The Supreme Court of Ohio has ruled that a domestic relations court must explicitly determine that a parent is voluntarily unemployed before calculating a child support order based on estimated potential future income. The ruling comes in response to a case where the Wood County Domestic Relations Court calculated child support payments for a man who lost his job during the COVID-19 pandemic, based on his previous income.
Justice Michael P. Donnelly, writing for the Court majority, stated that it appeared from the domestic relations court’s record that the judge found David Ayers was “involuntarily unemployed” at the time the child support order was issued. He noted that state law requires an express court order determining voluntary unemployment or underemployment before “imputing a potential income” for child support payments.
Justices Patrick F. Fischer, Melody Stewart, and Jennifer Brunner joined Justice Donnelly’s opinion. Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy concurred in judgment only with an opinion, stating that an appellate court must be able to determine from the entry imputing potential income to a parent that the parent’s unemployment was voluntary.
In a separate concurring opinion, Justice R. Patrick DeWine maintained that while it may be best practice for trial courts to expressly find unemployment is voluntary, R.C. 3119.01 does not require it.
Ayers and Deborah Belleville had been married for 13 years before she filed for divorce in July 2019. Both were employed with comparable incomes when the case began but Ayers lost his job due to organizational changes in February 2020.
The domestic relations court designated Belleville as the residential parent and ordered Ayers to pay child support based on his potential income. However, this decision was appealed by Ayers who argued he was involuntarily unemployed and not eligible to have his future income estimated.
The Supreme Court's ruling reversed a Sixth District Court of Appeals decision which had affirmed the domestic relations court's ruling. The Supreme Court remanded the case to the trial court to determine whether Ayers was voluntarily unemployed and to conduct further proceedings based on that finding.