Divorce Lawyers New York - Recent Family Law Decisons (50)
RECENT FAMILY LAW DECISIONS (50)
Where son’s college attendance would require mother to spend substantial sums of money, and since there was evidence that petitioner’s child care costs for her daughter, who resided with mother, had increased at the same time mother’s income had increased, a finding that the pro rata decrease in child support requested by the father would result in a decrease in the daughter’s stand of living was not an abuse of discretion and such modification was not allowed.
Reducing child support payments to wife as a method of repayment for transportation expenses owed to husband was an abuse of discretion under the circumstances.
The circuit court correctly denied an increase in support where the record was devoid of evidence of the mother’s expenses for the child at the time of the original decree, and where she did not even attempt to itemize the individual factors underlying her determination of the amount she spend per month.
The summer camp provision unambiguously required defendant to pay the entire amount of the expenses, therefore, that portion of the trial court order which required defendant to pay only 60% future summer camp tuition was reversed.
Where divorced wife received an increase in child support from $60.00 a week to 34% of divorced husband’s monthly income of $1,600, a new hearing was required since such an increase was not supported by the evidence as the trial court overemphasized percentage of income formula and the financial situation of the divorced spouses was not suitably determined.
Considering the husband’s monthly income, with both the required and optional deductions plus the tax benefits he received, the monthly family support awarded was neither against the manifest weight of the evidence nor an abuse of discretion on the part of the trial court, where the husband testified that he earned a base salary of $600,000 per year; in 1976 he also received a bonus of $600 in addition to his base salary; the wife was a registered nurse prior to their marriage but terminated such employment shortly after the marriage; the parties had been married for approximately 20 years, during which time the husband advanced himself in business while the wife devoted herself to maintaining a home and raising the couple’s children and her maximum expected salary was $11,000 per year.
An award of $550 per month in child support payments was not unjustified where it was adduced that since entry of the decree plaintiff had remarried and shared a home with her spouse and child; plaintiff retained a live-in housekeeper at a salary of $80 per week; the plaintiff’s itemized monthly expenses for the child were as follows: food: $111; medical: $17.77; clothes: $85; allowance: $4.25; entertainment: $6.40; gifts for friends: $6; vacations $85; tutoring: $46; haircuts: $5; summer camp expenses were $425 and tennis and art lessons totaled $335 per year; plaintiff was a licensed real estate salesperson and prior to the date of the hearing had earned $11,800 from that endeavor, and plaintiff also realized approximately $30,000 from the sale of the marital home.
Because the trial court erred in modifying child support and because defendant failed to prove a substantial change of circumstances, it also erred when it arbitrarily reduced the arrearage from $890 to $400.
A father’s alleged inability to pay any child support, with no showing of good faith, resulted in not only manifest injustice to plaintiff, but perhaps also to the children, in view of the fact that there was no evidence in the record concerning plaintiff’s ability to support them; therefore, the portion of an order which abated the child support payments was reversed and remanded with directions.
