Moore v. Moore

Citations

• 216 Conn. App. 179

Syllabus

The defendant, whose marriage to the plaintiff previously had been dis- solved, appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court denying his postjudgment motion to modify alimony and child support. At the time of dissolution, the dissolution court deviated from the child support guidelines and did not award child support to either party, concluding that it was in the best interests of the minor children and the parents that no child support be awarded. The defendant's motion for modification claimed that modification of the alimony and child support orders was warranted because the circumstances between the parties had changed substantially because the marital home had been sold, the parties were no longer cohabitating, and the parties' income and expenses had changed, and, additionally, that the parties' current circumstances warranted child support to be paid per the child support guidelines. Held: 1. The trial court improperly denied the defendant's motion to modify the child support order solely on the basis that it did not find a substantial change in circumstances, that court having failed to address the defen- dant's additional and distinct claim as to whether the motion should be granted on the ground that the child support order substantially deviated from the child support guidelines in the absence of the requisite findings: in issuing its child support order, the dissolution court acknowledged that it was deviating from the child support guidelines but did not make an explicit finding that applying the presumptive amount as provided by the guidelines would be inequitable or inappropriate and, in the absence of a specific finding that a deviation was inequitable or inappro- priate, the child support order was continually subject to modification on the ground that it substantially deviated from the guidelines; in the present case, the court should have determined the presumptive amount, thereafter determined whether it would have been inequitable