidelines’ underlying principle that a child‘s standard of living should be altered as little as possible by the dissolution of the family.”
While the legislature specifically rejected the request for more explicit formulae for incomes above the schedule, the general principles from which the schedule was derived should not be ignored. See
“the best interests and needs of the child with the parents’ financial ability to meet those needs. Factors which should be considered when setting child support include the financial circumstances of the parties, their station in life, their age and physical condition, and expenses in educating the children.” (Citations omitted).
Unkle v. Unkle, 305 Md. 587, 597, 505 A.2d 849, 854 (1986). These principles expressed in the pre-guidelines Unkle decision are consistent with the underlying concept that the child‘s needs be met as they would have been absent the parents’ divorce.
While we reject John‘s argument that Judge Thieme abused his discretion because he placed too little reliance on John‘s suggested mechanical extrapolation from the schedule, we also decline to adopt the position taken by the Maryland Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (the AAML) in their amicus curiae brief. The AAML basically argues that Judge Thieme abused his discretion because he placed too much reliance on a mechanical application of the guidelines. The AAML contends that the economic data from which the figures in the schedule were derived did not include empirical evidence of the actual household expenditures for children of high income parents. Because the research and data used in constructing the Income Shares Model did not contemplate these high-range combined parental incomes, the AAML argues, the model provides no assistance in calculating the proper amount of child support. Thus, the AAML concludes, “the trial court
In support of this conclusion, the AAML points out that the legislature did not include in
The Court in Rand declined to “mandate any specific formula by which the chancellor is to calculate the amount of support to be charged against each parent” and left to the chancellor‘s discretion the manner of assessing financial resources. Id. The legislature has modified Rand‘s holding, as
In Rand and other cases decided before the enactment of the guidelines, the determination or modification of a child support award was left to the sound discretion of the trial court. Rand, 280 Md. at 517, 374 A.2d at 905. As quoted from Unkle above, courts were to balance the best interests and needs of the child with the parents’ ability to satisfy those needs, and to make awards based on the circumstances of each individual case. Unkle, 305 Md. at 597, 505 A.2d at 854. Referring to alimony or child support in pre-guidelines cases, this Court had repeatedly said that
“‘[i]n making such an award the court can only use judicial discretion. Of course, there is no special statute or rule governing this discretion. It must be exercised to the necessary end of awarding justice and based upon reason and law.‘” (Emphasis added).
Bowis v. Bowis, 259 Md. 41, 44, 267 A.2d 84, 86 (1970) (quoting Burton v. Burton, 253 Md. 233, 237, 252 A.2d 472, 473 (1969), in turn quoting Waters v. Waters, 191 Md. 436, 440-41, 62 A.2d 250, 253 (1948)). We do not believe that the legislature intended that the schedule in
While awards made under
Finally John contends that, even if Judge Thieme did not abuse his discretion in the manner in which he set the award, the evidence upon which he based the award was legally insufficient. This Court addressed a similar argument in Rothschild v. Strauss, 257 Md. 396, 263 A.2d 511 (1970). The father there argued “that ‘the Chancellor did not base his award on any substantial evidence in the record,’ the mother having supplied, so the father says, ‘boxcar figures’ as to the monthly needs.” Id. at 398, 263 A.2d at 512. The Court said that the short answer to the father‘s contention was found in Maryland Rule 886a. That Rule was subsequently readopted, without substantive change, as
“the chancellor did have before him evidence from the mother of costs for support of the child. It is obvious that the chancellor gave very careful consideration to the mother‘s testimony, the original agreement, the changes in the cost of living, changes by virtue of change in age insofar as the young lady is concerned and her actual needs. It is significant in this regard that although the chancellor increased the support payments, he did not accept the support figure requested by the mother. We cannot say that the chancellor‘s judgment in this case was ‘clearly erroneous‘.”
The case at hand is markedly similar to that in Rothschild. Judge Thieme received testimony from Margaret about her daughter‘s expenses, accompanied by a list enumerating each. This list identified food, shelter, and clothing as the primary expenses, but also itemized expenses for transportation, extracurricular activities, outside sports teams, and religious instruction.6 Rather than adopt these numbers, Judge Thieme recessed to review the evidence and said, “I‘m not going to shoot from the hip without looking at the expenses and making my own determination as to what this—what this child reasonably needs for monthly
JUDGMENT OF THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY AFFIRMED. COSTS TO BE PAID BY APPELLANT.
McAULIFFE, Judge, concurring.
I concur in the result. I do not believe that the legislature intended to authorize trial judges to ignore basic policy decisions made by the legislature with respect to the equitable establishment of child support, or to authorize virtually unlimited discretion as soon as the combined adjusted actual income of the parties exceeds $10,000 per month.
As the Court‘s opinion points out, the legislature adopted an Income Shares Model when it enacted Senate Bill 49 in 1989. The Bill Analysis prepared for the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee explains the basic concepts of this model in the following language:
The Income Shares model is based on the premise that the child should receive the same proportion of parental income he or she would receive if the parents lived together. Under this model, a basic child support obligation is computed based on the combined income of the parents (replicating total income in an intact household). This basic obligation is then prorated in proportion to each parent‘s adjusted gross income. Prorated shares of child care costs and extraordinary medical expenses are added to each parent‘s basic obligation.
The economic assumptions underlying this model are based on recent studies estimating expenditures on children as a proportion of household consumption.
The chancellor followed one of these policies when he allocated the share of each parent in accordance with their share of the total income. He apparently ignored, however, the “recent studies estimating expenditures on children as a proportion of household consumption” which underlay the legislature‘s approved model, and instead reverted to an
I believe the Income Shares Model adopted by the legislature provides informed guidance for the fixing of child support obligations even when the combined adjusted actual income exceeds $10,000 per month, while still granting the discretion referred to in
Specifically, I suggest that the amount calculated in accordance with the schedule for child support when the combined income equals $10,000 per month should serve as the presumptive floor for awards based upon combined
As I have noted above, the studies upon which the schedule is based demonstrate that the percentage of combined income of families living together that is dedicated to support of a child decreases as the income increases. Thus, it would hardly be inequitable to the child to establish as a maximum the percentage fixed by the schedule for a lesser amount of combined income. It should be kept in mind, however, that it is the percentage of income that remains as a constant presumptive ceiling—the amount of dollars to be paid for the support of the child obviously increases as the combined income increases.
I certainly would not fault a chancellor for utilizing a projection of the schedule for combined incomes above $10,000 a month as a presumptive child support payment where other factors did not suggest a different amount, but I agree that such a projection is not required. The legislature expressly reserved a considerable range of discretion to the chancellor when the combined monthly income of the parties exceeds $10,000, and thus there is no authority for requiring a mathematical projection. It was, however, the intent of the legislature that this discretion be exercised in a manner consistent with the principles approved by the passage of
Applying these principles to this case, the presumptive minimum base payment would be $1,040 (the payment es-
ELDRIDGE, J., joins in this opinion.
Linda Gayle MATTINGLY, et vir, v. Kenneth W. SHIFFLETT
No. 74, Sept. Term, 1991
Court of Appeals of Maryland
July 23, 1992
609 A.2d 329
Notes
| Combined Adjusted Actual Income | 1 Child | Combined Adjusted Actual Income | 1 Child |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9000 | 989 | 9550 | 1017 |
| 9050 | 992 | 9600 | 1020 |
| 9100 | 994 | 9650 | 1022 |
| 9150 | 997 | 9700 | 1025 |
| 9200 | 999 | 9750 | 1027 |
| 9250 | 1002 | 9800 | 1030 |
| 9300 | 1004 | 9850 | 1032 |
| 9350 | 1007 | 9900 | 1035 |
| 9400 | 1009 | 9950 | 1037 |
| 9450 | 1012 | 10000 | 1040 |
| 9500 | 1014 |