When efficiency arguments fail: the counter-intuitive effects of amended rule 78.07(c).

• Author: Iuppa, Vincenzo
• Position: Missouri

Crow v. Crow, 300 S.W.3d 561 (Mo. App. E.D. 2009).

1. INTRODUCTION

   Fairness and efficiency are often upheld as dual goals of the judicial system. (1) Yet often these goals seem to conflict, and courts are left balancing justice for the parties with judicial efficiency. (2) In Crow v. Crow the outcome was far from fair. A father asked a court to reduce his child support obligation when one of his children was emancipated. (3) Not only did the mother agree that the child support should be reduced, the procedure for determining child support in Missouri indicated a reduction was appropriate. (4) However, the circuit court refused the modification. (5) On appeal, the court declined to hear the case and cited to the requirements of Missouri Rule of Civil Procedure 78.07(c) on preserving allegations of error, a rule that had never before been applied to this area of law. (6) In refusing to hear the case, instead of searching for fairness for the parties, the court relied on the efficiency argument used to justify the amendment of Rule 78.07(c). (7)

   In light of the court's miscarriage of justice in Crow v. Crow, this Note will focus on analyzing the supposed efficiency of amended Rule 78.07(c). This Note will begin by explaining the history leading up to Crow v. Crow and then analyzing the decision itself. With the background established, this Note will examine the effect that amended rule 78.07(c) had on the Crow court and the lingering influence it has on the judiciary at large. First, the intended outcome of the rule will be compared and contrasted with several potential outcomes in order to determine whether the amendment actually results in the intended increase in efficiency. This will include an examination of the obvious effects that occurred since the passage of the rule and the potential effects that may be unnoticed. Second, the amended rule will be analyzed to see if, even assuming it does create some judicial efficiency, it nonetheless creates a risk of unfairness beyond what was intended and what should be acceptable. Finally, some suggestions will be provided for alternative methods that could allow the court to attain the desired efficiency without any of the risks to fairness that the amended rule presents. Without a further amendment to rule 78.07(c), Crow v. Crow will be only the first case decided unjustly because of the faulty reasoning behind the current structure of rule 78.07(c).

2. FACTS AND HOLDING

   In May 2006, the Circuit Court of Monroe County entered the divorce decree that dissolved the marriage of David Alan Crow (Father) and Judy Lynette Crow (Mother). (8) At the time of the dissolution, Father and Mother had five children. (9) The court emancipated the parties' oldest child. (10) The court then granted the parties joint legal custody. (11) of the four remaining children, with Mother having sole physical custody. Father was required to pay $1,010 in monthly child support for the four unemancipated children. (12)

   Father filed a motion to modify his child support obligation in October 2007. (13) Father alleged that the oldest of the children covered by the support obligation, K.C., had become legally emancipated. (14) As of October 1, 2007, K.C. was twenty years old, had graduated from high school in December 2006, and was not enrolled in a post-secondary institution. (15) Father sought modification of his child support so that he would no longer pay for the emancipated child and requested reimbursement for support involuntarily overpaid following the emancipation of K.C. (16)

   The trial court held a bench trial in July 2008. (17) Both parties stipulated that K.C. was legally emancipated effective October 1, 2007 and that any modification of Father's child support obligation should be retroactive to the date of K.C.'s emancipation. (18) Mother filed Civil Procedure Form 14 (Form 14), (19) which indicated the presumed correct child support for the three remaining unemancipated children should be $926 per month. (20)

   In the modification judgment, the judge found that K.C. was legally emancipated as of October 1, 2007. (21) However, the trial court ordered that Father's child support obligation remain $1,010 per month. (22) The court reached this amount without providing any findings, and it did not file its own Form 14. (23) Father appealed the decision, but he did not file a post-trial motion to amend the judgment. (24)

   On appeal, the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, considered upon its own motion whether Father had preserved his allegations of error for appellate review. (25) The court first determined that the trial court failed to follow the procedure required by law. (26) Missouri Supreme Court Rule 88.01 requires making findings on the record whenever a court deviates from the presumed correct child support calculated with Form 14. (27) The trial court had both deviated from Form 14 and failed to make the required findings. (28) The appellate court then held that such failures are encompassed under the modified Rule 78.07(c), which requires filing a motion to amend a judgment in order to preserve allegations relating to the form or language of a judgment. (29) Therefore, because Father failed to file a post-judgment motion raising the trial court's failure to follow the required scheme, he had not preserved the issue for appeal, and his appeal was dismissed. (30)

3. LEGAL BACKGROUND

   1. Child Support Modification

      Missouri child support law is an amalgam of statutes, case law, and Missouri Supreme Court Rules. The basic child support obligation is contained in statutes. (31) "In a proceeding for dissolution of marriage, legal separation, or child support, the court may order either or both parents ... to pay an amount reasonable or necessary for the support of the child." (32) In most situations the obligation to support a child extends until the child turns eighteen, unless the child is either incapable of supporting himself due to disability or enrolled in a secondary school. (33)

      To determine the appropriate amount of child support, the legislature included several factors the court should consider in Missouri Revised Statutes section 452.340.1. (34) Along with these factors, the legislature included a mandate for the Supreme Court of Missouri to establish guidelines for determining the amount of child support. (35) In response to the requirement of creating "specific, descriptive and numeric criteria" for computation of child support, (36) the Supreme Court of Missouri created Rule 88.01, which requires the use of Form 14. (37)

      Form 14 is a worksheet used to calculate the amount of child support. (38) The amount calculated after filling out Form 14 is the amount of required child support unless a court finds the amount is unjust or inappropriate. (39) In order to determine that the amount is unjust, the court must include written or specific findings on the record that consideration of all relevant factors demonstrates the amount is unjust. (40)

      Once the appropriate amount of child support is set by the court, it only can be changed "upon a showing of changed circumstances so substantial and continuing as to make the terms unreasonable." (41) Any change of circumstances that would result in a change of twenty percent or more in the support obligation is prima facie evidence of sufficiently changed circumstances. (42) However, even where the change would be less than twenty percent, a party can independently show that the change in circumstances is substantial and continuing. (43) This is particularly true when the change is obviously long term, such as moving out of state (44) or discontinuing tuition payments. (45) Once sufficient change is demonstrated, the court must use the same procedure for setting the new support amount as for setting the original amount. (46)

      In essence, Missouri law requires a two-step procedure for calculating child support. (47) First, the court must use Form 14 to find the correct child support amount. (48) Second, if after considering all of the relevant factors the court later decides the child support amount is unjust and inappropriate, then it must make findings in the record to rebut the amount. (49) A Form 14 is always mandatory, even when the court decides not to allow the modification. (50) Therefore, all cases prior to Crow in which the court failed to follow the procedure were reversed and remanded for the trial court to follow this mandatory two-step procedure. (51)

   2. Preservation of Error on Appeal

      Rule 78.07 sets forth the requirements for preserving issues for appellate review. (52) Prior to 2005, Rule 78.07 only required the filing of a post-trial motion in jury cases. (53) If a party failed to file a motion for a new trial then any allegations of error were waived.54 However, the Supreme Court of Missouri amended the rule, effective January 2005, to allow parties to litigate some issues in a bench case, even if they were not preserved for a new trial. (55)

      Amended Rule 78.07(c) requires that "[i]n all cases, allegations of error relating to the form or language of the judgment" be raised in a post-trial motion. (56) The Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, explained that the purpose of the amendment is "to reduce and discourage appeals and subsequent technical reversals for errors in the form of judgments that could easily be corrected by bringing them to the attention of the trial judge." (57) The court noted that very few second appeals are filed after the findings are made on remand, even though the substance of the order often changes little. (58) Therefore, the Western District claimed that allowing parties to appeal errors in the form and language of the judgment directly to the appellate court was "a substantial waste of judicial time and even more importantly a waste of emotional and financial resources of the parties." (59)

      Since the amendment, courts have applied the rule to a trial court's...