(In re: Mark J. Young v. Tracy H. Young) (2020)

WRIT DENIED. NO OPINION.

I dissent from this Court's decision to deny the petition for a writ of certiorari filed by Mark J. Young (“the father”), which seeks review of a decision of the Court of Civil Appeals in a plurality opinion affirming the judgment of the Lee Circuit Court, which modified the father's child-support obligation to Tracy H. Young (“the mother”). See Young v. Young, [Ms. 2180190, February 7, 2020] 322 So. 3d 520, 2020 WL 597252 (Ala. Civ. App. 2020) (opinion on application for rehearing) (Donaldson, J., with one judge concurring and two judges concurring in the result). At a minimum, I believe the petition should be granted to address the plurality opinion insofar as it concluded that, “[b]ecause the mother and the father's combined adjusted gross income exceeded the uppermost level of the Rule 32[, Ala. R. Jud. Admin.,] schedule, Alabama law did not require the trial court to consider the mother's income in determining whether to modify the father's child-support obligation,” 322 So. 3d at 525, 2020 WL 597252, and that, “under the circumstances of this particular case and current law, the trial court was not required to consider any of the mother's income in calculating the father's child-support obligation.” 322 So. 3d at 526, 2020 WL 597252. For the reasons set forth by Judge Moore in his special writing concurring in the result, I do not believe that the above-quoted statements in the plurality opinion accurately reflect Alabama law. I further believe that the plurality reads Ex parte Dyas, 683 So. 2d 974 (Ala. 1996), too narrowly and -- as Judge Moore put it -- in a manner that “eviscerate[s] the duty of the obligee parent to support the children and [is] inconsistent with the caselaw cited [by Judge Moore in his special writing], which has never been overruled.” 322 So. 3d at 529, 2020 WL 597252 (Moore, J., concurring in the result).

Finally, I take this opportunity to remind the bench and bar that the Court of Civil Appeals' opinion in this case is a plurality opinion and that, therefore, reliance on the rationale expressed therein should be exercised, if at all, with caution. See Ex parte Achenbach, 783 So. 2d 4, 7 (Ala. 2000) (“[W]e note that the precedential value of the reasoning in a plurality opinion is questionable.”).

STEWART, Justice.

Parker, C.J., and Shaw, Wise, and Mendheim, JJ., concur. Bolin, Bryan, Sellers, and Mitchell, JJ., dissent.