Schmidt v. Schmidt

After divorcing with three children, Richard Schmidt (defendant) was ordered to pay $375 per month in child support to Chrisandra Schmidt (plaintiff) under the statutory guidelines, based on his $1,250 monthly income against her $1,582 monthly income. When Richard later won custody of the oldest child, the trial court simply cancelled out his custody of that child against Chrisandra's custody of one of the other two, calculating his remaining support obligation as if there were only a single child and reducing it to $250 per month, without running the actual guideline formula for the new custody arrangement; Richard appealed, arguing the resulting figure was inconsistent with the guidelines.