Sweeney v. Sweeney

Citations

• 2019 Ohio 1750

Syllabus

DOMESTIC RELATIONS – DIVORCE AND DISSOLUTION: The determination of whether a parent is voluntarily underemployed and the amount of potential income to be imputed to him or her, are matters to be determined by the trial court based upon the facts and circumstances of each case, and a reviewing court will not disturb the trial court's determination on these matters absent an abuse of discretion while this is a deferential standard, a trial court can abuse its discretion where there is no evidence in the record to support its findings or where the court employs the wrong legal standard. In calculating child support, a trial court must first determine the annual income for each parent the income for a parent who is voluntarily underemployed is the sum of any gross income and any potential income attributable to that parent potential income includes imputed income that the court determines the parent would have earned based on specified criteria found in former R.C. 3119.01(C)(11)(a), including the age and any special needs of the children and factors relating to the parent, such as the parent's prior employment experience, education, skills and training, and employment availability, as well as the local wages available to be earned, and imputed income from any nonincome-producing assets of the parent under former R.C. 3119.01(C)(11)(b). A voluntary reduction in income is not sufficient in and of itself to establish that potential income should be imputed to a parent the test is not only whether the change was voluntary, but also whether it was made with due regard to the parent's income-producing abilities and his duty to provide for the continuing needs of the children. Where the reviewing court cannot ascertain whether the trial court modifying a child-support order determined, as an initial matter, whether it was ruling on a motion to modify custody and child-support obligations under a split-parenting motion or under a subsequent jointly requested shared-parenting p