JILL D. MARLOWE, FORMER WIFE, APPELLANT,
v.
WALLY R. MARLOWE, FORMER HUSBAND, APPELLEE

Fla. 1st DCA | 2013-10-31
No. 1D12-3964
WOLF, VAN NORTWICK, and WETHERELL, JJ., concur.
123 So. 3d 1194 Florida District Court of Appeal, First District (2013) Positive Treatment
Cited by 8 cases

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.

Synopsis

The former wife appealed a judgment reducing her child support payments retroactively. The court reversed and remanded because the trial court failed to provide factual findings supporting income imputation and made erroneous retroactive child support calculations based on incorrect assumptions about the former husband's alimony payments.


Holding

The court reversed the income imputation because it lacked any factual findings regarding the former wife's probable earnings, work history, or local job market conditions. The retroactive child support calculations were erroneous because they failed to account for the former husband's documented alimony arrearages. The court affirmed that set-offs of child support overpayments against alimony arrearages are permissible where equitable circumstances exist, but remanded for proper recalculation with a cap to ensure children's support needs are met.


Headnotes

[1] Imputation of income requires factual findings regarding probable and potential earnings, source of income, and adjustments.

[2] Factual findings supporting imputation of income must relate to the current job market, work history, occupational qualifications, and prevailing local earnings.

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

Key Quotes

“the imputation of income must be supported by factual findings as to the 'probable and potential earnings level, source of imputed and actual income, and adjustments to income.'”

Establishes the legal standard that income imputation requires detailed factual findings, which the trial court failed to provide.

Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

The former wife, a homemaker with limited work experience and no marketable skills, was previously employed as a teacher's assistant at minimum wage b…

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.


Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM.

Jill D. Marlowe, the former wife, appeals a final judgment modifying child support which reduced the amount of child support payments owed to her by Wally R. Marlowe, the former husband, appellee, retroactive to the date of the original filing. The former wife argues that: (1) the trial court improperly imputed minimum wage income to her; (2) the Final Judgment violates section 61.30(7), Florida Statutes (2012); (3) the revised child support calculations are erroneous; and (4) it is an error to use alleged past overpayments in child support to set off alimony arrearages or future child support payments. Because the trial court failed to support its imputation of income to the wife with any factual findings and erred in the computation of the former husband’s child support payments, we reverse and remand for further proceedings.

Florida courts have consistently held that the imputation of income must be supported by factual findings as to the *1196“probable and potential earnings level, source of imputed and actual income, and adjustments to income.” Harrell v. Harrell, 947 So.2d 638, 639 (Fla. 4th DCA 2007). Particularized findings relating to the current job market, the party’s most recent work history, occupational qualifications, and the prevailing earnings level in the local community are all required to support an imputation of income. Rabbath v. Farid, 4 So.3d 778, 782 (Fla. 1st DCA 2009). Here, the trial court does not provide any factual basis for its conclusion that the former wife was voluntarily underemployed. Nor does the trial court provide any support for its determination that the former wife should be working 40 hours a week. The record is undisputed that the former wife is a homemaker with limited work experience, no marketable skills, and no resume. In fact, evidence shows that former wife was forced to leave her minimum wage job as a teacher’s assistant because of child care issues with her youngest of seven children of this marriage. Without any factual findings, the imputation of income must be reversed and remanded.

We also agree with the former wife that the trial court’s retroactive child support calculations are erroneous. The child support worksheets in the record reflect that the former husband paid his alimony every month from November 2009 through May 2012 when, in actuality, he did not. An audit performed by the Escambia County Clerk reflected that the former husband’s alimony payments were over $12,000 in arrearage. Because the court ignored the unpaid alimony payments, there was an erroneous $600 reduction in the former husband’s income and a $600 increase in the former wife’s income. See Swor v. Swor, 56 So.3d 825, 826 (Fla. 2d DCA 2011).

We find no abuse of discretion, however, in the trial court’s termination of child support upon a child reaching the age of 18, instead of upon high school graduation. Further, set offs against support obligations are permitted “in those limited circumstances where that party can show ‘compelling equitable criteria and considerations’ justifying such set off.” Waldman v. Waldman, 612 So.2d 703, 704 (Fla. 3d DCA 1993) (quoting Chappell v. Chappell, 253 So.2d 281, 287 (Fla. 4th DCA 1971)). We find that equitable circumstances exist warranting the trial court’s ruling because, if the alimony arrearage was not set off against the child support “overpayment” by virtue of the retroactive reduction, the former wife would have an even greater financial burden owed to the former husband. Therefore, even though the trial court’s calculation of retroactive child support is remanded for recalculation, to the extent the child support calculations are retroactively reduced, they can be set off by the alimony arrearage. On remand, the trial court should cap the amount to be deducted from the former husband’s future child support obligations as offset for his retroactive child support overpay-ments. This is to ensure that the children’s continuing support needs will be met, while simultaneously amortizing the sum of child support overpayments owed to the former husband.

REVERSED and REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

WOLF, VAN NORTWICK, and WETHERELL, JJ., concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Chamberlain v. Eisinger, 159 So. 3d 185 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015)
    …rt remands to the trial court for a determination of the amount of alimony the Father paid between October 1, 2010, and the entry of final judgment to determine the offset to the Mother’s retroactive child support obligation. See Marlowe v. Marlowe, 123 So. 3d 1194, 1196 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013) (retroactive child support calculations erroneous where child support worksheets reflect that former husband paid alimony every month, thereby increasing former wife’s income and decreasing former husband’s, where former hu…
  • Wood v. Wood, 162 So. 3d 133 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014)
    …ntained no particularized findings related to the current job market, the former wife’s recent (within the preceding 5 years) work history, occupational qualifications, or the prevailing earnings level in the local community. See Marlowe v. Marlowe, 123 So. 3d 1194 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013) (imputation of income to payee parent for purposes of reducing child support from payor parent reversed due to lack of particularized findings). The court’s reliance on the voluntary termination of the former wife’s employment fe…
  • Tinoco v. Savannah Leigh Lugo, 342 So. 3d 845 (Fla. 2d DCA 2022)
    …CA 2003). As relevant here, "set offs against support obligations are permitted 'in those limited circumstances where th[e requesting] party can show "compelling equitable criteria and considerations" justifying such set off.' " Marlowe v. Marlowe, 123 So. 3d 1194, 1196 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013) (quoting Waldman v. Waldman, 612 So. 2d 703, 704 (Fla. 3d DCA 1993) (quoting Chappell v. Chappell, 253 So. 2d 281, 287 (Fla. 4th DCA 1971))). As this court has explained, "within the confines of the parents' financial capa…

Previewing 3 of 5 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw