MARTA NINA VS. ALBERT MAHOSKI (FM-18-0150-10, SOMERSET COUNTY AND STATEWIDE)

New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division·Decided July 7, 2021·No. A-3328-19·Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court ." Although it is posted on the internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-3328-19

MARTA NINA, f/k/a MARTA MAHOSKI,

Plaintiff-Respondent,

v. ALBERT MAHOSKI,

Defendant-Appellant.

Submitted February 10, 2021 – Decided July 7, 2021 Before Judges Sumners and Mitterhoff.

On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Chancery Division, Family Part, Somerset County, Docket No. FM-18-0150-10.

Albert Mahoski, appellant pro se.

Marta Nina, respondent pro se.

PER CURIAM In this post-judgment matrimonial matter, defendant Albert Mahoski appeals from a Family Part order denying his request to terminate his child

support obligation and his additional claims for relief. We affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

The parties were married in 1996, and had two children during the marriage: J.L., born in 1998, and J.S., born in 2001. The marriage was terminated in March 2010, by way of a Dual Final Judgment of Divorce which incorporated a Matrimonial Settlement Agreement (MSA). The MSA provided joint legal and physical custody of the children. At the time of the divorce, plaintiff Marta Nina earned an annual income of approximately $95,000 while defendant earned approximately $110,000. The parties therefore waived their rights to alimony and child support, and instead elected to split the children's expenses equally.

Under the MSA, each party is required to pay one-half of all unreimbursed medical, dental, and prescription drug expenses of the children. Any elective or non-emergent cosmetic procedure in excess of $100 must be agreed upon in advance. Every three months, the parties agreed to provide receipts for any costs which the other is obligated to contribute, and reimbursement is to be made within seven days.

Apparently anticipating defendant's unwillingness to pay, the MSA set forth the following sanction provision:

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In the event [plaintiff] pre-pays for an extra-curricular activity and [defendant] does not reimburse his portion within fourteen . . . days of receiving an invoice, or if [defendant] unilaterally takes a credit he is not authorized to take . . . then [plaintiff] may file an application for enforcement of litigant's rights and, in addition to issuing an [o]rder on the matter of the extra[-]curricular activity and/or camp expense, the [c]ourt shall issue an [o]rder by which [defendant] shall become responsible to pay child support pursuant to the guidelines through the appropriate probation department. Such imposition of child support shall not trigger a recalculation of the 50/50 allocation of camp, activities[,] and unreimbursed medical expenses, as such allocation was negotiated to be an essential aspect of the child support in the best interests of the children.

This provision regarding the imposition of child support without reallocating the payment of expenses as a sanction for non-payment is an essential term of this overall [a]greement and this [a]greement would not have been agreed upon without these terms. The parties further agree that no court shall have the authority to alter this sanction, which is agreed upon as being made in the best interests of the children. 1

In July 2014, after defendant refused to undergo court-ordered therapy, a best interest evaluation was ordered to determine a custody schedule. Defendant refused to participate in the best interest evaluation. Consequently, a February 26, 2016 order granted plaintiff sole legal custody and reduced defendant's

1 The MSA initially required all disputes regarding unpaid reimbursements to be resolved by an arbitrator.

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parenting time to Thursday nights and every other weekend. Plaintiff also requested reimbursement in the amount of $1,519.50 for expenses related to their children's braces, driving lessons, tutoring, guitar lessons, and a summer geometry program. The judge noted defendant's history of disregarding court orders, but directed plaintiff to submit her request to arbitration, pursuant to the parties MSA.2 In October 2018, defendant became unemployed. He sold his house in New Jersey, purchased a new home in cash, and relocated to North Carolina in April 2019. In July 2019, defendant submitted an updated Case Information Sheet (CIS) which showed an annual income of $91,288 in 2018 and moved to terminate his support obligation under the MSA due to a change in circumstances.3 The motion was denied as procedurally deficient because defendant failed to include proof of his income at the time of divorce. R. 5:5-4. The order indicated, however, that even if defendant had included the

2 An August 16, 2016 consent order vacated the requirement that financial disputes be decided in arbitration and, instead, ordered the parties to address expense-related disputes by motion to the court. 3 Defendant's July 2019 CIS also showed that he paid $257,500 for the home, and had over $13,000 in a bank account, $54,000 in a cash management account, and nearly $231,000 in a retirement account.

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appropriate documentation, the reduction in his annual income did not support his request to terminate his obligation to share in the children's expenses.

By this time, J.L. was attending college. Plaintiff claimed a tax credit for tuition payments she made in 2016, 2017, and 2018. In August 2019, defendant filed a motion requesting that the court order plaintiff to reimburse him for a portion of the tuition-related tax credits she claimed from 2016-2018.4 The motion was denied without prejudice because defendant failed to provide proof of the tuition payments he allegedly made, but ordered plaintiff to provide J.L.'s 1098Ts from 2016-2018. The September 18, 2019 order noted that:

if [d]efendant is able to provide the required proofs, he may be able, in a subsequent filing, to file his taxes with the appropriate allocation, which may result in an audit to [p]laintiff or need to file amended returns.

In October 2019, plaintiff moved to enforce litigant's rights based on defendant's failure to pay his portion of the children's expenses. Defendant had made only one of the five quarterly payments he was required to make from March 2018 through May 2019. The judge compared defendant's history of bad faith and blatant disregard of court orders with plaintiff's rigid compliance with

4 Defendant also requested that the court order plaintiff to turn over her 2016, 2017, and 2018 tax returns, and to pay treble damages.

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the terms of parties' MSA. He found that plaintiff had "kept painstaking records and provide[d] ample documentation for each request for relief."

Accordingly, an October 25, 2019 order awarded plaintiff $13,283.96 in unreimbursed recreational and medical expenses, tuition payments, and fees with payment to be made within fourteen days. The order also required defendant to make all payments to plaintiff through the probation department, all tuition payments directly to the universities, and allowed plaintiff to claim both children as dependents moving forward. In light of defendant's consistent failure to make payments, the judge granted plaintiff's request to enforce the MSA's sanction provision, which required defendant to make child support payments in accordance with the child support guidelines, 5 in addition to his half of the children's expenses. Defendant was ordered to provide an updated CIS so the court could impute an income and calculate his support payments.

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MARTA NINA VS. ALBERT MAHOSKI (FM-18-0150-10, SOMERSET COUNTY AND STATEWIDE), (N.J. Ct. App. 2021).

MARTA NINA VS. ALBERT MAHOSKI (FM-18-0150-10, SOMERSET COUNTY AND STATEWIDE) (MARTA NINA VS. ALBERT MAHOSKI (FM-18-0150-10, SOMERSET COUNTY AND STATEWIDE)) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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