Quinn v. Threlkel
| Decision Date | 20 December 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 55A01-0607-CV-314.,55A01-0607-CV-314. |
| Parties | Rita (Threlkel) QUINN, Appellant-Petitioner, v. Robert A. THRELKEL, Appellee-Respondent. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Andrew J. Baldwin, Baldwin & Roesener Law Office, P.C., Franklin, IN, Attorney for Appellant.
Brian H. Williams, Martinsville, IN, Attorney for Appellee.
Rita Quinn appeals the trial court's order on her petition for modification of child support and for payment of college expenses from her ex-husband, Robert Threlkel, for their child, Elaine Threlkel. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand.
The issues before us are:
I. whether the trial court's post-secondary education expense award is proper;
II. whether the court's order regarding abatement of Robert's child support obligation while Elaine is attending college is proper;
III. whether the court properly refused to make its order increasing Robert's support obligation retroactive; and
IV. whether the court properly ordered transfer of the tax exemption for Elaine from Rita to Robert.
Rita and Robert were divorced in 1991. They had two children, one of whom was emancipated in 2002. After that child was emancipated, Robert's child support obligation was $48 per week. Elaine graduated from high school in 2005 and was to begin attending Franklin College that fall.
On June 8, 2005, Rita filed a petition requesting a modification of Robert's weekly child support obligation and a determination of responsibility for college expenses. The trial court never acted on this petition. It is believed that the petition was misplaced because the Morgan County courts were temporarily displaced from the courthouse at that time. On November 2, 2005, Rita re-filed her petition. The trial court then scheduled a hearing on the matter for February 16, 2006.
Before the hearing took place, Elaine incurred college expenses not covered by financial aid of approximately $6900 for the 2005-06 school year. Elaine's financial aid award from Franklin College included grants, scholarships, and work-study, as well as a Perkins Loan and a subsidized Stafford Loan totaling nearly $5500; Elaine took out the loans. Robert paid approximately $6000 towards Elaine's college expenses before the hearing. Elaine lived on campus during the 2005-06 school year, but Franklin College is not far from Rita's home, and Elaine frequently came home during the year. As of the time of the hearing, it was unclear whether Elaine was going to live on campus during the 2006-07 school year.
Robert works on commission and, therefore, his income varies widely from year-to-year. In 2003, he earned approximately $86,000, in 2004, $61,500, and in 2005, $100,000. Rita worked until April 2005, at a job that paid approximately $34,000 annually; her reported income for 2005 was approximately $10,000. At the time of the hearing she was still seeking new employment, but it was not absolutely necessary for her to do so because she had support from a new spouse.
During the hearing, Robert's attorney requested that "based on the disparate incomes in this to award the tax exemption for Elaine to the father ... for these upcoming years." Tr. p. 12. After a brief discussion, and without objection or any input from Rita's attorney, the trial court determined that Robert was entitled to the tax exemption for Elaine, beginning with the 2005 tax year.
Also during the hearing, the trial court chastised the parents at length for permitting Elaine to take out some student loans to help offset the cost of her education:
[L]et me make kind of a pointed comment here that I don't like. You two between the two of you are knocking down over a hundred thousand dollars . . . well in excess of a hundred thousand dollars and you're making your child take out student loans. That's atrocious. That's not fair to her. There is no reason she ought to have to strap herself for the next twenty years with a college loan, when you folks are making this type of income. With all the grants and scholarships she's making and then make her get out a student loan too, she is more than carrying her share of the load. It's almost like you are abandoning her. You're saying, "Oh yeah, you're so great, we're going to saddle you with twenty years of payments once you get out of school because you're such a good student, and I'm making so much money that I'm going to use it for myself and ignore my child?" That's not fair to her folks. I agree Franklin College is expensive. There is no question about it. It's probably more than double the tuition of IU or Ball State.... uh-uh, that is not going to happen with you two with your potential incomes any more. She will not have to do that carrying a 2.9 at Franklin and having these scholarships and grants, no.
Id. at 13-14. Later, the trial court stated, "I didn't saddle my kids with loans, so I didn't even explore them." Id. at 19. In its order, the trial court not only forbade Rita and Robert from allowing Elaine to take out any more student loans, it also required them to repay the loans she already had taken out.
The trial court also stated at the hearing that it was not going to follow the Indiana Supreme Court's Child Support Guidelines, Commentary, and accompanying Post-Secondary Education Worksheet regarding reducing a weekly child support obligation, pro rata, based upon a child living on campus during the school year:
[T]hat's where we'll stop on the worksheet. I don't think that giving advance credit for post-secondary education worksheet [sic] is appropriate with children the way they are today, and their lack of staying at home once they've become college bound. I find that from the Court's own experience in observing other people's college kids, they don't come home. They get into a co-op program. They find an intern job. They go off to the boyfriend's for a week ... they go to their Sorority Sister's, their roommates house for a week or two .. . a lot of different things such that they're not home, thank God. And the Supreme Court's adoption I think is ill conceived and is inappropriate . . . support will apply for every seven days that the child is out of school and is actually home because she is not in school.
Id. at 15-16. The trial court also stated that Robert would not be responsible for child support while Elaine was in school, even if she did frequently come home during that time.
The trial court's order also provided that Robert's non-prorated weekly child support obligation would increase to $198, which would not be made retroactive. It also determined that Robert would be responsible for 71% of Elaine's college expenses and Rita 29%. It further required Rita to partially reimburse Robert for some of the payments he had made for the 2005-06 school year that exceeded 71% of unreimbursed costs. Rita now appeals.
As a general matter, child support awards comporting with the Indiana Child Support Guidelines bear a rebuttable presumption of correctness. In re Paternity of C.R.R., 752 N.E.2d 58, 61 (Ind.Ct. App.2001). If the trial court finds that the Guidelines are unjust or inappropriate in a particular case, the court may enter a support award that is deemed appropriate. Id. "A deviation must be supported by proper written findings justifying the deviation." Id.
Decisions regarding child support generally fall within the sound discretion of the trial court. Payton v. Payton, 847 N.E.2d 251, 253 (Ind.Ct.App.2006). Reversal of a trial court's child support order is merited only where the determination is clearly against the logic and effect of the facts and circumstances before the court. Id. On appeal, we will consider only the evidence and reasonable inferences favorable to the judgment. Id. We also bear in mind that although a trial court has broad discretion to tailor a child support award in light of the circumstances before it, "this discretion must be exercised within the methodological framework established by the guidelines." McGinley-Ellis v. Ellis, 638 N.E.2d 1249, 1251-52 (Ind.1994). This principle applies with equal force to orders regarding post-secondary education expenses. See Carr v. Carr, 600 N.E.2d 943, 946 n. 3 (Ind. 1992).
We first address the trial court's post-secondary education expense order. With respect to that order, we conclude that it is necessary to remand for clarification and reconsideration.
Recently, we held that we could not adequately review the trial court's child support order where the parties had not submitted verified child support worksheets and the trial court had not entered adequate findings to justify and explain its order. Payton, 847 N.E.2d at 253-54. Thus, we remanded for the trial court to enter more complete findings or to obtain and adopt a party's verified child support worksheet. Id. at 255.
We have the same difficulty in the present case. A multitude of considerations impact a decision to order an award of post-secondary education expenses. Indiana Code Section 31-16-6-2(a)(1) provides that an award of such expenses should take into account:
(A) the child's aptitude and ability;
(B) the child's reasonable ability to contribute to educational expenses through:
(i) work;
(ii) obtaining loans; and
(iii) obtaining other sources of financial aid reasonably available to the child and each parent; and
(C) the ability of each parent to meet these expenses;
The Child Support Guidelines' commentary on post-secondary education expenses further states:
[T]he court should consider post-secondary education to be a group effort, and weigh the ability of each parent to contribute to payment of the expense, as well as the ability of the student to pay a portion of the expense.
If the Court determines that an award of post-secondary educational expenses is appropriate, it should apportion the expenses between the parents and the child,...
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