NEW CASE
Cavanagh v. Cavanagh, SJC 13222, (MA SJC August 8, 2022)
A case in which the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that alimony and child support can be awarded concurrently.
In 2016 the Parties filed for divorce after 21 years. The Mother had briefly worked at the beginning of the marriage; but spent the majority of the time being a stay-at-home mother for the Parties’ three children, only one of which was not emancipated at the time of the divorce. The original judgment required the Father to pay $800 a week in child support. Mother did not get any alimony, and during the trial the Parties agreed not to include Father’s medical center job in income calculations for alimony ro child support.
Both Parties sought a modification of this judgment. Father sought a modification of child support and Mother sought alimony. The Trial Court reduced Father’s alimony to $650 a week and denied Mother’s request for alimony as the Father’s income had already been used to calculate child support.
Both Parties appealed this judgment as well, with Mother making an application for direct appellate review to the SJC, which was accepted. The SJC ruled that the Alimony Reform Act, codified as M.G.L. Chapter 208, must be taken as a whole and parties cannot use Section 53(c)(2) to essentially eliminate the possibility of alimony in cases also involving child support. Section 53(c)(2) asserts that the court, when ordering alimony, must exclude from its income calculations gross income that it already considered in making a child support order. The decision highlights the fact the other provisions in the Alimony Reform Act explicitly consider concurrent alimony and child support provisions, and require judges to inquire about the facts regarding the parties circumstances before denying alimony.
The Court proceeded to outline a framework under which alimony and child support decisions are to be decided. The Probate and Family Court must:
• Calculate alimony first in light of the factors enumerated in the Alimony Reform Act, then calculate child support based on the parties’ post-alimony incomes;
• Calculate child support first, then calculate alimony based on the remaining income, if any; and then,
• Compare the two awards and the tax consequences of each, and choose the award that is more equitable.
The SJC also made some determinations regard what can or cannot be counted as income in these situations. Persuaded by the Pennsylvania Court’s recent decision that employer contributions could be manipulated to be a shield from support obligations; the Court ruled employer contributions to retirement accounts are income for child support. Under a similar reasoning the Court ruled employer contributions to a health saving account are also income as they can be withdrawn “at any time and for any purpose”. The Court also notes that capital gains only need to be regular income when they relate to real and personal property transactions. Therefore, other such transactions, capital gains, interest, and dividends can be considered income for the purposes of calculating child support.
