Bishop v. Bishop

• Decision Date: 31 December 2020
• Docket Number: No. COA19-600,COA19-600
• Citation: 853 S.E.2d 815
• Parties: John Edward BISHOP, III, Plaintiff, v. Sara Elizabeth BISHOP, Defendant.
• Court: North Carolina Court of Appeals

853 S.E.2d 815

John Edward BISHOP, III, Plaintiff,

v.Sara Elizabeth BISHOP, Defendant.

No. COA19-600

Court of Appeals of North Carolina.

Filed: December 31, 2020

Jonathan McGirt, for plaintiff-appellant.

Manning, Fulton & Skinner, P.A., Raleigh, by Michael S. Harrell, for defendant-appellee.

STROUD, Judge.

Father appeals from an order increasing his child support obligation. Because the trial court did not abuse its discretion in its consideration of "the estates, earnings, conditions, accustomed standard of living of the child and the parties, the child care and homemaker contributions of each party, and other facts of the particular case," N.C. Gen. Stat. § 50-13.4(c) (2019), we affirm the trial court's order.

I. Background

The parties married in 1998 and separated in 2007. They had one child during the marriage, Sarah.¹ An initial child custody and child support order was entered on 31 December 2012 in District Court, Wake County ("2012 Order"). The 2012 Order provided for joint legal and physical custody for Sarah and required Father to pay $2,064.00 per month in child support and to pay 93% unreimbursed medical expenses. After entry of the 2012 Order, the parties filed several motions which did not result in a change in child support or custody but did result in the appointment of a parenting coordinator.

In February 2017, Mother filed a motion to modify child support, and the trial court held a hearing on this motion on 13 June 2017. On 30 April 2018, the trial court entered an order ("2018 Order") increasing Father's child support to $3,289.00 per month and changing the parties’ respective percentages of the responsibility for unreimbursed medical expenses "with [Father] bearing 83% of such cost, and [Mother] bearing 17% of such cost." Father moved for a new trial and other relief from the April 2018 Order. The trial court denied Father's motions, and Father appealed from both the 2018 Order and the order denying the post-trial motions.

II. Standard of Review

On appeal, "[c]hild support orders entered by a trial court are accorded substantial deference ... and our review is limited to a determination of whether there was a clear abuse of discretion." Under this standard of review, the trial court's order will be upheld unless its "actions were manifestly unsupported by reason."

Hart v. Hart , 268 N.C. App. 172, 178, 836 S.E.2d 244, 250 (2019) (alterations in original) (citations omitted).

III. Child Support

Father argues, "[t]he trial court erred as a matter of law in modifying the prior child support order and abused its discretion in determining the amount of child support." (Original in all caps.) Except for a portion of one finding, Father does not challenge the trial court's findings of fact as unsupported by the evidence, but he contends these findings demonstrate mathematical errors in the calculation of the child support. Father does challenge Finding No. 62, "Plaintiff has had a significant increase in his income from the time of the 2012 Order ...." Father argues his income had actually decreased. But Father's primary argument is that the trial court ordered him to pay child support in excess of the reasonable needs of the minor child, based upon the trial court's findings.

Father does not dispute the most important findings of fact, namely: (1) Father's income was $44,846.29 per month; (2) Mother's income was $7,542.00 per month; and (3) The child's total reasonable needs were $7,926.23 per month, of which Father then incurred $5,431.18 per month, and Mother then incurred $2,495.05 per month. Father argues that the percentages of responsibility assigned to each party do not appear to coincide with the findings of the parties’ incomes and the child's reasonable needs. In short, he contends the trial court's math is wrong.

A. Father's Income

Father's primary argument focuses on the child's needs, but he does contend the trial court erred in finding his income had significantly increased since the 2012 Order. The hearing in 2012 was held in May, so the evidence addressed the income up to that point in the year. In the 2012 Order, the trial court made findings regarding Father's income each year from 2007 until 2011. Over these years, his gross income increased substantially from $162,517.00 in 2007 to $775,586 in 2011, when he began his employment with Cisco. Father's adjusted gross income for 2011 was $653,278, which would be approximately $54,440 per month. Father was a "founder and officer" of Inlet Technologies, Inc., where he worked from 2007 until 2011, when Cisco Systems Inc. purchased Inlet. Due to the buyout of Inlet, Father received additional payments including a "cash retention bonus" of $150,000 payable over two years, half in 2012 and half in 2013. In 2012, his base salary at Cisco was $200,000 and he was eligible for performance bonuses of an additional 35% of his annual gross salary.

Father argues that although the trial court made detailed findings in 2012 regarding his income, "[u]nfortunately, the trial court did not synthesize this cascade of data into an actual figure for [Father's] monthly income."

Father proposes that we should "reverse-engineer" the 2012 Order to determine Father's monthly income in 2012, and based upon the order's assignment of 93% of the responsibility for uninsured medical expenses to the amount of child support ordered, he contends the trial court tacitly found his income to be $60,888.43 per month. Father is correct that the trial court did not "synthesize the cascade of data" in the 2012 Order, and Father's mathematical argument is quite interesting. But the 2012 Order was not appealed. And the trial court did make a finding regarding the monthly income it used "for the purposes of child support. " (Emphasis added.) The trial court found in the 2012 Order that Father's "gross monthly income, including base salary and bonuses, for the purposes of child support currently exceeds $30,000 per month." Thus, for our purposes also, Father's income in 2012, for purposes of child support, was in excess of $30,000 per month.

In the order on appeal, after quoting the findings from the 2012 Order regarding Father's income as of 2012, the trial court found Father "has had a significant increase in his income" and determined his "current ongoing monthly income to be $44,846.29 per month." The trial court made detailed findings regarding Father's employment history since 2012. He changed employers to Akamai Technologies and had a gross income in 2015 of $837,165. His gross income in 2016 was $607.622. As of the time of trial in 2017, in mid-May, Father had "earned salary and bonus totaling $246,500" and was not expecting any more bonuses for the year. His base salary was $13,281 every two weeks, and the trial court extrapolated this to a "total salary and bonus" for the year 2017 of $432,500, or $36,041.66 per month. The trial court also made findings noting that Father had "historically received restricted stock shares from his employer," which "show up in his compensation and paystubs separate from his salary and bonus." In 2017, he had received about $233,000 in restricted stock shares, but he did not intend to redeem any shares at that time.

Thus, Father's income stream was complex and included elements of base salary, bonuses, and stock. His income varied over the years, but the overall trajectory was upward. In 2012, the trial court determined Father's income "for the purposes of child support" was in excess of $30,000 per month. In 2017, the trial court found Father's income "total salary and bonus" for the year 2017 to be $432,500, or $36,041.66 per month. The trial court did not err in finding Father "has had a significant increase in his income" since 2012.

B. Reasonable Needs of Minor Child

Father contends the trial court erred in its calculation of the child's reasonable needs. He argues that the amount of child support is greater than the child's total needs based upon his mathematical analysis of the order. In the 2012 Order, the trial court made this finding regarding the child's needs:

74. Defendant's current reasonable monthly needs for her regular recurring expenses benefitting the minor child and for the minor child together, are $2,345, including before and after school care. The reasonable monthly expenses of the minor child, alone, including before and after school care, are $1,595.

Father argues that in the 2012 Order, "The trial court provided no explanation of the methodology used to derive its award of the oddly specific monthly child support award of $2,064 per month." Father proposes another complex mathematical analysis to determine exactly how the trial court may have calculated this amount in the 2012 Order, but again, the 2012 Order is not on appeal.

In the 2018 Order, the trial court found:

23. The Court has determined the child's total reasonable needs between the parties to be $7,926.23 per month. Out of the child's reasonable needs, the Plaintiff currently incurs needs of $5,431.18 per month, and the Defendant currently incurs needs of $2,495.05 per month. The disparity in the parties’ respective reasonable needs for the minor child is directly related to the amount of respective discretionary income the parties have available for the minor child.

Father contends that the order on appeal did not "break out the child's expenses into the categories of, for example, ‘the child's portion of total recurring expenses at Plaintiff's/Defendant's household’ versus ‘the child's individual monthly needs[,]’ " making a direct comparison of the changes in the child's needs or expenses difficult.

Mother responds that Father did not challenge the trial court's findings of fact and notes the trial court made extensive findings regarding both parties’ lifestyles, assets, and debts and set child support based upon all of these factors. Father responds that he is "utterly mystified as to why Defendant's supplemental ‘Statement of Facts,’ should venture off into a...