TN Dad’s Child Support Increased for Autistic Son
Tennessee child support law case law summary on autistic child special needs from the Court of Appeals.
Karen Elizabeth Touchton v. Paul Jerome Touchton – Tennessee divorce child support modification, special needs child.
Paul and Karen Touchton were married in 1994 and had one son, who was born in 1998. In 2002, they were divorced in Alabama, and under an agreement incorporated into the Alabama judgment, they agreed to share legal custody, with the mother having primary physical custody. The father was to pay $1,561 per month in child support, and each parent would pay half of medical expenses. The mother subsequently moved to Coffee County, Tennessee, and registered the Alabama decree there. She asked the Tennessee Court, Judge L. Craig Johnson, to increase the child support obligation because of the child’s special needs. She argued that there had been a material change of circumstances because the father had not been exercising parenting time.
The Tennessee court heard the evidence, and issued an order in 2013 modifying the parenting schedule, awarding the mother half of the son’s medical expenses. The court increased the child support obligation by $1,000, and ordered an additional $500 per month for retroactive child support, medical expenses, and attorney fees. The arrearages amounted to over $37,000 to be paid at $500 per month, and the court issued an order of wage assignment of $1,188.92 every two weeks to cover the support and arrearages.
Both parties lodged an appeal with the Tennessee Court of Appeals. The father argued that neither the award of arrearages nor the upward deviation was appropriate, and that the lower court had erred in making a wage assignment for the arrearages. In her appeal, the mother asked for the entire amount of her attorney’s fees.
The appeals court first looked at the upward deviation in the child support. The amount awarded had been greater than that called for by the Tennessee support guidelines, but the trial court had imposed a higher amount due to extraordinary expenses due to the child’s severe autism. In particular, the court found that the child required special education expenses of $11,000 per year, and care counselor or care provider expenses of about $12,000 per year. The father argued that the lower court had not made specific enough factual findings, but upon reviewing the record, the appeals court concluded that there had been sufficient justification for the additional expenses. These expenses included a special summer camp that the child attended. For that reason, the Court of Appeals affirmed this portion of the order.
The appeals court next turned to the judgment for uninsured medical expenses. The father argued that he had never been provided with timely copies of these medical bills. However, the appeals court noted that at the relevant time, there was limited communication between the parties and that sending copies of all bills was a near impossibility. The court then reviewed the record and concluded that the evidence did not preponderate against the amount determined by the trial court.
Finally, the trial court looked at the wage assignment and made one modification. It held that it was improper to include attorney’s fees in the wage assignment, and therefore modified this portion of the judgment.
The appeals court also awarded the mother her attorney’s fees for the appeal.
No. M2013-01749-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Jun. 24, 2014).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
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