Modification of Child Support Based on Social Security Disability
Tennessee child support case summary on social security and interest.
Roy Leonard Sewell v. Diane Holland Sewell
The husband and wife in this case were divorced in 1997, and in 2013, the divorce was registered in Hamilton County, Tennessee. The Georgia court had named the mother as the primary residential parent of their infant son, and the father was ordered to pay child support.
The Tennessee court modified that parenting plan, and named the father as the primary residential parent. It also ordered the mother to pay child support. The mother responded by asking the Tennessee court to enforce a 1998 Georgia order which had found the father to be in contempt. The father also moved for contempt, pointing a social security disability payments in the amount of $107,000 that the mother had received on behalf of the child. The Tennessee court did not credit these amounts to the father’s obligation for child support, but did credit them to his obligation to pay medical expenses. The net result was that the mother received a judgment for $46,000 for past due child support.
Both parties brought appeals to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
The father’s main argument on appeal was that he should have been given credit for the social security disability payments paid to the mother on behalf of the child.
Both the Court of Appeals and the trial court acknowledged that under Tennessee law, social security disability payment should generally be taken into consideration in computing child support, if they originated from the obligor parent’s account, as was the case here. However, in the case of a motion to modify an existing order, the change is retroactive to the date when the motion to modify is filed. In this case, the father had never asked the Georgia court to modify its child support order. Therefore, the trial court concluded that any change would date back only to the date when the motion to modify was made.
The appeals court agreed that the father was essentially asking for a retroactive change in his child support obligation, which is not permitted. Therefore, it refused to modify the lower court’s judgment.
The appeals court also clarified the issue of interest. The mother had been awarded statutory interest totaling over $37,000. The appeals court noted that there had been a miscalculation, since some of the amounts were computed on a weekly basis, and the statute calls only for a per annum calculation. However, the appeals court noted that the father had not raised this issue on appeal. Therefore, it affirmed the lower court’s interest computation.
The Court of Appeals went on to address a number of other issues, and ultimately affirmed the lower court’s order.
No. E2015-00983-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. May 27, 2016).
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.
