IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF NORTH CAROLINA 2022-NCCOA-741 No. COA21-373 Filed 15 November 2022 Forsyth County, No. 17 CVD 941 KRISTI C. EIDSON, Plaintiff, v. THEOFANIS K. KAKOURAS, Defendant. Appeal by defendant from orders entered 6 June 2019, 9 December 2019, 20 January 2021, and 26 March 2021 by Judge Lisa V. L. Menefee in District Court, Forsyth County. Heard in the Court of Appeals 8 February 2022. Connell & Gelb PLLC, by Michelle D. Connell, and Fox Rothschild LLP, by Kip D. Nelson, for plaintiff-appellee. Carolyn J. Woodruff, Jessica Snowberger Bullock, and Y. Michael Yin, for defendant-appellant. STROUD, Chief Judge. ¶1 This appeal arises from an extraordinarily protracted and contentious child support case. After trying for ten years to obtain an order establishing Father’s child support obligation, the parties managed to secure several orders including a 2021 Child Support Order, but for the reasons addressed below, we must vacate that order and several others and remand for additional proceedings and entry of a new order. Most unfortunately, both children have now attained the age of 18, so the child EIDSON V. KAKOURAS 2022-NCCOA-741 Opinion of the Court support order on remand will be entirely for past support. ¶2 Defendant-Appellant (“Father”) appeals from the 20 January 2021 Child Support Order (“Child Support Order”) establishing permanent child support, the 26 March 2021 Amended Child Support Order (“Amended Order”) correcting clerical mistakes as to the January Child Support Order, the 26 March 2021 order allowing Mother’s Rule 59 motion to amend the January Child Support Order, the interlocutory 6 June 2019 Order (“2019 Order”) establishing Father’s income, and two orally rendered orders from 6 December 2019 denying Father’s motion to change venue to Surry County and motion for reconsideration under Rules of Civil Procedure 59 and 60. Father argues the trial court erred in calculating each parent’s income, erred in finding a substantial change in circumstances warranting modification of the 2011 Temporary Order establishing child support after it was deemed to have become permanent in 2014, and that the “delays in hearings and entry of an order made this case prejudicial to Appellant-Father and confused the trial court.” (Capitalization altered.) We hold the trial court erred by relying on an undocumented stipulation to calculate child support based upon the parties’ incomes in 2014 and 2016 instead of using the most current income information; erred in the calculation of the parties’ incomes; and did not err in finding a substantial change of circumstances justifying modification of child support from both 2014 and 2016. We also hold the delays between the evidentiary hearings and the entry of the 2021 Child Support Order did EIDSON V. KAKOURAS 2022-NCCOA-741 Opinion of the Court prejudice Father. We vacate the trial court’s Child Support Order, Amended Order, and 2019 Order and remand for further proceedings. I. Background ¶3 The parties were married in 1997; their two children were born in 1998 and 2003. The parties separated in January 2011 and divorced in 2012. By the time of …
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