FAYETTEVILLE -- A divided Arkansas Court of Appeals on Wednesday reversed a local judge's award of child support and set the amount itself.
The majority of justices ruled Washington County Circuit Judge Joanna Taylor erred in ordering Thompson Case Maner of Fayetteville to continue paying Kathryn "Katie" Maner, his ex-wife, of Fayetteville $7,000 a month in child support for his two children.
It was the second time the case had been before appeals court judges.
Case Maner argued Taylor lacked authority to enter the child support order and she erred by failing to apply the chart-based presumptive amount of child support in the case. The appeals court judges ruled Taylor had authority to hear and rule in the case but said Taylor's calculation of child support was clearly erroneous.
"Many of Katie's listed monthly expenses are not for her children's benefit, but the circuit court clearly considered all of the expenses, including those solely attributable to Katie, in making an upward deviation in child support," according to the majority opinion.
Case Maner had been ordered to pay $7,000 a month. The judges set his monthly child support obligation at $2,375, retroactive to July 1, 2020.
In a concurring opinion, Judge Wendy Scholtens Wood agreed the child support amount should to be reversed but said the Court of Appeals shouldn't have determined the amount. Wood said she would have sent the case back for Taylor to make that determination.
In a dissenting opinion, Judge Waymond M. Brown said Taylor did what was required to deviate from the presumptive child support chart amount and was in the best position to weigh the evidence and decide what was in the best interest of the children when awarding child support.
"Instead of following our stated standard of review, the majority has instead substituted its own personal objections to the circuit court's order," Brown wrote.
Brown argued the children should receive the same portion of parental income and financial resources they would have received if the parties were still together.