Posted by Nydia Streets of Streets Law in Florida Paternity

When imputing income to an underemployed or unemployed parent, the court must consider certain statutory factors. In Williams v. Gonzalez, 4D19-3659 (Fla. 4th DCA April 22, 2020), the court considered an appeal of a father in a Florida paternity action in which he alleged the trial court committed error in calculating his income and determining the retroactive period.

The parties initially dated in Florida and then moved to Virginia where their child was born. After their relationship soured, the mother moved with the child to Florida for a few months, and then returned to Virginia for an attempted reconciliation with the father. The reconciliation failed and the mother moved back to Florida with the child. Thereafter, the father moved to Florida and was earning $1,600 per month before he moved to North Carolina. In North Carolina he worked part-time earning $760 per month and was supported by his family and new girlfriend. The mother remained in Florida with the child and worked two jobs to support herself and the child. By the time of trial she was a paralegal earning $60,000 per year.

The trial court imputed income to the father of $1,600 per month. It also ordered retroactive support to a period that was before the parties separated for good. The father appealed, arguing that the court should not have imputed income to him based on Florida wages because he was now living in North Carolina. He also took issue with the court’s use of his gross income to calculate child support and the court’s order that he be fully responsible for transportation costs associated with exercising his time-sharing. Finally, the father argued it was error for the court to use April 2016 as the retroactive date rather than November 2016 when the parties finally separated, and he took issue with the court assigning an arbitrary income to him for the retroactive period.

On all of these points, the appellate court reversed. First, as to the income, the court held it was error for the trial court to impute income based on the Father’s Florida job history when “The relevant inquiry focuses on the community in which the Father lives and works.” Thus, the trial court was supposed to assess the job market in Charlotte, North Carolina where the father resides and works to determine an appropriate level of imputation. Next, the court ordered the trial court to use the father’s net income rather than gross income to calculate child support. The trial court’s ruling that the father be fully responsible for transportation and supervised time-sharing costs was also reversed with the holding “‘The expense of transporting the minor child for visitation is a childrearing expense like any other, which should be shared by the parents in accordance with their financial means.’ [citations omitted]. Likewise, the costs of the supervised visitation should not have been allocated solely to the Father.”

Finally, as to retroactive child support, the appellate court held “The Father gave unopposed testimony that the Mother left with the child shortly after childbirth but subsequently returned and reconciled with the Father, with the final separation occurring around Thanksgiving in 2016. We thus agree with the Father that the retroactive child support award should be calculated beginning in late November 2016. [citation omitted] As for the calculation of the Father's ability to pay child support for the period when he was not living with mother and child, the same recalculations associated with prospective child support must be done here. The Mother should also be permitted to offer evidence establishing her income during the corrected timeframe because, as she correctly points out, she did not make $60,000 per year during the entire retroactive period.”

A Florida paternity case may present unique circumstances when one parent lives outside of Florida. Schedule a consultation with a Miami paternity lawyer to go over your options.