Rogers v. Rogers

• Decision Date: 08 March 2001
• Docket Number: No. C2-99-1325.,C2-99-1325.
• Citation: 622 N.W.2d 813
• Parties: In re the Marriage of Rolf Edward ROGERS, petitioner, Appellant, v. Lisa Anne ROGERS, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

622 N.W.2d 813

In re the Marriage of Rolf Edward ROGERS, petitioner, Appellant, v. Lisa Anne ROGERS, Respondent.

No. C2-99-1325.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

March 8, 2001.

Jane Binder, Christine N. Howard, Minneapolis, for appellant.

Geraldine Carlen Steen, Minnetonka, for respondent.

Gary Alan Debele, Chair, Amicus Committee, Minneapolis, for Amicus Curiae, Minnesota Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

Heard, considered and decided by the court en banc.

OPINION

STRINGER, Justice.

Appellant Rolf Edward Rogers (Rolf) and respondent Lisa Anne Rogers (Lisa) were married in 1982 and divorced in 1994. Three children were born of the marriage.¹ Lisa was granted physical custody of the children following the divorce and Rolf was ordered to pay child support and spousal maintenance. Rolf was granted physical custody of the children in 1998 but continued to pay child support to Lisa. In 1999 Rolf petitioned the court to terminate his child support obligation, correct a clerical mistake that required him to continue paying spousal maintenance for a longer period of time than originally agreed, and award him the right to claim the dependency exemptions for the children for income tax purposes. The district court denied Rolf's request to eliminate his child support obligation and his request regarding the dependency exemptions. The court corrected the clerical error regarding the spousal maintenance obligation but concluded that the child support obligation should be recalculated in light of the ensuing change in income, resulting in an increased child support obligation for Rolf. The court of appeals expressed approval of the 1998 child support order despite Rolf having sole physical custody of the children, but held that the district court erred by increasing the child support obligation sua sponte and awarding a dependency exemption to Lisa. The court of appeals remanded for further findings on Rolf's claim of decreased income. We affirm in part, reverse in part and remand for further findings under Minn.Stat. § 518.551, subd. 5(i) (1998).

The heart of our inquiry is whether Minnesota's statutory child support scheme has been properly applied to the facts here. The child support guidelines establish a rebuttable presumption that the child support obligor owes a statutorily fixed percentage of the obligor's income based on the obligor's income and the number of children. Minn.Stat. § 518.551, subd. 5(b) and 5(i) (1998). To overcome the presumption and deviate from the statutorily prescribed child support award, the court must make written findings supporting the deviation and explaining how the deviation serves the best interests of the children. Minn.Stat. § 518.551, subd. 5(i). It has generally been presumed that the parent with sole physical custody will spend the appropriate amount on the children directly and thus it is not necessary to order child support.²

Minnesota is one of seven states in which the child support guidelines statute does not expressly provide a formula to address child support where both parents have extensive custodial privileges.³ To provide a method for resolving child support issues in such cases, an approach called the Hortis⁴/Valento⁵ formula has evolved out of a series of cases decided by the court of appeals interpreting the guidelines to require courts to treat each parent with joint physical custody as a child support obligor as to the portion of time the child spends with the child's other parent. Each obligor is required to pay the child support obligation indicated under the child support guidelines at Minn. Stat. § 518.551, subd. 5(b) (1998), reduced by the percentage of time that the parent has physical custody of the children. A deviation is permitted only if the court determines it is needed to serve the best interests of the children and is supported by the findings required by Minn.Stat. § 518.551, subd. 5(i).

The court of appeals later extended the principle of joint obligation when it held that the statutory guidelines require the application of the Hortis/Valento formula where one parent has been granted sole physical custody but both parents spend equal amounts of time caring for the children. Tweeton v. Tweeton, 560 N.W.2d 746, 748 (Minn.App.), rev. denied (Minn. May 28, 1997). Although each parent in Tweeton cared for the children 50% of the time, the court stated that the:

method of calculating child support described in Hortis and Valento was not premised upon the legal designation of the parents as "joint custodians," but upon the pragmatic observation that the arrangements reviewed in those cases called for provision of a significant amount of physical care by each parent.

Id. Applying this principle, the court of appeals held in this case that the child support guidelines require application of the Hortis/Valento formula when both parents provide "significant physical care" for the children, but the court did not define significant physical care. Rogers v. Rogers, 606 N.W.2d 724, 727 (Minn.App.2000).

Turning to the circumstances here, the judgment and decree granting the parties' divorce in 1994 incorporated the parties' stipulations and stated that Rolf had a gross monthly income of approximately $5,000 and Lisa had a gross monthly income of approximately $1,200. Lisa was granted "primary" physical custody of the children, $1,190 per month child support, a child care contribution of $130 per month, and rehabilitative spousal maintenance until January 1, 2000. The parties stipulated that the court had no future jurisdiction to award further spousal maintenance, and the decree provided for joint legal custody of the children. Rolf was granted extensive visitation rights with the children and was awarded the right to claim the three children as dependents for income tax purposes until the spousal maintenance obligation ceased. Thereafter the dependency exemptions were to be divided between the parties.⁶

In 1998, on Rolf's motion, "actual physical custody" of the children was awarded to him but the parties continued to have joint legal custody of the children with Lisa retaining visitation rights with the children approximately 45% of the time. Rolf did not request child support from Lisa incident to the change in physical custody. The district court held however, that under the "pragmatic approach" of Tweeton, it was "in the children's best interests that [Rolf] continue to pay some child support to help [Lisa] meet her housing expense" and ordered Rolf to pay approximately $593 in child support per month based on the method of computation outlined in the Hortis/Valento formula. Taking the first step of the Hortis/Valento —formula the calculation of each party's support obligation as if that party were the child support obligor—the court made findings regarding each party's income and the percentage of income owed as child support under the child support guidelines. See Minn.Stat. § 518.551, subd. 5(b). The court found Rolf's monthly net income to be $6,246.00 and he therefore had a guidelines obligation of $2,077.25 per month. Lisa's monthly net income of $1,134.85 from employment and $500.00 in spousal maintenance resulted in a guidelines obligation of $620.68 per month. The court then reduced the obligations of each party proportionately so that each parent would pay child support only for the percentage of time the other parent had physical custody. Forty-five percent of Rolf's guidelines obligation was approximately $934; fifty-five percent of Lisa's obligation was approximately $341 therefore Rolf was obligated to pay Lisa $593.39 per month, the difference when the guidelines obligations are offset.

The current litigation began in April of 1999 when Rolf returned to the district court after having been awarded sole physical custody of the children a year earlier, requesting termination of his $593.39 child support obligation and arguing that there had been a significant change in circumstances because his expenses exceeded his income and Lisa was utilizing less visitation with the children than was awarded to her in 1998. The district court denied Rolf's motion on the basis that he presented no evidence of a substantial decrease in income and its finding that the visitation exercised by Lisa was not significantly less than the 45% time awarded to her in 1998. The court commented that even if visitation were diminished from the 55%-45% split contemplated by the parties, the court would keep the child support award in place because it was vital to facilitate the children's visitation with Lisa.

Rolf also requested that the court correct an error in the 1994 decree regarding spousal maintenance payments. The 1994 decree ordered spousal maintenance for a period of four years but also stated spousal maintenance would be paid from January 1, 1995 through January 1, 2000 a period of five years. The court determined that the termination date was a clerical error and should be corrected in Rolf's favor, ending Rolf's spousal maintenance obligation a year earlier than the date specified in the decree. The district court also held however, that because it had previously considered the erroneous spousal maintenance award in its calculation of the income of the parties when setting child support, the child support award should be increased to reflect the reduction in spousal maintenance.⁷ The court denied Rolf's request to retain all three of the income tax dependency exemptions and ordered that one of the dependency exemptions be awarded to Lisa because without spousal maintenance, Lisa needed increased cash flow to maintain a residence that would accommodate overnight visitation with the children.

In a split decision on review, the court of appeals expressed approval of the earlier award of child support to Lisa and held that the Hortis/Valento formula must be applied where one parent has sole physical custody but the...