NJ & CT News

NEW JERSEY

Committee Recommends Child Support Guideline Changes

The New Jersey Supreme Court's Family Practice Committee recently announced several recommended changes to the state's child support guidelines, including revisions to the way the basic amounts are calculated. The proposed new method would take into account family income from 2000 to 2011, a 12-year period that, according to committee chair Appellate Division Judge Marie Lihotz, “encompasses prosperous years, recession years and the current slow recovery years.” Using this method, child support amounts for many children would be lower than under the current guidelines.

Committee member Bonnie Frost, a partner at Denville NJ's Einhorn Harris Ascher Barbarito & Frost, explained the committee's rationale: “Since the last revision, you've had a significant downturn in the economy. People are spending less on their children because they've had to cut back.” Also recommended were changes that would: 1) treat Social Security disability derivative benefits to the child as income to the parent rather than as a credit to child support payments; 2) exclude expenses for a vehicle used exclusively by the child; and 3) take into account multiple children with differing parenting time schedules when calculating a parent's child support obligations.

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CONNECTICUT

Delay in Seeking Children's Return Changes Their Habitual State of Residence

A Connecticut court has found that custody determinations concerning three children who were originally wrongfully brought to the United States by their mother from their habitual country of residence (Italy) must be made by Connecticut's courts, as the dictates of the Hague Convention have changed their habitual state of residence from Italy to the United States. Several factors played into the decision in Demag v. Sakaj, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36725 (D. Conn. 3/18/13), including the facts that the wronged father waited a year and a half to seek return of his children to Italy.

The Hague Convention allows for certain exceptions to the requirement that a child wrongfully taken be returned to his habitual state of residence, one of which is that the return proceedings are commenced more than one year after the wrongful taking and, at the same time, that the child has become settled in his new environment. In the year and a half between their move and their father's filing of a petition for their return, these children had became comfortable in Connecticut; they had made good friends and were excelling in school. In addition, although the court recognized that it should normally consider only the acclimatization that took place in that one-and-a-half-year period, it felt compelled in this case also to take into account the additional four years that had ensued between the filing of the petition and the hearing. The reason: Any of the delays in the proceedings, which kept the children in Connecticut for all those extra years, could be blamed on the petitioner father. Therefore, equity did not dictate that the settlement that took place in the children's lives during those four years be discounted.

Despite Voluntary Job Departure, Court Grants Downward Modification

The Superior Court of Connecticut, Judicial District of Hartford at Hartford, granted an ex-husband's request for a downward modification of support payments after finding that, even though he voluntarily quit his lucrative job, he was not to blame for his changed financial' circumstances. The court, in its April 9 decision in Krause v. Krause, 2013 Conn. Super. LEXIS 777, also based its decision on a term of the parties' separation agreement that said the wife could earn up to $40,000 per year and not trigger any reconsideration of the maintenance amount.

The parties had been married for 27 years when they divorced in 2005. At that time, the husband earned nearly $250,000 per year in a pharmaceuticals company, where he worked 60 to 70 hours per week and traveled extensively for business purposes. At the time of the divorce, the wife earned just $4,000. The couple's settlement agreement provided that the husband would pay his wife $5,083 per month in alimony. Years later, however, the husband left his job because of ongoing health problems and the fact that he anticipated being laid off. He took another position that now earns him about $130,000 per year.

The wife, meanwhile, has started a professional practice which, while not particularly lucrative now, has the potential to expand. Because the court credited the husband's testimony that he left his job for good reasons and is earning as much as he can now, given his health concerns and the current economy, it granted his request for downward modification of his alimony obligation from $5,083 to $2,150 per month.

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NEW JERSEY

Committee Recommends Child Support Guideline Changes

The New Jersey Supreme Court's Family Practice Committee recently announced several recommended changes to the state's child support guidelines, including revisions to the way the basic amounts are calculated. The proposed new method would take into account family income from 2000 to 2011, a 12-year period that, according to committee chair Appellate Division Judge Marie Lihotz, “encompasses prosperous years, recession years and the current slow recovery years.” Using this method, child support amounts for many children would be lower than under the current guidelines.

Committee member Bonnie Frost, a partner at Denville NJ's Einhorn Harris Ascher Barbarito & Frost, explained the committee's rationale: “Since the last revision, you've had a significant downturn in the economy. People are spending less on their children because they've had to cut back.” Also recommended were changes that would: 1) treat Social Security disability derivative benefits to the child as income to the parent rather than as a credit to child support payments; 2) exclude expenses for a vehicle used exclusively by the child; and 3) take into account multiple children with differing parenting time schedules when calculating a parent's child support obligations.

'

CONNECTICUT

Delay in Seeking Children's Return Changes Their Habitual State of Residence

A Connecticut court has found that custody determinations concerning three children who were originally wrongfully brought to the United States by their mother from their habitual country of residence (Italy) must be made by Connecticut's courts, as the dictates of the Hague Convention have changed their habitual state of residence from Italy to the United States. Several factors played into the decision in Demag v. Sakaj, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36725 (D. Conn. 3/18/13), including the facts that the wronged father waited a year and a half to seek return of his children to Italy.

The Hague Convention allows for certain exceptions to the requirement that a child wrongfully taken be returned to his habitual state of residence, one of which is that the return proceedings are commenced more than one year after the wrongful taking and, at the same time, that the child has become settled in his new environment. In the year and a half between their move and their father's filing of a petition for their return, these children had became comfortable in Connecticut; they had made good friends and were excelling in school. In addition, although the court recognized that it should normally consider only the acclimatization that took place in that one-and-a-half-year period, it felt compelled in this case also to take into account the additional four years that had ensued between the filing of the petition and the hearing. The reason: Any of the delays in the proceedings, which kept the children in Connecticut for all those extra years, could be blamed on the petitioner father. Therefore, equity did not dictate that the settlement that took place in the children's lives during those four years be discounted.

Despite Voluntary Job Departure, Court Grants Downward Modification

The Superior Court of Connecticut, Judicial District of Hartford at Hartford, granted an ex-husband's request for a downward modification of support payments after finding that, even though he voluntarily quit his lucrative job, he was not to blame for his changed financial' circumstances. The court, in its April 9 decision in Krause v. Krause, 2013 Conn. Super. LEXIS 777, also based its decision on a term of the parties' separation agreement that said the wife could earn up to $40,000 per year and not trigger any reconsideration of the maintenance amount.

The parties had been married for 27 years when they divorced in 2005. At that time, the husband earned nearly $250,000 per year in a pharmaceuticals company, where he worked 60 to 70 hours per week and traveled extensively for business purposes. At the time of the divorce, the wife earned just $4,000. The couple's settlement agreement provided that the husband would pay his wife $5,083 per month in alimony. Years later, however, the husband left his job because of ongoing health problems and the fact that he anticipated being laid off. He took another position that now earns him about $130,000 per year.

The wife, meanwhile, has started a professional practice which, while not particularly lucrative now, has the potential to expand. Because the court credited the husband's testimony that he left his job for good reasons and is earning as much as he can now, given his health concerns and the current economy, it granted his request for downward modification of his alimony obligation from $5,083 to $2,150 per month.

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