Woodlief v. Woodlief CA1/5

Filed 8/29/23 Woodlief v. Woodlief CA1/5
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not
certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been
certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION FIVE
MILES ARCHER WOODLIEF,
Plaintiff and Appellant, A166235
v. (Marin County Super. Ct. No.
JENNIFER LYNN WOODLIEF, FL095748)
Defendant and Respondent.
Plaintiff and appellant Miles Archer Woodlief (Father) appeals from the
trial court’s order fixing and liquidating child support arrears. Following an
evidentiary hearing, the trial court fixed the amount of child support arrears
owed by Father to defendant and respondent Jennifer Lynn Woodlief
(Mother) at $213,455. Father contends the trial court erroneously included
$205,000 of debt in this amount that was unrelated to Father’s child support
obligations to Mother. We find no abuse of discretion and affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
Father and Mother finalized their divorce in December 2009. As part of
their marital settlement agreement, Father was ordered to pay Mother
$10,000 per month in child support for their then three minor children.1
1 The trial court later found that Father and Mother had modified child
support by agreement to $9,000 per month as of December 2009.
1
Throughout the years, the parties maintained a joint bank account (Account)
that Father deposited and withdrew funds from, with Mother’s permission.2
Father deposited child support payments into the Account and also deposited
and withdrew other funds that were unrelated to child support. Mother kept
a running tally of the debt owed to her by Father based on his withdrawals
and deposits as well as amounts he purportedly owed in back child support.
For example, in September 2017, Mother emailed Father, “you have $205,000
of my $ representing years of back [child support] and other funds that you
were ‘holding for me in [one of our children’s] account.’ ” In September 2019,
Mother emailed Father that his debt to her, including $9,000 in child support
for July, August, and September, totaled $344,864.
In March 2020, Mother filed an “OSC [Order to Show Cause] re
Contempt” against Father, alleging that Father owed her child support.
After finding that “Mother had failed to demonstrate the precise amount of
Father’s alleged arrearages and had failed to show that any failure to pay
child support was willful,” the trial court dismissed Mother’s OSC with
prejudice. Mother subsequently opened a case with the Marin County
Department of Child Support Services (DCSS), and DCSS filed a motion to
determine support arrearage and set liquidation (Motion). The Motion asked
the court to decide (1) “whether Father’s repayment to the [Account]
comingled support payments with repayment of loans,” and (2) “whether
Father has a support arrearage and how much that arrearage actually may
be.”
Father filed an opposition to Mother’s request for child support. He
argued that he “was more than current with child support” but that he was
2 Though both parties’ names appear on the Account’s statements, the
parties both referred to it as Mother’s account.
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unable to obtain additional proof of his child support payments per the court’s
request because his bank could not provide him with missing bank
statements. Father included a chart which detailed the child support
payments he purportedly made over the years. Father further argued that
the parties’ use of the Account was complicated by the fact that there were
numerous deposits and withdrawals made that were unrelated to child
support payments and therefore irrelevant to the subject proceeding.
Mother filed a declaration claiming that Father owed child support
arrears in the amount of $759,586 based on her previously filed declarations
and bank records. Alternatively, Mother argued that if the trial court
intended to rely on her “contemporaneous emails” to determine child support
arrears, then the amount owed was $341,864 (after giving Father a credit of
$6,000) based on Mother’s October 4, 2019 email to Father referencing
$347,864 as his total debt.
Following an evidentiary hearing, the trial court fixed Father’s child
support arrears at $213,455. The court arrived at this figure by taking
Mother’s calculation of $344,864 as Father’s debt as of September 23, 2019
and subtracting $60,409 for an unrelated tax debt, $35,000 as a credit for
spousal support Father had paid, and $36,000 in Jackson credits.3 Among
other findings, the court found that “Mother and Father engaged in a great
many other transactions, including withdrawals and transfers, revealing a
complex and commingled system of financial arrangements to which each of
them consented.” The court found that these transactions were unrelated to
child support and that “[o]nce Father made a child support payment, that
3 Under Jackson v. Jackson (1975) 51 Cal.App.3d 363, 368, a trial court
has discretion to give credits against child support arrearages where the
obligor has satisfied his or her child support obligation by taking physical
custody of the child.
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child support remained paid.” Accordingly, the court denied “Mother’s
request to discredit Father’s child support payments when Father withdrew
or transferred funds.” The court noted it reviewed the attachments to DCSS’s
motion showing each parent’s payment history as well as the parties’ filed
declarations. The court also considered the parties’ testimony and arguments
made at the hearing.4
Father timely appealed.
II. DISCUSSION
A. Standard of Review
We review child support orders for abuse of discretion. (In re Marriage
of Cheriton (2001) 92 Cal.App.4th 269, 282.) Although broad, “[t]he trial
court’s exercise of discretion must be ‘informed and considered,’ [citations]
and the court may not ‘ignore or contravene the purposes of the law.’ ”
(Brothers v. Kern (2007) 154 Cal.App.4th 126, 133.)
Under the abuse of discretion standard, “we review the trial court's
legal conclusions de novo and its factual findings for substantial evidence,
and we reverse its application of the law to the facts only if it was arbitrary
and capricious.” (Swan v. Hatchett (2023) 92 Cal.App.5th 1206, 1215.) “We
cannot substitute our judgment for that of the trial court, but only determine
if any judge reasonably could have made such an order.” (In re Marriage of
Chandler (1997) 60 Cal.App.4th 124, 128.)
B. Lack of Citations and Authority in Mother’s Brief
We first address Father’s argument that Mother’s brief should be
disregarded because she fails to provide any record citations or legal
authority. We agree that a party’s failure to provide citations to the record
4 The record does not contain a transcript or settled statement of the
hearing.
4
and legal authority to support a contention may be treated as a waiver of that
contention on appeal. (In re Tobacco Cases II (2015) 240 Cal.App.4th 779,
808.) Although Mother fails to provide any record citations or legal authority
in her brief, her failure to do so is not fatal because she is the respondent, and
the burden ultimately rests upon Father, as the appellant, to affirmatively
demonstrate prejudicial error by the trial court. (Stevens v. Parke, Davis &
Co. (1973) 9 Cal.3d 51, 70.) Thus, any deficiencies in Mother’s brief do “not
absolve us of adjudicating the merits of” Father’s appeal. (In re Marriage of
Everard (2020) 47 Cal.App.5th 109, 111, fn. 1 [affirming trial court order
despite the respondent’s failure to file a brief].)
C. Trial Court Did Not Abuse its Discretion
Father contends that in fixing the amount of child support arrears, the
trial court mistakenly included $205,000 of debt owed by Father to Mother
that was unrelated to his child support obligations. Father argues that the
trial court’s discretion “does not really come into play” here because “a
mistake was made.” We disagree. Father challenges the trial court’s factual
findings that Father’s withdrawals from the Account were unrelated to child
support and that, putting aside these withdrawals, Father still owed
$213,455 in child support arrears. The standard of review is therefore abuse
of discretion.
As the appellant, Father failed to meet his burden of showing that the
trial court erred in including the $205,000 in its child support arrears
calculation. The primary evidence Father cites to in support of his argument
is a September 17, 2017 email Mother sent Father which stated, “you have
$205,000 of my $ representing years of back [child support] and other funds
that you were ‘holding for me in [one of our child’s] account.’ ” This does not
conclusively support Father’s argument that the $205,000 was not debt
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related to unpaid child support. To the contrary, this email can reasonably
be interpreted to mean that Mother believed Father owed her $205,000 in
back child support plus additional unspecified funds Father borrowed from
her and placed into another account. Father also cited to evidence showing
that Mother permitted Father to borrow and withdraw funds from the
Account. But this fact was not in dispute, and the trial court explicitly held
that these withdrawals were unrelated to child support and could not be
used to discredit Father’s child support payments. Thus, there is no reason
to believe that the court mistakenly included any of those withdrawals in its
calculation of Father’s child support arrears.
Further, substantial evidence supports the trial court’s order. First, in
calculating Father’s child support arrears, the court relied on various
documents, including the attachments to DCSS’s motion as well as Mother’s
declarations and attachments. Those attachments included a form
declaration signed by Mother which alleged that Father did not make any
child support payments in 2013 and 2014 and missed most of the payments
in 2015, 2018, and 2019. Mother’s July 26, 2021 declaration further alleged
that Father owed her “$871,256 in back support” and attached a summary of
Father’s deposits into and withdrawals from the Account between 2009 and
2019 as support. Meanwhile, Father was unable to produce any bank
statements refuting the claims in these documents. As a result, there is
substantial evidence to support the court’s reliance on the estimate of
Father’s child support arrears contained in Mother’s September 2019
email—which is far less than the amount supported by the documents
submitted by DCSS and Mother.
Second, the trial court stated that it “considered the testimony and
argument of the parties” at the evidentiary hearing. Father did not provide
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a transcript or settled statement of the hearing. “Where no reporter’s
transcript has been provided and no error is apparent on the face of the
existing appellate record, the judgment must be conclusively presumed
correct as to all evidentiary matters. To put another way, it is presumed that
the unreported [transcript] would demonstrate the absence of error.” (In re
Estate of Fain (1999) 75 Cal.App.4th 973, 992.) We therefore presume that
the transcript of the evidentiary hearing, including the parties’ testimony,
would have independently supported the trial court’s conclusion that Father
owed $213,455 in child support arrears as of July 5, 2022.
Based on this record as well as Father’s inability to provide additional
proof of his child support payments (his missing bank statements), we find
no mistake or abuse of discretion in the trial court’s order fixing Father’s
child support arrears at $213,455.
D. Mother’s New Requests
In her brief, Mother requests that we (1) correct the trial court’s
erroneous deduction of $35,000 as a credit for spousal support; and (2) either
set a repayment schedule for the $213,455 ordered in child support arrears or
return the matter to the trial court to set such a schedule.
“As a general matter, ‘ “a respondent who has not appealed from the
judgment may not urge error on appeal.” ’ [Citation.] To obtain affirmative
relief by way of appeal, respondents must themselves file a notice of appeal
and become cross-appellants.” (Preserve Poway v. City of Poway (2016) 245
Cal.App.4th 560, 585.) Because Mother did not file a cross-appeal from the
trial court’s order fixing child support arrears, she has forfeited any challenge
to the order seeking affirmative relief. We note, however, that our refusal to
consider these challenges in this appeal does not preclude Mother from
asking the trial court to set a repayment schedule after remand.
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III. DISPOSITION
The trial court’s order is affirmed. Respondent is entitled to recover
her costs on appeal.
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CHOU, J.
We concur.
JACKSON, P. J.
SIMONS, J.
Woodlief v. Woodlief / A166235
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