## Facts

- The parties divorced in 1986, with an agreed child-support order requiring the father to pay $35 per week per child ($70 total) for two children.
- Vermont’s statutory child support guidelines became effective in 1987.
- The father remarried in 1987 and began supporting a new household that included his wife and her child (his stepson).
- The mother moved to modify child support under the guidelines statute, alleging the existing order varied by more than 15% from the guideline amount.
- The parties agreed the statutory threshold showing of changed circumstances was satisfied, leaving disputes over the correct guideline calculation and whether deviation was warranted.
- The parties stipulated that the guideline amount would be $121 per week if the father had a qualifying preexisting support obligation to his stepson, and $141 per week if he did not.
- The trial court found no legal duty to support the stepson, calculated the guideline amount as $141 per week, but deviated downward to $90 per week based on the father’s claimed financial needs.

## Issues

1. Whether child-support guidelines create a presumptively correct support amount that may be reduced only through statutorily required findings that the guideline amount is unjust or inappropriate.
2. Whether an obligor’s expenses for a second family, including voluntary support of a stepson without a legal duty of support, can justify downward deviation from the presumptive guideline support owed to children of the first marriage.

## Decision

- The Vermont Supreme Court reversed the modified support order and remanded.
- The court accepted the trial court’s conclusion that the father had no preexisting legal support obligation to the stepson and that the guideline figure was $141 per week.
- The court held the trial court’s downward deviation to $90 per week lacked the specific, statutorily grounded findings required to rebut the guideline presumption.
- The court rejected reliance on voluntary second-family expenses as a basis to reduce presumptive guideline support for the children of the dissolved marriage.

## Legal Principles

- Child-support guidelines establish a rebuttable presumption that the guideline amount is the correct support order.
- A court may deviate from the guideline amount only if it makes specific written findings that guideline application would be unjust or inappropriate under the statutory criteria.
- Voluntary financial commitments to a second family, including support of a stepchild absent a legal duty of support, are not “preexisting support obligations” that reduce the guideline calculation for the obligor’s children.
- A conclusory finding that the obligor needs more resources, without analysis tied to the statutory factors, is insufficient to justify deviation.

## Conclusion

The court held that Vermont’s child-support guidelines control absent specific written findings meeting the statutory deviation criteria, and that an obligor’s voluntary second-family expenses cannot be used to defeat the presumptive guideline support owed to the children of the first marriage.


Ainsworth v. Ainsworth, 574 A.2d 772 (Vt. 1990)