Mr. and Mrs. Hahn divorced in New Mexico and agreed to a stipulated parenting plan whereby they shared joint physical and legal custody of their minor children. They agreed that there would be no child support for one year in order to give both of them time to seek employment. They agreed that a future child support order would be based upon New Mexico.
In 2015 Wife relocated to Utah and registered the New Mexico Divorce Decree in Utah. She filed a petition to modify. Husband filed an answer and counterclaim with the help of an attorney by later filed an answer representing himself. He filed several motions, one of which challenged the constitutionality of Utah’s custody and child support laws. He filed a request for a jury trial, which was denied.
Husband did not appear at trial, although he filed several motions one week before trial and a motion to continue on the day of trial. He also did not provided any updated financial information, although he had recently taken a job in Texas.
At trial the court awarded the parties joint legal custody of the minor children and awarded Mother primary physical custody of children. The court imputed income to Husband in the amount of $10,533, based on a three-year historical average of his income from 2010 through 2012. The court awarded Wife partial attorney fees for having to defend against various of Husband’s motions that were without merit and filed in bad faith on the eve of trial. Husband appealed.
In his appeal, Husband protested the court’s failure to grant him a jury trial. But the Court of Appeals notes that divorce matters are equitable in nature and no right to jury trial existed in equitable matters at statehood.
Husband asserted that the court should not have imputed income to him. But he had failed to provide updated financial information, which was one statutory basis for the court to impute income to him. It was proper, then, for the court to impute income to him “based upon employment potential and probable earnings as derived from employment opportunities, work history, occupational qualifications, and prevailing earnings for persons of similar backgrounds in the community.” Utah Code Ann. Section 77B-12-203(7)(b) (LexisNexis 2012).
Husband made a variety of other challenges, some of which were constitutional, but none of which were adequately briefed. The Court notes the axiom that an appealing party cannot dump the burden of research onto the appellate court and hope to prevail.
The Court remanded for a determination of the amount of attorney fees to be awarded to Wife in appeal based on the bad faith claims.
See Hahn v. Hahn, 2018 UT App. 135.
This material should not be construed as legal advice for any particular fact situation, but is intended for general informational purposes only. For advice specific to any individual situation, an experienced attorney should be contacted.