Bare v. Bare

³⁰⁹ J. FREDERICK SHARER, Judge (Retired, Specially Assigned). Brian Bare, appellant, and Abigail Bare, appellee, settled by written agreement all issues pertaining to their divorce, including custody and child support, except for “uninsured medical expenses” of the children. Their agreement provided in that respect: The parties agree to reserve on the issue of the parties’ ... for medical, dental, orthodontia, eyecare, hospitalization, counseling, and any other health care expenses that are not covered by insurance and the parties shall present said issue to the [Circuit] Court for determination. The issue having thus been presented, the Circuit Court for Cecil County ordered Mr. Bare to pay basic child support in accordance with the applicable statutory schedule and, in addition, to pay one-half of their children’s medical expenses not covered by insurance.

Challenging only that aspect of the divorce judgment, Mr. Bare presents the following two issues for our review, the first of which he characterizes as a question of first impression: 1. Did the trial court err in ordering Mr. Bare to pay, in addition to basic child support, one-half of the children’s “ordinary” medical expenses, i.e., expenses that do not qualify as extraordinary and are not otherwise covered by insurance? 2. Did the trial court err in admitting into evidence medical records and receipts covering the period after the Bares’ separation? We agree with Mr. Bare that the trial court erred in ordering payment of ordinary medical expenses; therefore, we shall vacate the orders regarding medical expenses without reaching the evidentiary question.

FACTS and LEGAL PROCEEDINGS The Bares were married on September 1,1990, and separated on August 14, 2006. Three children-triplets — Brooke, Bronwin, and Blake — were born on April 19, 1999. On Febru ³¹⁰ ary 1, 2008, the Bares executed a written settlement agreement that resolved custody and support issues, but reserved the issue of post-separation uninsured medical expenses for resolution by the court, as we have noted, supra. At an August 12, 2008 trial, only the medical expense issue was contested.

Mr. Bare objected to paying any portion of medical expenses that do not qualify as “extraordinary,” arguing that such expenses were covered by the basic child support obligation calculated under the child support guidelines. See Md.Code (1984, 2006 Rep. Vol., 2009 Cum. Supp.), Family Law (F.L.) § 12-101 et seq.

Conceding that some of the medical expenses for which she sought reimbursement were “standard garden variety” expenses that could not be classified as extraordinary, Mrs. Bare asserted that it had been the routine practice in Cecil County for over “twenty-five years” for the court to order the sharing of all medical expenses, regardless of whether they qualified as extraordinary. She proposed an even division of such expenses, but contended that the court “certainly has authority” to apportion 83.1% of such expenses to Mr. Bare, because he earned that percentage of the combined family income. The trial court entered a judgment of divorce requiring, inter alia, Mr. Bare to reimburse Mrs. Bare for $1,198.15, representing a one-half share of the “uninsured medical bills” that she paid after the separation, and, in the future, to “pay one-half Qk) of the medical, optical, dental, orthodontia, hospitalization, prescriptions, counseling, and any other health care expenses ... that are not covered by insurance.” Mr. Bare noted this timely appeal from that aspect of the judgment. DISCUSSION Determination of Child Support Maryland’s statutory child support scheme, codified at F.L. § 12-101 et seq., is premised on an “income shares” model that “establishes child support obligations based on estimates of the percentage of income that parents in an intact household typically spend on their children.” Voishan v. Palma, 327 ³¹¹ Md. 318, 322-23, 609 A.2d 319 (1992). 1 “Consistent with this model, the legislature constructed the schedule in § 12-204(e), which sets forth the basic child support obligation for any-given number of children based on combined parental income.” Id.

In addition to the monthly child support obligation calculated under that schedule, courts are authorized to require parents to pay an apportioned share of certain child care expenses, 2 “extraordinary” medical expenses, and certain school and transportation expenses. 3 The basic child support obligation calculated under the subsection (e) schedule and ³¹² adjusted for these expenses is commonly known as the “guidelines amount” of child support. At issue in this appeal is F.L. § 12-204(h), permitting the court to require payment of extraordinary medical expenses, which provides: (h) Extraordinary medical expenses.— (1) Any actual cost of providing health insurance coverage for a child for whom the parents are jointly and severally responsible shall be added to the basic child support obligation and shall be divided by the parents in proportion to their adjusted actual incomes. (2) Any extraordinary medical expenses incurred on behalf of a child shall be added to the basic child support obligation and shall be divided between the parents in proportion to their adjusted actual incomes. “Extraordinary medical expenses” is statutorily defined to mean “uninsured expenses over $ 100 for a single illness or condition.” F.L. § 12 — 201(g)(1). Such expenses include “uninsured, reasonable, and necessary costs for orthodontia, dental treatment, asthma treatment, physical therapy, treatment for any chronic health problem, and professional counseling or psychiatric therapy for diagnosed mental disorders.” F.L. § 12-201(g)(2). “To further the purpose of the Guidelines, their use is mandatory if the parents have a monthly combined adjusted income of $10,000 or less.” Smith v. Freeman, 149 Md.App. 1, 19 , 814 A.2d 65 (2002).

See F.L. § 12-202(a)(l); F.L. § 12-204(a)(1). “There is a rebuttable presumption that the amount of child support which would result from the application of the[se] guidelines ... is the correct amount of child support to be awarded.” F.L. § 12-202(a)(2)(i). Nevertheless, this “presumption may be rebutted by evidence that the application of the guidelines would be unjust or inappropriate in a particular case.” F.L. § 12-202(a)(2)(ii); see Beck v. Beck, 165 Md.App. 445, 449-50 , 885 A.2d 887 (2005). A trial court may not depart from the guidelines amount of child support, either by decreasing or increasing that obligation, ³¹³ unless it “determines that the application of the guidelines would be unjust or inappropriate” and “stat[es] the reasons for departing from the guidelines,” specifying on the record what the amount of child support would be under the guidelines, “how the order varies from the guidelines,” and “how the finding serves the best interests of the child.” F.L. § 12-202(a)(2)(v). See Voishan, 327 Md. at 322 , 609 A.2d 319 ; Beck, 165 Md.App. at 450 , 885 A.2d 887 .

The legislature adopted this comprehensive framework governing child support with several goals in mind. In February of 1989, the General Assembly enacted the Maryland Child Support Guidelines as an emergency measure. These guidelines were adopted in conformance with the Child Support Enforcement Amendments of 1984, 42 U.S.C. §§ 651-667 (1982 & Supp. II 1984), and federal regulations, 45 C.F.R. § 302.56 (1990). The guidelines serve several purposes.

First, the guidelines were intended to remedy the low levels of most child support awards relative to the actual cost of rearing children. Second, the guidelines were intended to improve the consistency and equity of child support awards. Third, the guidelines were intended to improve the efficiency of court processes for adjudicating child support awards. Additionally, the failure to adopt such guidelines could have resulted in the loss of up to $35 million in federal funds for Aid to Families with Dependent Children.

Tannehill v. Tannehill, 88 Md.App. 4, 11 , 591 A.2d 888 (1991) (citations omitted). See Petrini v. Petrini, 336 Md. 453, 460 , 648 A.2d 1016 (1994). See generally 3-33 Family Law and Practice § 33.08[2] (Matthew Bender 2009) (reviewing standardization of statutory provisions permitting deviation from mandatory child support guidelines adopted under federal mandate). 1. Award of Ordinary Medical Expenses In the words of his brief, Mr. Bare contends that “the trial court erred as a matter of law in ordering [him] to contribute and pay 50% of non covered medical expenses of ³¹⁴ the minor children that were not ‘extraordinary medical expenses’ as defined under” F.L. § 12-204(h).

He does not dispute that the trial court had authority to add to the amount of child support due under the § 12-204(e) schedule an amount representing his apportioned share of any extraordinary medical expenses. He further acknowledges that some of the medical expenses covered by the judgment qualify as extraordinary medical expenses. But, Mr. Bare complains, the trial court improperly increased his child support by requiring him to pay a share of other medical expenses that do not meet the definition of extraordinary; in his view, these ordinary medical expenses are expenses that the child support calculated under the F.L. § 12-204(e) guidelines schedule is designed to cover. We agree.

When construing a statute, “we normally look only to the language of the statute unless such language is unclear or ambiguous. While our goal in statutory interpretation is to ‘ascertain and effectuate the intention of the legislature,’ the ‘primary source [for discerning that legislative intent] is the statute itself.’ ” Beck, 165 Md.App. at 450 , 885 A.2d 887 . In Boswell v. Boswell, 118 Md.App. 1, 35-36 , 701 A.2d 1153 (1997) , aff'd on other grounds, 352 Md. 204 , 721 A.2d 662 (1998) , we vacated an order requiring a father to pay all unreimbursed medical expenses for his children, in addition to the support calculated under the child support schedule in subsection 12-204(e). But, unlike Mr. Bare, Boswell did not argue that the court lacked jurisdiction to add ordinary medical expenses onto that basic child support obligation, probably because he had agreed to divide all medical expenses.

See Boswell, 118 Md.App. at 35-36 , 701 A.2d 1153 . Rather, Boswell challenged the court’s order that he pay all of the medical expenses, not merely an apportioned share of them based on respective incomes, without explaining its reasons for doing so, as required by F.L. § 12-202(a)(2)(iv). See id. at 34, 701 A.2d 1153 . Pointing out that the statutory framework “makes it very clear that a departure from the Guidelines must be supported ³¹⁵ by the court’s 'written finding or a specific finding on the record stating the reasons for departure,” we held that trial court erred in “ordering] appellant to pay the standard amount of child support under the Guidelines in addition to all of the children’s unreimbursed medical expenses,” because it “stated no reasons for declining to split extraordinary medical expenses according to income, nor reasons for ordering appellant to pay any unreimbursed medical expenses not classified as extraordinary!)]” Id. at 35-36 , 701 A.2d 1153 .

Although our decision rested on the court’s lack of explanation for allocating all medical expenses to one parent, our discussion makes it clear that any order requiring a parent to pay for ordinary medical expenses is an unauthorized departure from the guidelines unless the court finds special circumstances and explains on the record why such an award is appropriate, in the format specified by F.L. § 12-202(a)(2)(v). See id. Our rationale in Horsley v. Radisi, 132 Md.App. 1 , 750 A.2d 692 (2000), is also instructive. The trial court required the father to pay, in addition to the child support payment calculated under the statutory schedule, his proportionate share of expenses for various extracurricular activities selected for their educational value, including summer camps and music lessons.

See id. at 25 , 750 A.2d 692 . We vacated that award on the ground that it, too, was an unauthorized increase in the guidelines amount of child support, relying on a jurisdictional analysis of the child support scheme that is equally applicable to this case. See id. at 26-27, 29-30 , 750 A.2d 692 . In Horsley , we began our review of the statutory framework by pointing out that a child support obligation calculated under the subsection (e) schedule “is premised on estimates of adequate expenditures that married parents ordinarily spend on their children ‘as a proportion of household consumption,’ and the number of children in the household.” Id. at 23-24 , 750 A.2d 692 .

In order to ensure that child support was set consistently and at such realistic levels, the General Assembly deliberately restricted judicial authority to deviate from that amount of child support by limiting such “add-ons” to the narrow list of