White v. White
| Decision Date | 09 February 1960 |
| Docket Number | No. 49903,49903 |
| Citation | 101 N.W.2d 18,251 Iowa 440 |
| Parties | Violet WHITE, Appellee, v. J. Frank WHITE, Appellant. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Ted Sloane and Russell Jordan, Des Moines, for appellant.
Denmar Miller, Des Moines, for appellee.
On May 16, 1952, the plaintiff was granted a decree of divorce from the defendant. It was provided therein that the defendant should pay ten dollars per week, or a total of thirty dollars, his required contribution to the support of three minor children whose custody was awarded to the plaintiff. The children are Daniel, aged five at the time of the decree; Michael, then two, and Richard, one.
The plaintiff was also given the family home, which was apparently encumbered. She has since sold it and bought another less expensive residence. She has not worked or sought employment to any substantial extent since her divorce. The Iowa Department of Social Welfare, through its program of Aid for Dependent Children, furnishes a sum stated at one point as $68.50 and at another as $58.50, per month. The defendant has remarried, but his present wife is gainfully employed and we view this feature of the situation as of no importance in our determination. All sums required by the original decree have been paid.
At the time of the divorce the defendant's net earnings, as shown by the record, were $3,603.68, for the year 1952. He was employed in that year by the Woltz Studios, in Des Moines; and at the time of the hearing on the application to modify, in 1959, he was the head of the photographic retouching department for the same employer. His net earnings had increased in the intervening years to $4,593.82 for 1958. These figures are not disputed in the record.
The trial court, after hearing, modified the original decree by increasing the amount which the defendant is ordered to pay for the support of the three minors by seven dollars each, or a total of twenty-one dollars. The modification decree now adjudges that he must pay for each child $17 per week, a total of $51 for the three. From this he appeals.
I. Whether a gradual increase in the earnings of one who is ordered by a divorce decree to pay fixed sums for alimony or child support is such a change in circumstances as to warrant a re-opening of the matter is not necessary to determine in this case, since the defendant does not raise the point, but concedes in his brief that 'We feel an increase in the support payments proportional to the increase in earnings would have been justified.' It is his complaint that the increase ordered by the trial court is excessive and out of proportion to his increase in net earnings. With this position we agree.
It will be noted that the increased payments ordered by the trial court amount to $1,092.00 per year, while the increase in net earnings is only $990.14. Or, viewed from another angle, his 'take home' pay has increased about 27.5 per cent, while the court increased the required payments by 70 per cent.
II. The situation is one all too familiar to courts that must deal with problems of child support, arising in divorce cases. A divorce does not, ipso facto, increase the total family income, while it inevitably adds to the expense of living for the members. Courts are constantly faced with the dilemma of how to divide a total income insufficient for the family needs when the members are separated. It is urged on one hand that a certain amount is required for the support of the minor children; on the other, that the divorced father's income is unequal to the burden of supplying such sums. Both contentions are unfortunately often correct. Nor is there any sure formula for solving the problem. The courts can only make the best adjustment possible, often merely an informed guess, and hope that in some manner the parties can survive without too much hardship. It is an unhappy by-product of family discord and divorce.
We must be mindful not only of the needs of the children but of the divorced father. He should support his children, as best he can. But it will not do to burden him to the extent that all incentive is to be destroyed. The Bible has expressed the thought in these words: 'You shall not muzzle an ox when he treads out the grain.' Deuteronomy,...
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