In re Marriage of Smiley

2019 IL App (2d) 180976-U
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedOctober 22, 2019
Docket2-18-0976
StatusUnpublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 2019 IL App (2d) 180976-U (In re Marriage of Smiley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Marriage of Smiley, 2019 IL App (2d) 180976-U (Ill. Ct. App. 2019).

Opinion

2019 IL App (2d) 180976-U No. 2-18-0976 Order filed October 22, 2019

NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and may not be cited as precedent by any party except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1). ______________________________________________________________________________

IN THE

APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS

SECOND DISTRICT ______________________________________________________________________________

In re MARRIAGE OF ) Appeal from the Circuit Court KEATON SMILEY, ) of Du Page County. ) Petitioner-Appellant, ) ) and ) No. 16-D-678 ) SANDRA SMILEY, ) Honorable ) Robert E. Douglas, Respondent-Appellee. ) Judge, Presiding. ______________________________________________________________________________

JUSTICE BRIDGES delivered the judgment of the court. Justices McLaren and Birkett concurred in the judgment.

ORDER

¶1 Held: (1) The circuit court erred in calculating the amount of guideline maintenance and child support using the parties’ base incomes rather than their gross incomes; and (2) the circuit court’s finding that petitioner dissipated marital funds was not against the manifest weight of the evidence. Therefore, we affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded with instructions.

¶2 Petitioner, Keaton Smiley, appeals from the judgment dissolving his marriage to

respondent, Sandra Smiley. He contends that the circuit court erred in (1) awarding maintenance

to Sandra without making specific findings of fact as to each relevant factor in section 504(a) of

the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (Act) (750 ILCS 5/504(a) (West 2018)); 2019 IL App (2d) 180976-U

(2) determining the income of the parties for purposes of calculating guideline maintenance and

child support; and (3) finding that Keaton dissipated $15,703 of marital assets. For the following

reasons, we affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand the cause with instructions.

¶3 I. BACKGROUND

¶4 Keaton and Sandra were married on April 25, 2003. They had three children together

and, one year prior to the marriage, Keaton adopted Sandra’s child from a previous relationship.

The parties resided together in Texas until their separation in 2008, when Sandra relocated with

the children to Illinois. After an eight year separation, on April 7, 2016, Keaton filed a petition

for dissolution of marriage in Illinois.

¶5 A trial was held over two days in July 2018. Keaton testified that he was employed as an

insurance premium auditor at CNA Insurance where he earned a base salary of $78,000 per year,

plus a bonus based on his profitability. Including his bonus, he earned a gross income of

$83,079 in 2017. Keaton had limited contact with the children during the parties’ extended

separation, in that he had only telephonic communication with the younger children and

occasional in-person visitation in Texas with the oldest child. Commencing in 2017, Keaton

began to travel to Illinois every other week to exercise parenting time in accordance with the

recommendations of the guardian ad litem. Keaton withdrew approximately $15,700 from his

401(k) in August 2017 after he ceased working for his former employer, Liberty Mutual Group.

He testified that he withdrew the funds to pay for various obligations, including household

expenses, child support, legal fees, and travel-related expenses to see the children in Illinois.

¶6 Sandra testified that she was living in a two-bedroom apartment in Carol Stream, Illinois

with the minor children. She often slept on the couch because the children occupied both

bedrooms. She worked “third shift,” from 11 p.m. to 7:30 a.m., as a machine operator at Johnson

-2- 2019 IL App (2d) 180976-U

Controls. Her base pay was approximately $33,000 in 2017, but she earned additional pay for

overtime work and night shift premiums. She worked third shift so that she could drive her

children to their extracurricular activities and spend time with them, and she voluntarily “put in”

for overtime to “keep up with [her] bills.” She testified that she did not want to work third shift,

but she did so in order to earn additional money. She could apply for the first shift at her job,

where the hours would be from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Sandra’s 2017 W-2 reflected that she earned

$53,656.13 that year.

¶7 The circuit court entered a judgment for dissolution of marriage on August 19, 2018. It

also issued a letter opinion explaining its decision, which was incorporated into the judgment.

Pertaining to maintenance, the circuit court stated that it had considered the relevant statutory

factors in section 504(a) of the Act, and it found that “[t]he property awarded to Sandra is not so

substantial as to provide significant income for her to live on with the children,” such that

maintenance was appropriate. In setting the amount and duration of Keaton’s maintenance

obligation, the court found that Sandra’s base salary was $33,156 per year, but it acknowledged

that she earned “approximately $53,000” in 2017 because she received shift premiums for

working the third shift. The court found that “Sandra is not required to work a third shift job

[because] *** it has her sleeping during much of the time when the children are awake.”

Regarding Keaton, the circuit court noted that his base salary was $78,358 per year, but that he

earned “approximately $83,000” in 2017 when his bonus was included. Utilizing each party’s

base income, the circuit court ordered Keaton to pay guideline maintenance of $954.13 per

month for 7.28 years. Using the income shares approach to calculating child support, the court

also awarded Sandra $1,220.59 per month in child support. The judgment provided that the

amount of maintenance and child support were to be “trued-up quarterly” based on the “actual

-3- 2019 IL App (2d) 180976-U

earnings” of the parties. Finally, the court found that Keaton dissipated $15,703 and ordered him

to pay Sandra half that amount, as well as ordered that the marital assets be divided equally.

Keaton filed a motion to reconsider, but the court denied those portions of the motion seeking

reconsideration on the issues of maintenance, child support, dissipation, and the division of

property. Keaton timely appealed.

¶8 II. ANALYSIS

¶9 We begin by addressing Keaton’s second claim of error, as the circuit court’s

determinations regarding each party’s income necessarily affects (1) whether an award of

maintenance was warranted in the first place (see 750 ILCS 5/504(a)(1) (West 2018) (requiring

courts to consider “the income and property of each party” in determining whether maintenance

is appropriate)) and (2) the accuracy of Keaton’s guideline child support obligation.

¶ 10 Keaton contends that the circuit court erred as a matter of law in calculating guideline

maintenance using the parties’ base salaries rather than their gross incomes as required by

section 504(b-1)(1)(A) of the Act (750 ILCS 5/504(b-1)(1)(A) (West Supp. 2017)), as well as in

using these figures to compute guideline child support. See 750 ILCS 5/505(B) (West 2018)

(defining net income for purposes of calculating child support as “gross income minus either the

standardized tax amount *** or the individualized tax amount***.”).

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Related

In re Marriage of Smiley
2022 IL App (2d) 200696-U (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2022)

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2019 IL App (2d) 180976-U, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-marriage-of-smiley-illappct-2019.