Tennessee Court Allows for Car Payments Made in Lieu of Child Support
Tennessee child support law case law summary on credit for car payments from the Court of Appeals.
Keenan W. Carroll v. Chandra P. Carroll — Assumption of wife’s car payments in lieu of Tennessee child support reasonable
This case involves the issue of retroactive child support and whether the trial court appropriately denied wife’s request. Husband’s divorce petition was pending for more than three years before wife answered. During that time the parties were separated, and husband made monthly car payments on wife’s vehicle in an amount that exceeded what would have been his child support obligation. The court of appeals held that husband satisfied his child support obligations based on the unique facts of this case and affirmed the trial court’s judgment.
Keenan W. Carroll (“husband”) and Chandra P. Carroll (“wife”) were married in 1995 and had a child together before they decided to separate in 2006. Husband moved out of the marital home and filed a Complaint for divorce in April 2007. Between 2007 and 2010, when wife filed an Answer and Counter Complaint, nothing happened in this case–wife did not answer the Complaint until June 2010, when she filed an Answer and Counter Complaint for Divorce. Wife filed a motion seeking temporary support a few months later, in September 2010.
An order of retroactive child support was not appropriate, the appellate court explained, because no support was sought from the trial court until wife filed her Answer and Counter Complaint in June 2010. In October 2010, husband began paying temporary support in the amount of $628.00 per month as ordered in the Temporary Parenting Plan.
The trial court concluded, and the court of appeals agreed, that husband satisfied his child support obligations from the date of the parties’ separation through August 2010 by paying the amount due on the automobile wife drove. Husband made the payments directly instead of paying wife, who would have used the same money to make the same payments. To hold that these payments did not constitute child support would be to elevate form over substance, the court said.
Husband’s monthly car payments of $667 exceeded husband’s child support obligation of $628 by $39. The court of appeals calculated that by making 54 car payments that exceeded his monthly obligation by $39, husband paid $2,106 more than he was required to pay in child support. The appellate court agreed with the trial court in that it would have been inappropriate to require husband to pay an additional $628 per month in retroactive child support.
No. M2012-00111-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan. 30, 2013).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
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