Facts: Mother and Father are the divorced parents of Child. Father was ordered to pay child support.

Four years later, Father petitioned to change his child-support obligation, arguing that his income had gone down significantly such that Mother owed him child support. Father relied only on a tax return to establish his income.

Almost one year later, Mother petitioned to hold Father in civil contempt for not paying child support.

When Mother’s lawyers asked Father to identify his bank accounts so they could determine his income, Father claimed he had no bank accounts. Suspecting this was not true, Mother’s lawyers subpoenaed every bank in the area to locate Father’s bank accounts. These subpoenas revealed that Father had various bank accounts in his name and that $3.6 million had been deposited into these accounts.

Mother filed a proposed child-support worksheet asking the trial court to find that Father had monthly income of $184,000, or $2.2 million per year.

Father maintained he had no bank accounts, arguing that even if some accounts showed him as the sole or co-owner of the account, he only had signatory privileges on those accounts. He claimed his father is in charge of bookkeeping for the family business entities, and the only money he receives is a $350 weekly allowance.

Based on Father’s tax return and testimony, the trial court assessed his income at $8242 per month. It lowered Father’s child-support obligation from $593 to $299 per month.

The trial court also found Father in civil contempt, awarded Mother a judgment for $8500 for unpaid child support, and awarded Mother her attorney’s fees. It found Mother’s fee claim of $35,000 was reasonable “especially in light of the difficulty created and maintained by Father’s arcane accounting shell game.”

Father moved to apportion the fee award because he was the prevailing party on his petition to change child support. The trial court denied Father’s motion.

Father appealed.

On Appeal: The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court.

While Father conceded that Mother prevailed on civil contempt, he argued the trial court should have apportioned the fees between the two petitions because he prevailed on the petition to change child support.

Under Tennessee law, a prevailing party may recover reasonable attorney’s fees incurred in civil contempt actions and actions to enforce orders for child support. A party need not attain complete success on the merits of a lawsuit to prevail. Instead, to achieve “prevailing party” status, a party must be awarded some judicially sanctioned relief on the merits of their claim. The relief awarded by the court must materially alter the legal relationship between the parties by changing the other party’s behavior in a way that directly helps the prevailing party.

Both parties agreed that Mother prevailed on the petition for contempt, so the Court focused on Father’s petition to change child support:

Although the court reduced Father’s monthly child-support obligation, Mother was able to defend the petition to modify such that Father’s support obligation was not reduced to the extent that he demanded. The court also did not “materially alter” the legal relationship between the parties or “modify” Mother’s behavior as Father remained the child-support obligor and Mother was not made to pay Father monthly child support. We find that Mother was sufficiently successful in resisting the petition to modify as to achieve “prevailing party” status.

Because Mother was the prevailing party on the petition for civil contempt to enforce the child-support decree and she prevailed to a greater degree than Father on his petition to modify child support, in which he sought to compel Mother to pay him child support but failed, Mother is entitled to her reasonable attorney’s fees….

The Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment awarding attorney’s fees to Mother and awarded her attorney’s fees incurred on appeal.

Source: Wilson v. Wilson (Tennessee Court of Appeals, Middle Section, April 11, 2024).

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