Trial Court Adopted Wife’s DissoMaster Report To Calculate Awards, But It Reflected Wife’s Income At A Level Contradicted By Attachments To Her Incomplete Income And Expense Declaration And Lacked Supporting Documentation.
In Marriage of Behrend, Case No. B305380 (2d Dist., Div. 3 June 22, 2021) (unpublished), the trial court granted wife’s request for a modification to monthly child support payments – increasing them from $989 to $10,658 – and ordered $20,000 of wife’s attorney fees to be paid by husband. Husband appealed.
The 2/4 DCA reversed without prejudice – finding no substantial evidence to support the DissoMaster’s input data that wife’s monthly income was only $2,625 where evidence showed her income at a minimum to be an average of $9,500 per month. On remand, the panel instructed that the trial court could not proceed on wife’s instant Request for Order, but that wife was free to file a new RFO for child support modification based upon current data, with an accurate and complete Income and Expense Declaration and supporting documentation.
Because an award of attorney fees, pursuant to Family Code § 2030, is related to the parties’ respective financial circumstances, the fees award was also reversed. However, the panel also noted that the trial court failed to make express findings as required by § 2030(a)(2) – providing a separate basis for reversal of the fees award. The panel instructed that the trial court may reconsider the fees issue on remand – after redetermining the child support issue based on a new RFO being filed by wife.
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