Karen G. Silverman

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When negotiating a divorce settlement agreement, the parties should agree on whether or not all child support-related rights and obligations must be redetermined in the event the periodic basic child support obligation is modified.

Take the recent Appellate Division, Second Department, decision in Walsh v. Walsh. There the parties’ settlement agreement was incorporated, but not merged into their 2014 judgment of divorce. Under that agreement, the father was to pay $500 per month in child support.

After the parties divorced, the father began collecting Social Security benefits in addition to his salary, which caused his income to increase by more than 15%. In their agreement, the parties did not opt out of allowing the court to modify the support order, without requiring a party to allege or demonstrate a substantial change in circumstances, where either party’s gross income changed by 15% or more since the order was entered or modified. The mother petitioned for an upward modification of the father’s child support obligation.

Family Court Suffolk County Support Magistrate Kathryn L. Coward granted the upward modification on the basis of the father’s increased income. Calculating the father’s child support obligation under the Child Support Standards Act, the Magistrate awarded the mother $2,074 per month in child support.

The father objected to the Support Magistrate’s order. Family Court Judge Matthew G. Hughes denied the father’s objections. The father appealed. The Second Department affirmed.Continue Reading Are The Various Types of Child Support Benefits Interrelated?

Family 2In his March 8, 2017 decision in Dawn M. v. Michael M., Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice H. Patrick Leis III granted a wife “tri-custody” of her husband’s ten-year-old biological son with the wife’s paramour.

Dawn and Michael M. were married in 1994. After unsuccessful attempts to have a child, the couple attempted artificially insemination. Those efforts also failed.

In 2001, the wife met Audria and they became close friends. Audria and her boyfriend moved into an apartment downstairs from Dawn and Michael. When Audria’s boyfriend moved out, Audria moved upstairs. In 2004, the wife, husband and Audria began to engage in intimate relations.

As time went on, Audria, Dawn and Michael began to consider themselves a “family” and decided to have a child together. After the fertility doctor refused to artificially inseminate Audria because she was not married to Michael, the trio decided to conceive a child naturally by Michael and Audria engaging in unprotected sexual relations, and then, to all raise the child together as parents.

A son, J.M., was born to Audria in January, 2007. For more than 18 months, the three “parents” continued to live together. The child was taught that he had two mothers. When the relationship between the husband and the wife became strained, Audria and the wife moved out of the marital residence with the child.Continue Reading Wife Awarded “Tri-Custody” of Son of Her Husband and His and Her Paramour