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On our blog, we’ve discussed at great length many of the particular issues involved with custody disputes in Maryland and the District of Columbia. We’ve discussed, for instance, the various types of custody – joint or shared, sole, legal and physical – and the pieces of evidence which courts use when conducting custody analyses. We haven’t discussed child support obligations as much, but in this post we will.
Like other jurisdictions, the State of Maryland has fixed “guidelines” which the court uses to compute child support obligations. These guidelines greatly simplify the process of computing child support, because the court takes a “formulaic” approach and produces results straight from these formulas. In other words, with child support computations in Maryland, there aren’t too many big surprises, although parties still quibble over the results from time to time. This is precisely what occurred in the case of Francis v. Francis (2024). In this recent case, the father argued that the statutory definition of “income” didn’t include his veteran’s disability income.
Let’s examine this case in detail.
Facts of the Case
The mother and father in this case were divorced in July of 2021, and shared one child together. The father had a child from a previous relationship. The father was employed full time as a military serviceman in the U.S. Army, while the mother was unemployed but trained as a dental assistant (at the time of the divorce). Given the father’s income at the time of the divorce litigation, the father was ordered to pay $957 per month in child support. This was based straight from the guidelines used to compute support in all instances in Maryland.
Multiple issues arose after the divorce judgment was entered. For one, the father fell behind on his child support payments and quickly accumulated a sizable arrearage. Another issue was that the father soon retired from the military after the divorce judgment was entered, and his income dropped as a result. Following the retirement, the father’s primary income was veteran’s disability income, as he had suffered injuries during his service. Altogether, his later income was roughly 70% of his preretirement income.
The mother and father filed multiple motions with the court which asked for various things. For one, the mother petitioned for back child support and to hold the father in contempt for failing to pay. The father moved to modify his child support obligation based on his decline in income. Importantly, the father argued that the definition of “income” for child support calculation purposes didn’t income his veteran’s disability income. He also argued that the mother had voluntarily chosen to remain unemployed, and so therefore the court should impute income to her; this imputation of income to the mother would likewise reduce his child support obligation. Another motion also requested that the mother receive sole physical and legal custody of their child.
The father lost all his requests at the trial court level. He appealed, and primarily sought to overturn the determination on child support calculation. He argued that the trial court erred in including all his veteran’s disability income for computational purposes.
Ruling & Discussion
The appellate division ruled against the father, holding that the definition of income in Maryland’s statutory guidelines on child support computation did include his veteran’s disability income. In its decision, the appellate division cited the exact language of the statute, which stated that income includes funds from any source.
FL § 12-201(b) defines “actual income” in pertinent part, as follows: (1) “Actual income” means income from any source.
Importantly, the statutory language lists types of income which are specifically excluded from computation, such as food stamps and other assistive income. The court went on to review the relevant case law, and ultimately concluded without much difficulty that veteran’s disability income easily falls within Maryland’s statutory construction.
Contact the Murphy Law Firm for More Information
Readers looking to learn more about the construction of “income” under the current child support guidelines, child support in general, custody issues in general, or any other family law topic, contact one of the family law attorneys at the Murphy Law Firm today by calling 240-219-5243.
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