Daniel Dekalb v. Kelly Dekalb

CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky
DecidedMay 13, 2021
Docket2019 CA 001918
StatusUnknown

This text of Daniel Dekalb v. Kelly Dekalb (Daniel Dekalb v. Kelly Dekalb) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Daniel Dekalb v. Kelly Dekalb, (Ky. Ct. App. 2021).

Opinion

RENDERED: MAY 14, 2021; 10:00 A.M. NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

Commonwealth of Kentucky Court of Appeals

NO. 2019-CA-1918-MR

DANIEL DEKALB APPELLANT

APPEAL FROM OLDHAM FAMILY COURT v. HONORABLE DOREEN S. GOODWIN, JUDGE ACTION NO. 15-CI-00498

KELLY DEKALB APPELLEE

OPINION AFFIRMING

** ** ** ** **

BEFORE: CALDWELL, MCNEILL, AND TAYLOR, JUDGES.

CALDWELL, JUDGE: Daniel Dekalb (“Dan”) appeals from an Oldham Family

Court judgment denying his motion to modify child support and maintenance,

finding him in contempt for failure to pay in full court-ordered obligations and

ordering him to pay part of Kelly Dekalb’s (“Kelly”) attorney fees, and denying his

request to allocate to him a tax exemption for at least one of the parties’ two

children. We affirm. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Dan and Kelly Dekalb were married in Colorado in 2006. They

relocated to Kentucky in 2013 and have two children. Dan and Kelly separated in

2015 and divorced in 2017. With the family court’s permission, Kelly and the two

children moved to Colorado in 2017. Kelly returned to work shortly after the

move, after several years’ absence from the workforce.

Dan raised several alleged errors in an earlier appeal, including

challenging his child support and maintenance obligations. We affirmed the

family court’s judgment in an unpublished opinion. Dekalb v. Dekalb, No. 2018-

CA-0513-MR, 2020 WL 1074798 (Ky. App. Mar. 6, 2020).

While the prior appeal was pending, Dan filed a motion to modify

maintenance and child support. Kelly filed a motion to hold Dan in contempt for

failing to make full payment on his court-ordered obligations and a motion for

attorney fees. Dan requested that he be allocated a tax exemption for one child.

Also, Dan disputed the amount of Kelly’s earnings and her need for full-time

childcare. The parties also disputed how to pay for travel expenses so the children

could spend time with Dan.

Following a July 2018 evidentiary hearing, the family court ultimately

denied Dan’s requests to modify maintenance and child support and to be allocated

a tax exemption for one child. It further found Dan to be in contempt for failure to

-2- pay in full court-ordered obligations on several occasions and ordered him to pay

Kelly’s attorney fees in the amount of $7500 within sixty days. Dan filed a timely

appeal. Further facts will be provided as we address each issue in turn.

STANDARD OF REVIEW AND ANALYSIS

Denial of Modification of Maintenance

Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS) 403.250(1) states that “the

provisions of any decree respecting maintenance may be modified only upon a

showing of changed circumstances so substantial and continuing as to make the

terms unconscionable.” We review a family court’s ruling on a motion to modify

maintenance under an abuse of discretion standard. Tudor v. Tudor, 399 S.W.3d

791, 793 (Ky. App. 2013).

The family court found that Dan’s income had not significantly

changed since the time of trial, remaining at about $22,000 per month. It noted

that it had imputed $30,000 annual income to Kelly when initially awarding child

support and maintenance. It found that her present annual income would be about

$37,750 based on the pay stubs she submitted for the first six months of the year.

The family court also found that Kelly’s living expenses had increased and that

Dan earned seven times what Kelly earned.

The family court rejected Dan’s arguments that the family court

should impute additional income to Kelly:

-3- The Respondent [Dan] argued that the Petitioner [Kelly] is not working full time and the Court should impute full-time earnings to her for the purposes of this Motion. This Court heard no evidence to support that theory. In addition, he attempts to calculate her earnings by equating her per unit measure of payment to an hourly amount. The Court does not find his calculation to be accurate to her income.

The Petitioner is a physical therapist who works in the home-health setting. That is the same type of work that the Petitioner did as a physical therapist earlier in the marriage. The Petitioner explained how patients are assigned to her and that she took all patients assigned except for the rare occasion when a patient lived too far away. The Petitioner also explained to the Court that for every “unit” showing on her pay stub was a home-health visit. For that one unit, the Petitioner typically would work approximately three hours—sometimes less, sometimes more—depending on the circumstances. Specifically, the “unit” included the travel time to and from the patient’s home, typically 30 minutes each way, and the time for the visit, approximately one hour. The “unit” also included the time the Petitioner was required to write reports and communicate with the doctors.

There was no evidence presented that the Petitioner could work a 40-hour week in another physical therapy setting. The Petitioner is earning slightly in excess of what the Court imputed to her at the trial [sic] of trial. There is no evidence to support imputed income above the approximately $37,000 which the Petitioner is likely to earn in 2018.

(Order 11/20/2019, pp. 5-6).

Dan argues that Kelly could work additional hours if she chose and so

additional income should be imputed. He suggests that Kelly chose to work less

-4- hours after he filed a motion to modify and argues that her annual earnings should

have been based on one particular paystub which he alleges shows she was capable

of greater earnings. He also argues that even assuming that a unit of work takes

2.5 or 3 hours, Kelly’s per-hour pay would greatly exceed the per-hour pay based

on the $30,000 annual income imputed by the family court. And he points out that

$37,750 is twenty-five percent more than the $30,000 annual income imputed.

From our review of the recorded hearing, the family court accurately

summarized Kelly’s testimony about her work hours and how she was paid. And

given Kelly’s testimony about her lack of regular work hours being outside her

control, we perceive no error in the family court’s basing Kelly’s average annual

earnings on a later paystub reflecting her earnings to date in mid-2018 rather than

an isolated, earlier paystub suggesting higher weekly earnings during a shorter

time period.

From our review of the recorded hearing, Kelly also testified to

looking for facility-based physical therapy work with more regular hours but being

unable to find this type of work, especially after a seven-year absence from the

workforce. Dan has not pointed to evidence of record that Kelly could work more

hours or could find a more lucrative job or one with more regular hours. Thus, we

see no error in the family court’s declining to impute additional income to Kelly.

-5- Although Kelly’s projected annual income was about twenty-five

percent higher than the $30,000 annual income imputed to her by the family court,

we discern no abuse of discretion in the family court’s denial of Dan’s motion to

modify maintenance. The family court found that Kelly’s earning about $7,550

more per year than imputed was “not a substantial and continuing change of

circumstances” and “not enough income to render the maintenance

unconscionable.” Further, the family court noted that it had acknowledged in its

order initially awarding maintenance that Kelly would experience a monthly

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Bluebook (online)
Daniel Dekalb v. Kelly Dekalb, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/daniel-dekalb-v-kelly-dekalb-kyctapp-2021.