STATE OF FLORIDA, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND REHABILITATIVE SERVICES AND EARL BEHNKE, APPELLANTS,
v.
CATHY BEHNKE-COOLIDGE, APPELLEE
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services and Earl Behnke appeal a trial court's child support order that reduced Cathy Behnke-Coolidge's monthly payments from $210.88 to $50 while custody had shifted to Behnke. The appellate court reverses, holding that unpaid child support is a vested property right entitled to interest and cannot be offset against current support obligations.
The trial court erred in reducing Coolidge's support obligation to offset Behnke's arrears. Unpaid child support is a vested property right in the obligee entitled to interest, and cannot be balanced through set-off against current support obligations. A trial court's paramount concern must be the child's economic welfare, not balancing creditor-debtor relationships between parents.
[1] Child support arrearages owed to a custodial parent constitute a vested property right in that parent.
[2] A trial court cannot reconcile the accumulation of child support arrears with a reduction in a non-custodial parent's monthly payment obligation.
Previewing 2 of 5 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“the child support not paid by Behnke is a vested property right in Coolidge”
Establishes that unpaid child support arrears are protected as a property right and cannot be unilaterally offset or reduced by the trial court
Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceBehnke and Coolidge were divorced on August 20, 1981, with Coolidge receiving custody of their child and Behnke ordered to pay $25 per week in child s…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Vested Property Rights cases and more on FLexlaw
FRANK, Judge.
Earl Behnke (Behnke) and the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, dissatisfied with the computation of the amount to be paid as child support, appeal from the trial court’s order. We reverse.
Behnke and appellee, Cathy Behnke-Coolidge (Coolidge), were divorced on August 20, 1981. The marriage produced one child born December 22,1974.
Pursuant to the final judgment of dissolution, Coolidge received custody of the child. Behnke was ordered to pay child support in the sum of $25 per week. Behnke and Coolidge stipulated that Behnke had failed to meet that obligation for a number of years and by March 5, 1991, it reached the sum of $10,-073.00. At some point that cannot be determined from the record, custody of the child shifted to Behnke and he sought financial assistance from Coolidge.
The trial court awarded Behnke $210.88 per month, a sum apparently extrapolated from the guidelines, see § 61.30, Fla.Stat. (1989), but it reduced that amount and directed Coolidge to pay only $50 per month. We are at loss to understand this aspect of the support order. By reducing Coolidge’s monthly payment to $50.00, is Behnke to receive a monthly credit of $160.88 toward the reduction of his arrears in light of his current custody and maintenance of the child? That result, which appears to have been intended, cannot be reconciled with the statement in the order that “arrears [are] to accumulate until such time as [Behnke] is able to pay toward the arrears.”
In any event, it is not our function to refashion the trial court’s order or to guess at its meaning. It may well be that the trial court sought to devise an equitable arrangement it perceived to be within the authority granted by section 61.-30(10)(i), Florida Statutes (1989), thus allowing Coolidge to recover the unpaid debt by reducing her monthly payments from $210.88 to $50. If so, that approach ignores that the child support not paid by Behnke is a vested property right in Coolidge, Ledford v. Leirer, 486 So. 2d 42 (Fla. 2d DCA 1986); Guarino v. Guarino, 431 So. 2d 189 (Fla. 2d DCA), pet. for rev. dismissed, 441 So. 2d 632 (Fla.1983), and that she is entitled to interest on the accrued debt. Melvin v. Melvin, 391 So. 2d 691 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980), rev. denied, 399 So. 2d 1144 (Fla.1981).
We cannot determine, however, whether the trial court considered these principles in entering the support order.
Moreover, within the confines of the parents’ financial capability, a trial court’s paramount concern in matters of this kind is to protect the economic welfare of the child, not to balance through set-off a creditor-debtor relationship.
We remand this matter with directions that the trial court enter judgment against Behnke in the amount of $10,073, with interest, and an order accurately reflecting, with appropriate findings, Coolidge’s financial responsibility for support of the child.
LEHAN, A.C.J., and ALTENBERND, J., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Tinoco v. Savannah Leigh Lugo, 342 So. 3d 845 (Fla. 2d DCA 2022)…ancial capability, a trial court's paramount concern in matters of this kind is to protect the economic welfare of the child, not to balance through set-off a creditor-debtor relationship." State, Dep't of Health & Rehab. Servs. v. Behnke-Coolidge, 598 So. 2d 293, 294 (Fla. 2d DCA 1992). Applying these principles, courts have disapproved child support offsets that imperil the ongoing financial support of the child. For example, in Marlowe, although the First District generally approved of offsetting past ch…
-
ZAK v. ZAK, 629 So. 2d 187 (Fla. 2d DCA 1993)…expenses in $500 monthly installments at no interest. We conclude that it was an abuse of discretion not to provide that the unpaid balance would earn interest at the statutory rate. See Dept. of Health & Rehabilitative Services v. Behnke-Coolidge, 598 So. 2d 293 (Fla. 2d DCA 1992). We reverse and remand this case with directions to the trial court to strike the restriction on the children’s residence, to revisit and establish the husband’s child support obligation, and to award the wife interest at the sta…
-
Murphy v. Suarez (Fla. 4th DCA 2023)…to protect the economic welfare of the child” and “courts have disapproved child support offsets that imperil the ongoing financial support of the child.” Tinoco, 342 So. 3d at 849 (quoting State, Dep’t of Health & Rehab. Servs. v. Behnke-Coolidge, 598 So. 2d 293, 294 (Fla. 2d DCA 1992)). A trial court must specify what circumstances justify an equitable offset. See id. at 849-50 (reversing decision to offset the entirety of mother’s new prospective child support obligation against father’s past child supp…
Authorities Cited
- Melvin v. Melvin, 391 So. 2d 691 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980)
- Guarino v. Guarino, 431 So. 2d 189 (Fla. 2d DCA 1983)
- Ledford v. Leirer, 486 So. 2d 42 (Fla. 2d DCA 1986)