A divided New York state appeals court has ruled that a millionaire father does not have to make child support payments to a down-on-her-luck mother, as he is the primary custodial parent of the child by a small percentage, as reported by Thomson Reuters.
M.R., the child's mother is having difficulty making her rent on her $5,000 pendente lite child support – allegedly her only source of income is child support – that her son's father D.S. had been paying.
M.R. receives an additional $1,000 per month from the father of her daughter, also in child support payments.
D.S. has approximately $20 million in assets.
The Appellate Division, First Department, based their decision on the Child Support Standards Act of 1989. According Justice R.R., "…the Child Support Standards Act, its legislative history, and its interpretation by the Court of Appeals, a custodial parent who has the child a majority of the time cannot be directed to pay child support to a non-custodial parent."
The new ruling reversed an earlier ruling from 2012, that had been ordered by Manhattan's Supreme Court Justice E.G.
M.R. and D.S. had a son together in 2003. The couple never married or shared a home. Four years after the child's birth M.R. and D.S. ended their relationship. At the time M.R. was the primary custodial parent in an informal arrangement.
In 2009 M.R. sought a more permanent role and pursued sole legal, primary and residential custody and child support. In 2011 M.R. gained prime custody of the child for the school year and D.S. maintained custody for the summer.
However, D.S. moved for summary judgment on the child support claim stating that he now had become the custodial parent.
M.R. argued that taking away her child support money would be "unjust and inappropriate" because of the difference between her income and D.S.'s. Justice E.G. denied M.R.'s claim.
In the appeal, the court showed that D.S. had the child 56 percent of the time.
Justice R.R. wrote, "Even if we sympathize with the mother's difficulties in covering the cost of housing in New York City, under the current CSSA, we cannot provide a remedy by giving her child support when she is not, in reality, the custodial parent."
Justices D.F., D.R. and N.R. agreed with the ruling. One dissent, Justice R.A. said, "The majority's rigid application of the statute sacrifices the child's well-being at the altar of an arithmetic formula."
D.S.'s attorney, Eleanor Alter, commented that the ruling would be a new benchmark for other child support cases in the state of New York.
Jason Advocate, M.R.'s attorney, said, "The effect on the child will be catastrophic. Unfortunately, New York law doesn't allow courts to consider that."
If you are headed back to court on the subject of child support, contact a family law attorney for help. How much time your child is in your care will be discussed, however, depending on the laws of your state, may not be the deciding factor.