Opinion
DOCKET NO. A-3070-13T1
05-15-2015
MICHELE ALMEIDA, f/k/a MICHELE BUCKMAN, Plaintiff-Appellant/Cross-Respondent, v. KEVIN M. DYKHOUSE, Defendant-Respondent/Cross-Appellant.
Michele Almeida, appellant/cross-respondent, pro se. Kevin M. Dykhouse, respondent/cross-appellant, pro se.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION Before Judges Sabatino and Guadagno. On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Chancery Division, Family Part, Passaic County, Docket No. FD-16-1730-98. Michele Almeida, appellant/cross-respondent, pro se. Kevin M. Dykhouse, respondent/cross-appellant, pro se. PER CURIAM
For many years appellant Michele Almeida ("the mother") and cross-appellant Kevin Dykhouse ("the father") have been in repetitive litigation in the Family Part, wrangling over the costs of their son, who was born in December 1991. This is the third time they have come before this court on appeal in the past three years. The parties were never married to one another. The son, their only child together, is now twenty-three years old.
See Almeida v. Dykhouse, No. A-5028-11 (App. Div. May 13, 2013) (involving the son's medical costs and health insurance premiums); Almeida v. Dykhouse, No. A-2474-10 (App. Div. Feb. 9, 2012) (involving the allocation of the costs of the son's $682.25 insulin pump and other financial issues).
The financial issues now being raised on appeal by these persistently litigious parents mainly arise out of Judge Sohail Mohammed's thirteen-page written decision issued on January 30, 2014. Among other things, that decision emancipated the son as of September 17, 2012, granted the father a $30.38 weekly child support credit from April 4, 2008 up through the date of emancipation, and ordered the father to pay certain arrears on child support and the son's college costs, subject to a Probation audit.
The subsequent audit determined that the father owed the mother a net amount of $414.98, after taking into account pertinent credits. The father moved for reconsideration, arguing that he was entitled to greater credits. Judge Mohammed denied that motion in an April 23, 2014 oral decision, except for crediting the father additional sums of $467.51 and $606.76 attributable to clerical errors.
We note that, at the hearing, the trial court described this credit as, alternatively, $467.75 and $461.46. Judge Mohammed's January 30, 2014 written decision makes clear that this credit to the father should be $467.51.
The mother now appeals from the trial court's rulings, particularly challenging the retroactive medical credits awarded to the father and the order emancipating the son, who has continued to reside with her. In his cross-appeal, the father argues that the court miscalculated his retroactive medical credits and should have extended them back further to April 2006. The father also contends that the court unfairly required him to pay the son's college expenses through the court-designated date of emancipation. Both parties also quibble over a host of other miscellaneous points, all of them financial in nature.
We treat the cross-appeal, which was filed 75 days after the mother's notice of appeal and 34 days after the trial court's order on reconsideration, as timely under Rule 2:4-4(c), given the mother's service of her appeal upon the father at an incorrect address. In light of the circumstances, the cross-appeal was filed within a reasonable period of time. Ibid.
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Having carefully considered the parties' arguments in light of the record and the applicable law, we affirm the trial court's successive rulings. We therefore reject both the appeal and cross-appeal, substantially for the reasons set forth at length in Judge Mohammed's January 30, 2014 detailed written decision and the judge's subsequent oral opinion of April 23, 2014 slightly modifying that decision. We add only a few comments.
The mother argues that the court should have delayed the son's date of emancipation to the end of May 2013, when he stopped taking courses at a local community college. We disagree. The record shows that the son has had what the motion judge aptly described as "repeated academic failures," failing multiple introductory courses, which caused him to prolong his enrollment for several additional semesters. In addition, the judge appropriately noted that the father was not consulted about the son's choice of school or his attendance. Moreover, the son had been gainfully employed on a sustained basis, earning at least $13,735 in 2013.
We discern no abuse of discretion in the court's determination that the son, who had long attained the age of majority, had sufficiently moved beyond the sphere of influence and responsibility of his parents to be emancipated as of September 17, 2012. Filippone v. Lee, 304 N.J. Super. 301, 308 (App. Div. 1997) (delineating the emancipation factors); see also Llewelyn v. Shewchuk, ___ N.J. Super. ___, ___ (App. Div. 2015) (slip op. at 7) (reaffirming that an abuse-of-discretion standard of review applies to emancipation rulings).
We detect no reason to disturb the judge's other rulings, including the retroactive credits awarded to the father for past health insurance premiums. The court's calculations, informed by the Probation audit, represented fair equitable adjustments in recognition that the father, in retrospect, had overpaid his share of the son's health insurance premiums. The overpayments were largely due to the fact that the mother had delayed in supplying the annual premium schedules from her employer's health plan. The court did not abuse its discretion in not extending retroactive credits to an earlier date. The court's rulings as to past college costs were similarly fair and reasonable.
Although the parties continue to disagree over the court's calculations, we are satisfied that the lingering numerical issues they have raised on appeal are de minimis in nature and do not mandate our intervention. See R. 2:10-2 (instructing that "[a]ny error or omission shall be disregarded by the appellate court unless it is of such a nature as to have been clearly capable of producing an unjust result").
Affirmed.
I hereby certify that the foregoing is a true copy of the original on file in my office.
CLERK OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION