State of Tennessee, ex rel., Jamie Joy Williams v. Deadrick Donnell Woods, Sr.

This is a child support action involving one child, who was born in 1995 and had reached the age of majority by the time of trial. Upon the father’s voluntary acknowledgment of paternity, the trial court entered an order of legitimation in April 1996. The State of Tennessee (“the State”), acting on behalf of the mother, filed a petition to modify a child support order in April 2002. The father filed a motion to dismiss, and the State subsequently withdrew the petition because no prior child support order had been established. The mother then filed a petition for child support in September 2014. Following a bench trial before a special judge, the trial court established the father’s retroactive child support obligation in the amount of $79,647.00, giving credit to the father for $59,229.00 he previously had paid toward the child’s support and expenses. The court incorporated three income shares worksheets representing three different time periods during the child’s minority. The father has appealed, asserting, inter alia, that the trial court erred by finding that the child had resided with the mother for 285 days per year during the time period of January 1, 2010, through May 31, 2014, because the child resided with the mother’s stepfather on weekdays while attending high school. To correct an apparent mathematical error in the judgment, we modify the number of months for which the first income shares worksheet is to be applied from eighty-one to ninetytwo and the number of months for which the third income shares worksheet is to be applied from sixty-four to fifty-three, resulting in a total reduction in the father’s retroactive child support obligation from $79,647.00 to $74,818.00. We affirm the trial court’s judgment in all other respects.