The Marital Settlement Agreement required the husband to deposit $90,000 in a 24-month trust. His wife was to withdraw his monthly child support obligation. And his 50% share of child-related expenses. The trust period expired. The wife filed a petition to replenish the trust. And to establish the husband’s current support obligation. Husband also filed a petition to set child support.
The Court heard several days of testimony. It ordered the husband to replenish the trust. At a rate of $12,000 per year for his share of child-related expenses. He would pay his child support directly to his wife through his paycheck.
Husband had no problem with the amount of his child-related expenses. He did not believe he should have to pay them to his wife in a trust. In the past, he did not always pay his share of child-related expenses. He objected to some of them. He wanted the court to decide what was right. Husband appealed.
The parties’ divorce decree stated that any unresolved issues regarding child-related issues could be submitted to the court for the hearing. So, why should he pay his expenses into the trust? This did not give him a chance to submit any issues he had about them to the court first.
Husband asserts that he was justified in withholding reimbursement pending review. The husband believed the trial court should not have used his nonpayment as grounds for ordering him to replenish the trust.
Husband knew that he had responsibility for a number of these expenses. including dental, counseling fees, and extracurricular activities. Yet he still refused to pay them.
So, the trial court was correct when it ordered him to replenish the trust after finding he had willfully refused to pay the nonmedical expenses.
In re Marriage of Pasquesi, 2015 IL App (1st) 133926.
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