In a recent post I wrote about an ex-husband who was ordered to provide his tax returns to his ex-wife on an ongoing basis for so long as he had an alimony obligation and alimony arrearages existed. Based on the case at issue in that post, one could logically assume that in a post-judgment child support hearing, that both parties would be required to verify their current income. However, as detailed below, the ex-wife was not required to verify her current income when the ex-husband sought to modify his child support just two years after the divorce.
FAMILY LAW 20-2-0988 Newkirk-Sanchez v. Newkirk, App. Div. (per curiam) (9 pp.) In this post-divorce matter, defendant-husband appeals from the Family Part’s orders denying his motion to reduce his child support obligation and sanctioning him $2,000 in reimbursement of plaintiff-wife’s attorney’s fees. The Family Part declined, without prejudice, to order wife to produce financial information to verify her income less than two years after the divorce judgment had been entered with an agreement on child support. The Family Part did not abuse its discretion in declining to order wife to produce financial information relevant to child support so soon after the parties’ divorce and voluntary agreement. Having been denied that relief once, another motion only five months later was also too soon for the court to reconsider the parties’ financial circumstances. Because the court had recently ruled on husband’s similar applications to modify parenting time and reduce child support, it viewed another motion requesting the same relief to be frivolous and harassing to wife. It was not an abuse of the Family Part’s discretionary authority to award attorney’s fees as a sanction against husband.
