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| | Other Circumstances for Increased Support |
Obligor's Increased Income
A substantial increase in one parent's income in itself constitutes a material and substantial change.
Increased needs combined with increased income.
A court's decision to modify support often involves a consideration of both the financial condition of the obligated parent and the child's changed needs.
Increase in Child's Needs
A parent's testimony showing a substantial increase in a child's expenses is enough to establish a material and substantial change in circumstances. Items examined to determine the child's increased needs include items such as expenses for travel, summer camp, sports lessons, entertainment, private school tuition, and increased costs of living caused by inflation.
Increased needs combined with increased income.
A court's decision to modify support often involves a consideration of both the financial condition of the obligated parent and the child's changed needs. The following cases illustrate the courts' consideration of these combined factors:
- Evidence of increased needs due to inflation and the children entering school combined with an increase in the father's income was sufficient to justify modification.
- Inflation was an important factor in the upholding of the reasonableness of the trial court's granting an increase in support despite testimony that both parents' incomes had increased since the divorce decree.
- Increased expenses due to inflation, the growth of the children, and medical expenses, along with an increase in the father's salary, justified an increase in support.
- The possessory conservator was ordered to start paying child support eight years after divorce because the managing conservator had a significant drop in income and the child's financial needs had increased as child grew older.
- An increase in child support was ordered based on the father's net resources and the children's expanding needs as they entered their teenage years.
Child's Increasing Age
Age is frequently a factor in determining the existence of a change of circumstances, since as children grow older, their clothing, food, and educational expenses generally increase. One court of appeals has stated that the fact ``[t]hat children outgrow clothes as they physically mature, expand their social and intellectual activities, and consume greater quantities of food over the years is hardly open to dispute''.
Comparison evidence needed.
Increased age alone will not support a modification unless the record contains sufficient evidence from which a comparison may be made between the support needs at the time of the prior order and at the time the suit for modification is brought
Decrease in Obligee's Income
A reduction in the obligee's income may constitute a material and substantial change of circumstances justifying an increase in child support.
Obligor's Release From Incarceration
Release of a child support obligor from incarceration is a material and substantial change in circumstances if the obligor's child support obligation was abated, reduced, or suspended during the period of the obligor's incarceration.
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