Introduction and Legislative History

• Jurisdiction: Maryland

I. INTRODUCTION AND LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

Md. Code Ann., Family Law § 1-201(b)(9) (2019 & Supp. 2022) (hereinafter Fam. Law § ___) confers jurisdiction on a court of equity to determine child support. The obligation of parents to support their minor children has been consistently upheld by the Supreme Court of Maryland.¹ For a period of time, the father was primarily responsible for the support of his minor children; the responsibility arose from the father's corresponding right to his children's earnings and services, a right which the mother did not share.² Following the adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, parental obligation for child support became a joint obligation of both parents.³ Initially, there was no set rule fixing the amount of child support; the figure theoretically was tailored to meet the circumstances of each case.⁴

In 1989, the Maryland Legislature passed, as emergency legislation, a new Subtitle 2, Child Support Guidelines, to Title 12 of the Family Law Article, Child Support, which took effect on February 24, 1989. This Subtitle is codified as Md. Code Ann., Fam. Law §§ 12-201-12-204 (hereinafter "Guidelines"). As originally enacted, the Guidelines were advisory only; however, by emergency legislation passed in 1990, the Guidelines were made presumptively correct. The Act took effect April 10, 1990. The Guidelines were a result of a federal mandate requiring that guidelines be established and be based on specific descriptive and numeric criteria and result in a computation of the support obligation. The federal Family Support Act of 1988 provided that states would lose federal funding for child support programs if the Guidelines were not given mandatory status by October 1989.⁵

In drafting the Guidelines, the Maryland State Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee considered a report issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Child Support Enforcement which explained the need for them:

(1) to "remedy a shortfall in the level of awards" that do not reflect the actual cost of raising children;

(2) to "improve the consistency, and therefore the equity, of child support awards;" and

(3) to "improve the efficiency of court processes for adjudicating child support. . . ."⁶

After considering several different models recommended by the Advisory panel on Child Support Guidelines, the General Assembly chose to base Maryland's Guidelines on the Income Shares Model.⁷ The conceptual underpinning of this model is that a child should receive the same proportion of parental income, and therefore enjoy the same standard of living, he or she would have experienced had the child's parents remained together.⁸ Accordingly, the model establishes child support obligations based on estimates of the percentage of income that parents in an intact household typically spend on their children, and the number of children in the household.⁹ The formula apportions the amount of each parent's support in accordance with the percentage that parent's income bears to the total joint income.

Consistent with this model, the legislature constructed the schedule set forth in Fam. Law § 12-204(e), which sets forth the basic support obligation for any given number of children based on combined parental income. The schedule states what the obligation is for one child, two children, or more. Support is not computed on a "per child basis."

Originally, use of the Guidelines was mandatory if the parents had a monthly combined adjusted income of up to $10,000.¹⁰ Effective October 10, 2010, the Maryland legislature overhauled the Guidelines, increasing the combined income level to which the Guidelines apply from $10,000 per month to $15,000 per month. Family Law § 12-202(b) states, however, that "[t]he adoption or revision of the Guidelines set forth in this subtitle is not a material change of circumstance for the purpose of a modification of a child support award."

The factors enunciated in decades of case law were subsumed in child support tables codified by the legislature and worksheets promulgated by the Supreme Court of Maryland.¹¹ The Guidelines provide detailed instructions on how to weigh the relevant factors as well as the steps a court must take if it is going to deviate from the Guidelines' structure. Having done away with protracted fact finding, the attorney can now input essential information into his computer and advise the client as to a presumptively correct amount of child support. The statute contains a nonexclusive list of criteria to rebut the Guidelines by demonstrating also that application of the Guidelines would be unjust or inappropriate.¹² It is important to note that in 2020, effective October, 1, 2021, § 12-202(b) was amended to provide that, in determining whether the application of the Guidelines would be unjust or inappropriate in a particular case, the court can consider whether the obligor's monthly child support obligation would leave the obligor with a monthly actual income below 110% of the 2019 federal poverty level for an individual.¹³ The statute was also modified to include, for the first time, criteria under which a court can decline to establish a child support order, including, if the obligor lives with the child and is contributing to its support; if the obligor is unemployed; without financial resources and is incarcerated and expected to remain so during the time they are under a legal duty of support; is institutionalized; is totally and permanently disabled, and is unable to obtain or maintain employment and has no income other than Supplemental Security Income of Social Security disability insurance benefits; or is unable to obtain or maintain employment in the foreseeable future due to compliance with...