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Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Ind. Courts - Revised Indiana Child Support Rules and Guidelines Approved by Supreme Court

In addition to the changes to the rules of evidence announced yesterday, the Court also issued an order making substantial changes to the child support rules and guidelines, effective Jan. 1, 2010. Find the Order here - unfortunately it is a 73-page scanned document.

The Order is approved by CJ Shepard, and JJ Dickson and Boehm. JJ Sullivan and Rucker dissent in part, writing:

We dissent from those amendments to the Guidelines that have the effect of overruling Grant v. Hager, 868 N.E.2d 801 (Ind. 2007). Grant held that there is a rebuttable presumption that neither parent owes the other support in a circumstance where the Child Support Obligation Worksheet calculation produced a negative amount for the non-custodial parent's child support payment because of the application of the Parenting Time Credit. Under the amendments to the Guidelines approved in this Order, however, there will be a rebuttable presumption in such circumstances that the custodial parent must make child support payments to the non-custodial parent equal to the negative amount.

We believe that the Guidelines' presumption in such circumstances should continue to be that neither parent owes the other support. We also note that, notwithstanding this amendment, the trial court has authority to deviate from the new Guidelines amount and order that neither parent owes the other support based on their respective incomes and parenting time arrangements if the court had concludes that it would be unjust not to do so and the court makes the written finding mandated by Child. Supp. R. 3.

Here is the ILB summary of the 3-2, June 27, 2007 Supreme Court decision in the case of Tina M. Grant v. Gregory J. Hager. Notice that J. Sullivan wrote the majority opinion, in which Shepard, C.J., and Rucker, J., concurred. Boehm, J., dissented with a separate 3-page opinion in which Dickson, J., concurred.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 16, 2009 10:35 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts