Court Must Analyze Inheritance Before Deciding Child Support
Court Must Analyze Inheritance Before Deciding Child Support
Tennessee child support modification case summary.
Hal Eugene Hill v. Liesa Francine Hill
The mother and father of two children, a son and daughter, in this Bradley County, Tennessee, case were divorced in 2013. In 2015, the father came back to court asking for a modification of the parenting plan. The case was heard by Judge Lawrence H. Puckett.
The trial court characterized the mother as “aggressive” based upon her in-court behavior. Therefore, the court ruled that the mother presented a risk of substantial harm to the son, and awarded primary custody to the father.
The trial court had also heard testimony of an incident in which the son had been handcuffed by law enforcement, even though no charges had been filed. The father asserted that the mother had caused the son emotional distress regarding this incident, and the son expressed a desire to live with the father.
In 2017, the father returned to court seeing further modification. He asserted that the mother had continued to direct her anger toward the father at the son, and that the son no longer wished to visit the mother.
In turn, the mother noted that in 2015, the child support had not been modified, and that the father was in arrears and should be held in contempt.
A hearing was held on this motion in 2018, after the son had turned 18. At the hearing, there was evidence that the father had inherited about $300,000 upon his mother’s death.
The trial court noted that the failure to address child support in the earlier order was an oversight, and that the child support should be modified. It also held that the inheritance was not to be considered income for child support purposes, since it had been used to pay the children’s private school tuition of about $200,000.
The court held that the father should receive a retroactive award of child support, and granted him a judgment of almost $14,000. The mother then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
The mother first argued that the trial court should have included the inheritance as part of the father’s income. The Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court that presumptively, inheritance constitutes income for child support purposes. However, the appeals court disagreed with the lower court’s conclusion that this presumption should be departed from. The appeals court noted that this methodology was inappropriate. Instead, the trial court should have followed the child support guidelines to determine whether there had been a significant variance from the earlier income. Only after determining that there had been a significant variance would it be proper to determine whether or not modification was called for.
Because of this error in methodology, the Court of Appeals held that the child support order must be vacated, and the case remanded for proper calculation under the guidelines.
After addressing a contempt allegation, and after declining to award the mother her attorney’s fees for the appeal, the Court of Appeals remanded the case.
No. E2019–02226-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Oct. 12, 2021).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see Child Support Modification in Tennessee | How to Modify Child Support.
See also Tennessee Parenting Plans and Child Support Worksheets: Building a Constructive Future for Your Family featuring actual examples of parenting plans and child support worksheets from real cases available on Amazon.com.
