Younis v. Farooqi

• Decision Date: 10 February 2009
• Docket Number: No. CCB-07-1393.,CCB-07-1393.
• Citation: 597 F.Supp.2d 552
• Parties: Hina YOUNIS v. Nauman FAROOQI.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

Page 552

597 F.Supp.2d 552

Hina YOUNIS v. Nauman FAROOQI.

Civil No. CCB-07-1393.

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

February 10, 2009.

John J. Condliffe, Shub Condliffe Condliffe and Silverstein PA, Towson, MD, for Plaintiff.

Stephen John Cullen, Miles and Stockbridge PC, Towson, MD, Jennifer M. Schwartzott, Miles and Stockbridge PC, Baltimore, MD, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM

CATHERINE C. BLAKE, District Judge.

Now pending before the court are cross motions for summary judgment filed by the defendant, Nauman Farooqi ("Mr. Farooqi"), and the plaintiff, Hina Younis ("Ms. Younis"). The dispute arises from Mr. Farooqi's obligation to support Ms. Younis pursuant to an Affidavit of Support that he signed after they were married. The issues in these motions have been fully briefed and no hearing is necessary. For the reasons stated below, the defendant's motion will be denied and the plaintiffs motion will be granted.

BACKGROUND

The plaintiff, Ms. Younis, a citizen of Pakistan, came to the United States in 2003 to marry the defendant, Mr. Farooqi, a United States citizen. Soon after they were married, Mr. Farooqi signed an Affidavit of Support Form 1-864 (the "affidavit") on May 23, 2003, agreeing to sponsor Ms. Younis and provide her with the necessary support to "maintain [her] at an income that is at least 125 percent of the Federal poverty guidelines." During the marriage, the couple resided in Catonsville, Maryland.

The couple separated on January 27, 2006, when Mr. Farooqi left the marital home, and Ms. Younis filed for a limited divorce on March 7, 2006. In June 2006, the Circuit Court for Baltimore County granted Ms. Younis sole legal and primary physical custody of the couple's only child and ordered Mr. Farooqi to pay child support in the amount of $544 per month. In January 2007, Mr. Farooqi consented to pay $450 per month in temporary alimony. In April 2008, the court increased the child support payments to $556 per month and alimony to $850 per month and made the increases retroactive to February of that year. At all times Mr. Farooqi has been in compliance with these court orders.

On May 25, 2007, Ms. Younis filed this claim to enforce Mr. Farooqi's financial obligations under the affidavit.¹ Mr. Farooqi filed his motion for summary judgment on July 18, 2008. He concedes that he has an obligation under the affidavit and that the affidavit is valid. He contends, however, that his obligation should be reduced by the plaintiffs alimony and child support, any wages she has received, and cash gifts she received from friends and fellow mosque members after the separation. He further contends that Ms. Younis has failed to mitigate her losses by finding paid, full-time employment. Ms. Younis filed her motion for summary judgment on September 12, 2008.

ANALYSIS

Rule 56(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that summary judgment "should be rendered if the pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). The Supreme Court has clarified this does not mean that any factual dispute will defeat the motion. "By its very terms, this standard provides that the mere existence of some alleged factual dispute between the parties will not defeat an otherwise properly supported motion for summary judgment; the requirement is that there be no genuine issue of material fact." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 247-48, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986) (emphasis in original).

"A party opposing a properly supported motion for summary judgment `may not rest upon the mere allegations or denials of [his] pleadings,' but rather must `set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.'" Bouchat v. Baltimore Ravens Football Club, Inc., 346 F.3d 514, 525 (4th Cir.2003) (alteration in original) (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e)). The court must "view the evidence in the light most favorable to ... the nonmovant, and draw all reasonable inferences in her favor without weighing the evidence or assessing the witness' credibility," Dennis v. Columbia Colleton Med. Ctr., Inc., 290 F.3d 639, 645 (4th Cir.2002), but the court also must abide by the "affirmative obligation of the trial judge to prevent factually unsupported claims and defenses from proceeding to trial." Bouchat, 346 F.3d at 526 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Drewitt v. Pratt, 999 F.2d 774, 778-79 (4th Cir.1993), and citing Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323-24, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986)).

A. Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment

Under federal law, immigrants who are likely to become a public charge are ineligible for admission into the United States, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(4), unless their applications for admission are accompanied by an Affidavit of Support Form 1-864, see 8 U.S.C. §§ 1182(a)(4)(B)(ii), 1183a(a)1. A person petitioning for the admission of a family-sponsored immigrant must also sign a Form I-864 affidavit. 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(4)(C)(ii). This affidavit is considered a legally enforceable contract between the sponsor and the sponsored immigrant. Shumye v. Felleke, 555 F.Supp.2d 1020, 1023 (N.D.Cal.2008). The signing sponsor submits himself to the personal jurisdiction of any federal or state court in which a civil lawsuit to enforce the affidavit has been brought. See 8 U.S.C. § 1183a(a)(1)(C). The sponsor's obligation under the affidavit does not terminate in the event of divorce. See Shumye, 555 F.Supp.2d at 1024.

By signing the affidavit, the "sponsor agrees to provide support to maintain the sponsored alien at an annual income that is not less than 125 percent of the Federal poverty line during the period in which the affidavit is enforceable." 8 U.S.C. § 1183a(a)(1)(A). The terms of the affidavit provide for the appropriate "measure of damages that would put plaintiff in as good a position as she would have been had the contract been performed." Shumye, 555 F.Supp.2d at 1024 (citation omitted). To determine the appropriate damages, courts compare the plaintiffs annual income for the particular years at issue, rather than the aggregate income for the entire period, against the 125% poverty threshold for each particular year. Id. at 1024-25. A sponsor may also be held liable for legal fees and other costs of collection. See 8 U.S.C. § 1183a(c).

i. Alimony and Child Support

Both parties agree that the plaintiff's alimony should offset the defendant's obligation under the affidavit. The defendant also argues that his child support payments to the plaintiff should further reduce that obligation. No federal court has yet examined whether child support payments should mitigate a defendant's contractual obligation under the affidavit. Considering the underlying purpose of child support payments, the court concludes they do not.

In Maryland, child support obligations are determined by considering the needs of the child and apportioning the expense of those needs based on the parents' income. See Voishan v. Palma, 327 Md. 318, 609 A.2d 319, 326 (1992). The purpose is to ensure children "receive the same proportion of parental income, and thereby enjoy the standard of living, [they] would have experienced had the[ir] ... parents remained together." Id. at 321. The purpose is not, as the defendant suggests, to benefit the other parent. Moreover, the federal government does not consider child support, as it does alimony, to be part of an individual's gross income for tax purposes, see 26 U.S.C. § 71(a),(c), and the defendant offers no evidence that Congress intended to broaden its definition of income to include child support in this context.

Further, child support is distinguishable from the housing subsidies and educational grants found to constitute mitigating income in Shumye, 555 F.Supp.2d at 1026. Those benefits are designed to supplement the beneficiary's income to pay for specific services—housing and education—while child support is designed to meet the needs of the child. As discussed above, child support is a financial obligation to one's non-custodial child, not a monetary benefit to the other parent. In light of these policy considerations, the court concludes that child support payments do not offset the defendant's obligation under the affidavit.²

ii. Gifts

The parties also dispute whether cash gifts should mitigate the defendant's contractual obligation under the affidavit. The court need not rule definitively on whether gifts could ever offset a defendant's obligation or who carries the burden to prove the existence vel non of such gifts, because the gifts in this case were de minimis and there is no sufficient evidence available to attribute the gifts to any specific year.³ Ms. Younis admits that she received occasional gifts of one hundred or two hundred dollars from friends and received small donations ranging from $20 to $50 from members of her mosque when she needed money to support herself after separating from Mr. Farooqi. The deposition transcript and interrogatories provided to the court, however, do not indicate that the plaintiff was asked for the particular year or years in which these gifts were received, nor does it appear that the plaintiff would be able to provide any additional information regarding these gifts, likely due to their de minimis nature.

As discussed above, the court examines Ms. Younis's annual, rather than aggregate, income to determine Mr. Farooqi's obligation under the affidavit. See Shumye, 555 F.Supp.2d at 1024. Thus, there must be some evidence of the particular years in which the plaintiff received gifts for the court to even consider offsetting the defendant's obligation. While Mr. Farooqi speculates that Ms. Younis has failed to provide all information related to these gifts, he offers no evidence to support this allegation. In fact, Ms....