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REPORTED IN THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND No. 1823 September Term, 1994

_______________________________

KEVIN MICHAEL MOORE v. KATHRYN A. TSERONIS _______________________________

Moylan, Bloom, Fischer, JJ. ________________________________ Opinion by Bloom, J. ________________________________ Filed: September 6, 1995

This appeal arises from a motion filed in November 1993 by appellant, Kevin M. Moore, to decrease the amount of child

support he pays to appellee, Kathryn Tseronis, for their three children.1 On 23 June 1994, a special master for the Circuit In her master

Court for Montgomery County held a hearing on the motion. Report and Recommendation following that hearing, the

opined that appellant had voluntarily impoverished himself, and she recommended that appellant's child support obligation be

decreased from $600 per month to $500 per month effective 1 February 1995. Appellant filed a motion seeking a rehearing, and Appellant then At a hearing

appellee filed an answer opposing that motion. filed exceptions to the Report and Recommendation.

on those exceptions, the court denied the exceptions and issued a judgment incorporating the master's recommendations. is from that decision. Appellant consideration: 1. Whether the court below erred in finding that appellant is voluntarily impoverished. Whether the court below erred in considering the potential income of appellant's current wife when calculating the amount of child support to be paid. presents the following issues for our This appeal

2.

1 The parties have one child together, Kaitlin, and, in 1988, appellant adopted appellee's two daughters, Kara and Kandis. Kara became eighteen years of age 17 January 1995.

-23. Whether the court below erred in denying appellant's motion for rehearing based on the perjured testimony of Tseronis. Facts The parties were granted an absolute divorce in September 1990. The divorce decree incorporated the terms of the parties' separation and property settlement agreement, which

voluntary

required appellant to pay $600 per month as child support for the parties' three children. On 24 November 1993, appellant filed a

motion for modification to decrease the amount of child support he pays for his children. At the hearing before the special

master, appellant testified extensively about his recent move from Baltimore City to Garrett County, his employment status and prospects, and his income and other expenses. Appellant is an auto technician. He testified that he had

formerly lived in Baltimore City and his gross income was $37,491 in 1993, approximately $30,000 to $35,000 in 1992, $34,681 in 1991, and $35,260 in 1990. In August 1993, appellant moved to

Garrett County because his second wife wanted to return to her childhood home. Appellant acknowledged that he knew that the

economy in Garrett County was not as strong as the economy in Baltimore. Bedford, working Because When he moved, for to appellant $12.00 per first hour. went He to work in

Pennsylvania, enough of the hours

anticipated a year.

earn work

approximately available,

$25,000

limited

however,

appellant's

actual earnings approximated $18,720 a year, with considerable

-3expenses connected with his commuting 160 miles per day to and from work. For that reason, he left that job and secured

employment as an automobile mechanic at Lakeview Exxon in Garrett County, where he was earning, a year. at the time of the hearing, that he

approximately

$16,120

Appellant

testified

stopped paying child support for a short period of time because he was behind in paying his household bills. testified that he had filed for bankruptcy. Appellant also

Appellant's second

wife is an attorney, but she is currently staying home to care for their two children, and she intends to do so until their younger child is two years old. (At the time of the hearing, the

younger child was six months old). Appellee testified that she earned approximately $11,000 a year in 1992 and 1993. After the divorce, appellee returned to At the time

her occupation as a baker and earned $8.25 per hour.

of the hearing, appellee could no longer pursue her occupation as a baker because of back problems, but was going to school to become a court reporter. appellee replied, "No." When asked whether she had remarried, Subsequent to the hearing, appellant

obtained from the Circuit Court for Montgomery County a copy of a certificate of marriage for appellee and Kevin John Dorsey dated 1 December 1990. In her report and recommendation, the special master found: From the time of the parties' divorce until August 1993, the Defendant was steadily employed as an automobile technician in Baltimore. Based upon his tax returns, he

-4earned between $34,000.00 and $37,491.00 each and every year and was able to pay his child support. The Defendant was not laid off or fired from his job. He suffered no injury rendering him unable to work in his chosen field. He very clearly testified that he quit his job because his wife wanted to move the family to Garrett County. The Defendant knew that he could not earn the same salary in Garrett County that he earned in Baltimore. He knew that his wife did not intend to work and he would have no contribution from her toward the family's expenses in Garrett County. He knew that he had a pre-existing obligation to provide support to the three (3) children of his first marriage. As the Defendant has voluntarily impoverished himself, he cannot use this reduced income to justify a corresponding reduction in child support. Like the Defendant in Goldberger v. Goldberger, 624 A.2d 1328 (1993), this Defendant knowingly and voluntarily elected a lifestyle that would make it difficult, if not impossible, to meet his support obligation. The master then attributed to appellant an income of $3,124 per month or $37,488 per year, the amount earned by appellant in 1993. Although the master found appellee's decision to return to

school to be reasonable, she stated that appellee's "decision not to work at all should not be used to [appellant's] economic detriment when calculating the Guidelines," and imputed to

appellee an income of $1,430 per month or $17,160 per year, which would be her income as a baker earning $8.25 per hour and working a forty-hour week. Because the oldest child would be emancipated

in January 1995, appellant's child support obligation for two children under the child support obligations would be $669 per month. Considering appellant's obligation to support the two

-5minor children of his second marriage, the master recommended that appellant's child support obligation be reduced to $500 per month.

Voluntary Impoverishment Appellant contends that the trial court erred in finding that he voluntarily impoverished himself and thereby computing his support obligations under the support guidelines on the basis of an imputed income of $37,488 per year instead of his actual income of $16,120 per year. Under a proper petition, a court may modify a child support obligation at any time if a material change in circumstances has been shown that justifies such a modification. 1991 Repl. Vol.),

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