*********************************************** The “officially released” date that appears near the be- ginning of each opinion is the date the opinion will be pub- lished in the Connecticut Law Journal or the date it was released as a slip opinion. The operative date for the be- ginning of all time periods for filing postopinion motions and petitions for certification is the “officially released” date appearing in the opinion. All opinions are subject to modification and technical correction prior to official publication in the Connecticut Reports and Connecticut Appellate Reports. In the event of discrepancies between the advance release version of an opinion and the latest version appearing in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports, the latest version is to be considered authoritative. The syllabus and procedural history accompanying the opinion as it appears in the Connecticut Law Journal and bound volumes of official reports are copyrighted by the Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may not be reproduced and distributed without the express written permission of the Commission on Official Legal Publica- tions, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut. *********************************************** ZHE ZHENG v. FEIFEI XIA (AC 43948) Lavine, Prescott and Suarez, Js.* Syllabus The plaintiff, whose marriage to the defendant previously had been dis- solved, appealed to this court from the trial court’s order granting the defendant’s postdissolution motion to modify child support, claiming that the court improperly ordered him to pay the defendant a certain percentage of his annual bonus income as supplemental child support. In issuing its order, the trial court deviated from the child support guidelines on the basis of the significant disparity between the parties’ incomes. Held that the trial court’s reason for deviating from the child support guidelines constituted an abuse of its legal discretion: the court made no specific finding as to why the guidelines were inequitable or inappropriate, save for alluding to the significant disparity between the parties’ incomes, and that reason to deviate from the child support guidelines failed as a matter of law because, although our Supreme Court has stated that income disparity may be considered when the custodial parent has the higher income and deviation from the presump- tive support amount would enhance the noncustodial parent’s ability to foster a relationship with the child, that was not the situation in the present case, in which the unemployed defendant was the custodial parent who had no income aside from child support, and, accordingly, the court improperly considered the disparity between the parties’ incomes in ordering the defendant to pay a certain percentage of his net bonus income as supplemental child support. Submitted on briefs December 3, 2020—officially released May 4, 2021 Procedural History Action for the dissolution of a marriage, and for other relief, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial dis- trict of Stamford-Norwalk, where the court, Hon. Stan- ley Novack, judge trial referee, rendered judgment dis- solving the marriage and granting certain other relief in accordance with the parties’ separation agreement; …
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals