Melinda H., Respondent Below, Petitioner v. William R., Ii, Petitioner Below, Respondent

Summary

The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia reversed a family court's reduction of a father's child support obligation after he voluntarily left a well-paying job at Momentive Performance Materials to work roughly twenty hours per week at $10 per hour for a company owned by his fiancee's mother. The Court held the family court erred by failing to apply the three-part income-attribution test of W. Va. Code § 48-1-205(b), and that none of the statutory exceptions in subsection (c) — economic self-improvement, valid medical reasons, or inequity — excused attribution of the father's previous income. The Court announced the new rule that a caregiver parent's non-attribution of income, or attribution at federal minimum wage alone, cannot make attribution of previous income to the other parent inequitable under § 48-1-205(c)(4). No separate opinions were filed.