IN RE: the Marriage of Juan Romeo Riojas and Yolanda Servantes Riojas (2026)

Yolanda Riojas appeals the modification of the 2007 decree dissolving her marriage with Juan Riojas, which reduced Juan's spousal support obligation from $1,300 to $1,000 per month and denied her request to increase it to $1,900. She also challenges the denial of her request for trial attorney fees. Both parties request appellate attorney fees. Finding no failure to do equity, we affirm and decline to award either party appellate attorney fees

BACKGROUND FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

Juan and Yolanda married in California in August 1984. Yolanda had a son from before the marriage whom Juan later adopted, and the parties had two more sons, born in 1992 and 1993. Juan earned a degree in chemical engineering and worked throughout the marriage as an engineer, moving the family several times for positions of increasing responsibility and pay before joining Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids in 2003. Yolanda never obtained a degree and held a series of jobs at or near minimum wage. The parties agreed she would stay home after their first son was born, and she was not employed outside the home from about 1997 until September 2006, when, after the separation, she took a part-time job at a Target store.

The dissolution was tried in August 2007. Juan was then forty-seven and earned about $96,000 a year. Yolanda was forty-six and earned $8.27 per hour at Target, the highest wage she had ever had, for gross annual income of about $15,051. The district court found that Juan had controlled the family finances and that Yolanda lacked the earning capacity to maintain a reasonable standard of living. Concluding that a twenty-three-year marriage in which Yolanda spent fifteen years at home with the children warranted traditional spousal support, the December 2007 decree awarded her $1,300 per month until her death or remarriage. The decree also placed physical care of the two minor children with Yolanda, ordered child support, awarded her the marital residence in Hiawatha subject to its two mortgages while requiring her to sell it once child support ended and pay Juan half the equity, and divided Juan's retirement accounts equally.

Juan appealed. In July 2009, we affirmed but modified the decree. We adjusted the property division, leaving Juan with roughly $69,730 and Yolanda with roughly $89,709. And while we agreed that traditional spousal support was appropriate, we concluded $1,300 per month was excessive while the child support obligation continued, so we set support at $900 per month until the older child was no longer eligible for child support, $1,100 per month thereafter, and $1,300 per month once the second child was no longer eligible. Child support ended in 2012, and Juan has paid $1,300 per month since about June of that year, without arrearage. The residence has never been sold, and Juan has not received his share of the equity.

Juan transferred to Texas in 2010 and took a position with National Oilwell Varco (NOV) as a senior software engineer. He married Maria Del Carmen Harrison-Riojas in February 2009. He bought a condominium in the Houston area in 2012 and in 2013 moved into Maria's home near Austin, which is unencumbered, will pass to her children, and in which he holds no interest, though he pays household expenses. Maria stopped working in about 2019 and was diagnosed with incurable multiple myeloma in 2020. She was in remission at the time of the modification trial but remained on oral chemotherapy and is monitored at a Houston hospital every three to six months, with Juan doing most of the driving. Her disability benefits are less than his social security.

Juan accepted a voluntary early retirement package and left NOV in October 2023 at age sixty-three, when his salary was $110,000. He testified that such offers ordinarily precede a reduction in force and that he could not risk a layoff so near sixty-five; the district court found it became apparent in November 2023 that NOV would let multiple employees go. The package paid about a year's salary as a lump sum, which he lived on and paid his support from until his social security began, and it allowed him to stay on the employer's unsubsidized insurance until he reached Medicare eligibility. He contracted COVID-19 shortly before retiring and described a continuing difficulty sustaining concentration that he attributed to “long COVID” and said it would keep him from working again as a software engineer.

At the time of trial Juan was sixty-five years old. His monthly income was $3,042 in social security, or $2,783 after the Medicare deduction, plus a pension of $144.20. He held a 401(k) account worth $265,850.86, from which he had taken one $15,000 draw and anticipated needing two such draws each year. He still owned the unencumbered Houston condominium, valued at about $100,000, where he and his wife stay when they travel for her care; the district court calculated its carrying cost at about $1,386 per month. He testified that he was not then seeking work but would return to it if he had to and probably would after his wife's death.

Yolanda was sixty-four at the time of trial and has lived alone in the former marital home in Hiawatha since 2003. She has not remarried, and she testified that she has not cohabited with anyone since the decree, is not in a relationship, and receives no financial help from a partner or family member. She obtained no further education or training and held ten or eleven jobs, changing employers for better wages and insurance. Her last position was full time as an overnight baker at Kwik Star for $18 per hour. She left that position in January 2024 at age sixty-two, began drawing social security that March, has not sought disability benefits, and does not intend to return to work.

In September 2022 Yolanda fell from a ladder at work and broke her left arm in three places. After eighteen months of therapy her physician assessed a twenty-three percent loss of use and imposed no permanent restrictions; she testified to residual nerve damage that causes her to drop things. She also described high blood pressure that has been difficult to regulate, other conditions under investigation, dental problems, medication side effects, and anxiety in crowds after twice contracting COVID-19.

Yolanda's monthly income at trial consisted of $1,352 in social security, $75.20 as her marital share of Juan's pension, and $1,300 in spousal support. She pays about $98 per month for medical and dental coverage and expected to become eligible for Medicare in March 2026. She owes approximately $117,000 on the residence, with a monthly payment of $1,198.88. She has no remaining retirement savings, having exhausted a small employer plan after leaving Kwik Star. She testified that her share of the marital retirement accounts, and ultimately $160,000 to $170,000 over the years, went to attorney fees. The district court found that sum striking but concluded it had not been given enough information to assess whether the money was in fact paid for legal services. Her financial affidavit reflected a net worth of approximately $82,000.

Juan petitioned to modify the decree on July 17, 2024, alleging that he was no longer employed and that Yolanda was cohabiting, and asking that his support obligation be terminated or adjusted. Yolanda counter-petitioned, denying cohabitation and alleging that health problems had forced her to retire, reducing her earning capacity and increasing her need, and that an inheritance had increased Juan's ability to pay. She asked that support be increased to $1,900 per month and that Juan pay her attorney fees and the costs of the action. The court limited the issues to spousal support and fees and costs, and the parties were the only witnesses at the trial held on September 4, 2025.

In its September 23 ruling, the district court found that Juan had abandoned any serious effort to prove cohabitation and that Yolanda's inheritance claim rested almost entirely on inadmissible hearsay, the only credible evidence showing that Juan had inherited a life estate in property that will pass to his children at his death. The court found Juan's account of his difficulty concentrating credible but not sufficient standing alone to have forced him to stop working, and it expressly declined to find him physically or mentally unable to work. It found that he left NOV because he anticipated being let go, because his wife was terminally ill, and because leaving preserved his insurance coverage until Medicare eligibility, not in an effort to avoid his support obligation. As to Yolanda, the court found that her health problems neither caused her to leave her employment nor prevented her from working, though her health was a factor in the decision, and that she voluntarily retired upon reaching the minimum retirement age. The court also observed that Yolanda had received roughly half or more of the net marital estate, including half of Juan's retirement assets, yet retained none, while Juan had increased his.

The court concluded that substantial and material changes in circumstances had occurred but that they weighed both for and against each party. Juan's income is now about thirty-six percent of what it was when the decree was entered, and both parties have retired. Paying support at $1,300 per month, the court calculated, Juan had about $1,627 per month for living expenses and less than $300 after the condominium's carrying costs, while Yolanda had about $228 after her house payment. Reasoning that it would be inequitable to require Juan to liquidate post-dissolution retirement assets when Yolanda had spent hers and retired early, but that Yolanda likely could not meet her expenses without support, the court granted Juan's petition in part and reduced his obligation to $1,000 per month effective October 1, 2025, leaving Yolanda about $2,427 per month and Juan about $1,927. It denied Yolanda's counter-petition, declined to award her attorney fees, and taxed the costs of the action to her.

Yolanda moved to reconsider, enlarge, or amend under Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 1.904(2). The district court denied the motion in its entirety, characterizing it as an attempt at a “do-over” of arguments it had already considered and reiterating that a substantial and material change not within the contemplation of the dissolution court had occurred, that neither party can maintain their former standard of living, and that its decree in fact requires Juan either to exhaust his assets or to return to work in order to pay the support awarded.

Yolanda now appeals. She contends the district court erred in reducing Juan's spousal support obligation and in denying her request to increase it, asks that the matter be remanded for an award of her trial attorney fees, and requests at least $7,500 in appellate attorney fees. Juan asks that we affirm and requests $4,000 in appellate attorney fees.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

An action to modify the spousal-support provisions of a dissolution decree is an equitable proceeding, and our review is de novo. In re Marriage of Sisson, 843 N.W.2d 866, 870 (Iowa 2014). We “examine the entire record and adjudicate anew” the issues properly preserved and presented. In re Marriage of McDermott, 827 N.W.2d 671, 676 (Iowa 2013). In doing so, “[w]e give weight to the findings of the district court, particularly concerning the credibility of witnesses; however, those findings are not binding upon us.” Id.

In reviewing questions of spousal support, we accord the district court considerable latitude, and we will disturb its determination “only when there has been a failure to do equity.” In re Marriage of Gust, 858 N.W.2d 402, 406 (Iowa 2015) (citation omitted). The question on appeal is therefore not whether we would have fixed support at precisely $1,000 per month in the first instance, but whether the district court's decision to do so failed to do equity on this record.

DISCUSSION

Yolanda raises three issues. She contends the district court erred in reducing Juan's spousal-support obligation from $1,300 to $1,000 per month, erred in denying her request to increase that obligation to $1,900 per month, and erred in declining to award her trial attorney fees. She also seeks appellate attorney fees, as does Juan.

I. The reduction of Juan's spousal-support obligation.

A district court “may subsequently modify ․ spousal ․ support orders when there is a substantial change in circumstances.” Iowa Code § 598.21C(1) (2024); In re Marriage of Michael, 839 N.W.2d 630, 635 (Iowa 2013). The party seeking modification bears the burden of establishing that substantial change by a preponderance of the evidence; the change must be material and substantial, essentially permanent or continuous rather than temporary; and it must not have been within the contemplation of the court when the decree was entered, for “we presume the decree [wa]s entered with a view to reasonable and ordinary changes that may be likely to occur.” Michael, 839 N.W.2d at 636 (cleaned up). In determining whether a substantial change has occurred, the court considers statutory factors, including changes in the parties’ employment, earning capacity, income, and resources; the receipt of a pension; changes in medical expenses; and changes in the parties’ health. Iowa Code § 598.21C(1)(a)–(e). A change in the obligee spouse's ability to support him or herself is likewise an important consideration. Michael, 839 N.W.2d at 636.

A primary factor in deciding whether support should be modified is whether the obligor's reduction in income and earning capacity, though voluntary, was done “with an improper intent to deprive his or her dependents of support”; a voluntary reduction undertaken for that purpose may be a basis for refusing to modify. In re Marriage of Rietz, 585 N.W.2d 226, 229–30 (Iowa 1998). Voluntary changes in employment that reduce income therefore do not normally justify a modification. Sisson, 843 N.W.2d at 872. Yolanda invokes this principle to argue that Juan's decision to accept an early-retirement package at sixty-three was voluntary, that he admitted it was “not unforeseen,” and that it cannot support any reduction.

We agree with the principle but not its application here. The voluntary-reduction bar turns on improper intent—whether the obligor reduced his income for the purpose of avoiding support. Rietz, 585 N.W.2d at 229. The district court answered that question against Yolanda on the facts. It found that Juan left NOV because he anticipated being let go in an impending reduction in force, because his wife was terminally ill and he wished to care for her, and because leaving preserved his health coverage until he reached Medicare eligibility—“not in an effort to reduce or avoid his [support] obligation.” That finding rests largely on the court's assessment of Juan's credibility, to which we give weight. Sisson, 843 N.W.2d at 870. Because Juan did not reduce his income with an improper intent to deprive Yolanda of support, his case is governed by the rule that a good-faith reduction in earning capacity may support a modification. See Rietz, 858 N.W.2d at 229.

Nor did the district court treat Juan's retirement, standing alone, as the substantial change. Whether spousal support should be modified upon a obligor's retirement “must be made in a modification action when retirement is imminent or has actually occurred,” because several statutory factors—changes in the parties’ resources, health, and relative financial positions—cannot be assessed until then. Gust, 858 N.W.2d at 418. By the time of trial Juan was sixty-five and actually retired, living on a social security benefit and a modest pension totaling roughly $31,000 per year—income the court found to be approximately thirty-six percent of what he earned when the decree was entered. Yolanda too had reached retirement age and left the workforce. Those are the exact developments our supreme court has said a modification court must weigh once retirement has come to pass, including the impact of the obligee's retirement on the parties’ relative posture and whether the obligor's retirement was motivated by a desire to avoid support. Id. The omission of any retirement contingency from the 2007 decree, on which Yolanda relies, does not preclude modification. Because future retirement ordinarily raises issues too speculative to resolve in the initial decree, it is properly addressed in a later modification action. Id.

What remains is whether the district court did equity in reducing support to $1,000 rather than leaving it unchanged or, as Juan urged, eliminating it. On this record it did. The court found that at $1,300 per month Juan retained about $1,627 for living expenses and less than $300 after the carrying costs of his condominium, while Yolanda had about $228 per month after her house payment. Both parties had retired, both had experienced a marked decline in income, and neither could maintain the standard of living the decree once contemplated. Our equitable analysis must account for such changes in the relative positions of the parties, and it permits a court to reduce rather than terminate a traditional award when the changed circumstances so warrant. Michael, 839 N.W.2d at 638. Indeed, “[i]n order to limit or end traditional support, the evidence must establish that the payee spouse has the capacity to close the gap between income and need or show that it is fair to require him or her alone to bear the remaining gap between income and reasonable needs”—a showing Juan did not make. Gust, 858 N.W.2d at 412. The district court accordingly declined to eliminate the award, reduced the obligation by only $300, and observed that its decree still “requires Juan either to exhaust his assets or to return to work in order to pay the support awarded.” Giving the district court the latitude our standard of review demands, we cannot say it failed to do equity, and we affirm the reduction.

II. Yolanda's request to increase spousal support.

Yolanda's cross-request to increase support to $1,900 per month is governed by the same standard: she bore the burden of proving a substantial, essentially permanent change in circumstances, not within the dissolution court's contemplation, that would make an increase equitable. See Michael, 839 N.W.2d at 636. The district court found she did not carry that burden, and, on our de novo review, we agree.

Yolanda grounds her request in her retirement and her declining health. But the district court found that, although her health was a factor in her decision, she had not established that her health problems caused her to leave her employment or that they prevented her from working, and that she voluntarily retired upon reaching the minimum retirement age. Her arm injury left her with a twenty-three percent loss of use but no permanent work restrictions. Unlike the obligee in Sisson, whose reduced income was not a voluntary choice but the product of a disabling disease, Yolanda's departure from the workforce was a voluntary reduction of her own earning capacity. 843 N.W.2d at 874–75.

The district court also found that Yolanda had received roughly half or more of the net marital estate, including half of Juan's retirement accounts, yet retained no retirement savings, while Juan had rebuilt and increased his. To increase Juan's obligation on the strength of a need arising substantially from Yolanda's own retirement decision and the depletion of the assets awarded to her would not be equitable on this record. The court instead maintained a traditional award at a level it found Yolanda needs to approach her expenses, while recognizing she “may have to work on at least a part time basis.” We find no failure to do equity in the denial of her spousal-support increase, and we affirm it.

III. Attorney fees.

Yolanda asks that we remand for an award of her trial attorney fees. Section 598.36 permits the district court to “award attorney fees to the prevailing party in an amount deemed reasonable by the court.” The provision is permissive, and we review the court's decision for an abuse of discretion. Michael, 839 N.W.2d at 639; see Iowa Code § 598.36. Given the court's findings about the parties’ comparably limited means—including its finding that Yolanda has little or no ability to pay fees—we find no abuse of discretion in its decision that each party should bear its own trial fees, and we decline to remand.

Both parties request appellate attorney fees—Yolanda at least $7,500, and Juan $4,000. “Appellate attorney fees are not a matter of right, but rather rest in this court's discretion.” In re Marriage of Sullins, 715 N.W.2d 242, 255 (Iowa 2006) (citation omitted). In exercising that discretion, we consider “the needs of the party seeking the award, the ability of the other party to pay, and the relative merits of the appeal.” Id. (citation omitted). The controlling considerations are the parties’ respective abilities to pay, as well as whether a party resisting modification was successful and whether a party was obliged to defend the district court's decision on appeal. Michael, 839 N.W.2d at 639.

Those considerations do not favor an award to either party here. Both Juan and Yolanda are retired and living on limited fixed incomes, and neither has demonstrated a financial advantage over the other of the kind that ordinarily justifies shifting fees. Where both parties have resources with which to pay their fees and their respective abilities to pay are comparable, the equitable course is to require each to bear their own burden. See id. We therefore deny both fee requests and order each party to pay their own appellate attorney fees. Costs on appeal are taxed to Yolanda.

AFFIRMED.

Opinion by Sandy, J.