holding that a difference exists between allowing a credit for payment made from another source and modifying the specific dollar amount
How later courts described this case
- holding that a difference exists between allowing a credit for payment made from another source and modifying the specific dollar amount
- noting that a non-custodial parent’s receipt of social security benefits might well justify a modification of the support order, but only following and in light of the required procedures
- holding that crediting of Social Security payments is not modification of decree
- crediting of Social Security child support benefits against supporting parent’s child support obligation is not a “modification” of divorce decree requiring motion and procedure
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
STEPHENS, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion in its holding that social security payments be automatically credited against a child support obligation.
The trial court had credited social security payments to the support obligation of the father’s estate without any motion or showing by the estate, but merely in response to the mother’s motion for collection on arrears. The exclusive method for modifying a child support order is found in KRS 403.250(1), which requires that a child support order can be modified “only upon a showing of changed circumstances so substantial and continuing as to make the terms unconscionable.” Thus, although the trial judge has the right to make a set-off, he can do so only upon the motion of the paying parent which shows sufficient changed circumstances.