The Iowa Supreme Court has issued an Order revising the Child Support Guidelines.  Those revisions take effect on January 1, 2022 and apply to cases pending on that date and thereafter.  They also apply to modification of child support orders.

The purpose of the Guidelines is to provide for the best interests of the children by recognizing the duty of both parents to provide adequate support for their children in proportion to their respective incomes.  There can be a low-income adjustment for low-income obligated non-custodial parents with the objective of striking a balance between adequately supporting the obligated parent’s children and allowing the obligated parent to live at least at a subsistence level.

There is a rebuttable presumption that the amount of child support calculated under the Guidelines is the correct amount of child support to be awarded; however, that amount may be adjusted upward or downward to provide for the needs of the children or to do justice between the parties under the circumstances of the case pursuant to Rule 9.11.  The court may, if appropriate, impute income to a party under Rule 9.11.  Any variance must be supported in a written finding by the Court.  Child care expenses can play a role in determining a variance but are considered independent of any amount computed by the use of the Guidelines or any other grounds for a variance.

Spousal support, whether paid in the present case or in a prior case, is considered when determining how “gross monthly income” is determined based upon whether the spousal support is subject to income taxation; however, “reimbursement spousal support” will not be added to a payee’s income or deducted from a payor’s income when determining “gross monthly income”.

“Uncovered medical expenses” will be shared by the parties in proportion to their respective net incomes in joint physical care cases.  In all other cases the custodial parent is to pay the first $250 per calendar year per child up to a maximum of $800 per calendar year for all children, thereafter the parties pay in proportion to their respective net incomes.

There are still credits given for extraordinary visitation care under Rule 9.9 depending upon the number of overnight visitations taken by the non-custodial parent.

The Guidelines dictate that all parties must file a child support guidelines worksheet prior to a support hearing or the establishment of a support order.

If you have a specific support issue, please contact our office.

Day Rettig Martin, P.C. welcomes Erica L. Yoder as an Associate Attorney with the firm.

Erica spent more than 14 years as in-house counsel for a large, publicly traded insurance company and 2 ½ years as in-house counsel for a holding company specializing in government contracts and turn around management before opening her own firm in 2017.  She brings with her a great deal of experience within the business world.  She has a BA degree from Central College, in Pella, Iowa, an MA from Purdue University, and received her JD from the University of Iowa.  Growing up active in 4-H and living on a farm in rural Iowa County, Iowa, Erica brings an awareness of farm issues and a strong desire to assist rural clients.  Her practice includes business formation and transactions, regulatory compliance, debt/creditor matters, bankruptcy, and estate planning.

Earlier this week, Day Rettig Martin, P.C. was the target of a sophisticated fraud scam that attempted to swindle over $150,000 from the firm. A man identifying himself as Charles Gomez contacted our firm through our website seeking legal services. Upon initial contact, he represented that his former employer, Cardinal Health, had wrongfully terminated him in retaliation for reporting wrongful conduct. He further represented that the employer had entered into a severance agreement with him, but had failed to make payment.  Our firm assigned an attorney to the matter, and the attorney corresponded with Mr. Gomez and a person identified as a representative of Cardinal Health.  The “representative” conceded that the funds were owed, and a few days later the firm received a Fed Ex package with a cashier’s check for the amount that was claimed to be owed pursuant to the written Severance Agreement that Mr. Gomez had provided to us. Immediately after confirming receipt of the check, Mr. Gomez requested the money be wire transferred to a bank account in Mexico. The immediate turnaround of the funds was outside of the firm’s procedures and the attorneys contacted the issuing credit union located in Texas to determine the status of the cashier’s check. The credit union confirmed our suspicions that it had not issued the cashier’s check and would not honor it.

Our firm contacted various federal agencies to report the fraud scam and notified representatives of Cardinal Health. We learned from Cardinal Health that this scam using its name has been running for nearly 2 years. Cardinal Health stated that it is aware of 45 instances of this scam perpetrated nationwide.

This scam was different from other publicized scams in that it did not have the overt “red flags.” Many of the common red flags such as grammar and spelling issues in emails, emails being sent at odd times of the night and morning, and avoidance of providing personal information were absent from our correspondence in this instance. The severance document had the appearance of an actual confidential document, and the e-mail purported to have been sent by the representative of Cardinal Health initially appeared legitimate. Finally, the cashier’s check appeared to be legitimate and the credit union was a legitimate credit union in San Antonio, Texas.

Upon review of the files, we noticed that although the email correspondence appeared to originate from Cardinal Health, the actual domain was “cardinalheathinc.” The Fed Ex package’s “sent address” matched the West Des Moines, Iowa office of Cardinal Health; however, on future investigation it was determined that the packet was sent from Boston. We were able to confirm listings for both the Cardinal Health representative and the purported “client.” Their information was available online.

Our experience shows that law firms are not immune from the efforts of scammers. It is important to remain vigilant for scams, especially in this digital age where it is common for firms to never meet out of state clients. We suggest that everyone, including law firms, remain vigilant. Importantly, while law firms want to assist their clients and turnover funds in a timely manner, they need to verify that they have received “collected funds” prior to disbursing any payment. This is our firm’s first experience receiving what turned out to be a fraudulent “cashier’s check.” We normally consider cashier’s checks to be “collected funds.” Based on this experience we will verify all cashier’s checks in the future as a matter of course.