JOHN SCRIBNER JR v. SARAH DOODY (2026)

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0

The parties are the parents of one child who was fourteen years old at the time of trial. In February 2023, the defendant (mother) filed a complaint for modification of the parties’ custody and child support agreement. After a two-day trial, a judge of the Probate and Family Court modified the agreement. We affirm.¹

The mother challenges the child support calculations, asserting that the judge improperly ignored the father's bonus income and imputed income to the mother in contravention of the record evidence. The mother also disagrees with the trial judge's weighing of the evidence, including evidence relating to the child's food allergies, neurodivergence, and therapeutic and educational needs.

“[A] party is entitled to retroactive modification of a child support order where a judge finds that the parties’ circumstances have materially changed and that such modification is in the best interests of the children.” Whelan v. Whelan, 74 Mass. App. Ct. 616, 627 (2009). “Our review of a child support modification judgment is limited to whether the judge's factual findings were clearly erroneous, whether there were other errors of law, and whether the judge appears to have based [her] decision on the exercise of sound discretion.” Lizardo v. Ortega, 91 Mass. App. Ct. 687, 691-692 (2017). “[A] judge's discretionary decision constitutes an abuse of discretion where we conclude the judge made a clear error of judgment in weighing the factors relevant to the decision, such that the decision falls outside the range of reasonable alternatives” (quotation and citation omitted). L.L. v. Commonwealth, 470 Mass. 169, 185 n.27 (2014).

“The Child Support Guidelines (guidelines) have presumptive application to actions to modify existing [child support] orders” (quotation and citation omitted). Fehrm-Cappuccino v. Cappuccino, 90 Mass. App. Ct. 525, 526 (2016). Those guidelines define “income” as “gross income from whatever source regardless of whether that income is recognized by the Internal Revenue Code or reported to the Internal Revenue Service or state Department of Revenue or other taxing authority” (citation omitted). Wasson v. Wasson, 81 Mass. App. Ct. 574, 577 (2012). “The guidelines and our case law leave the definition of income flexible and the judge's discretion in its determination broad.” Casey v. Casey, 79 Mass. App. Ct. 623, 634 (2011), citing Whelan, 74 Mass. App. Ct. at 625. Section IV of the guidelines “requires that the judge make specific written findings when deviating from the guidelines, including findings that such departure is consistent with the best interests of the child” (quotation and citation omitted). Wasson, supra.

In addressing whether a modification of the support order was warranted, the judge reviewed both parties’ financial statements. She concluded that the mother's financial submissions were not credible insofar as they related to her business expenses and income. Notwithstanding this determination, the judge accepted the mother's suggestion that $80,000 was an appropriate amount of income to attribute to her when calculating child support. We discern no abuse of discretion in this ruling. See Lizardo, 91 Mass. App. Ct. at 691-692.

We also discern no abuse of discretion with respect to the judge's calculation of the father's income and the appropriate amount of child support. See Casey, 79 Mass. App. Ct. at 634; Wasson, 81 Mass. App. Ct. at 577. The mother asserts that the judge failed to account for income the father earned from bonuses and other perquisites. But the judge credited the father's testimony regarding his income; she concluded that “all of his income,” including bonuses, “flows through his paycheck.” The judge went on to consider the father's fluctuating income and made detailed written findings calculating the father's income for child support purposes. The judge also considered the father's perquisites in her calculations, but concluded it was not necessary to include them in the father's child support obligations “for the parties to maintain similar lifestyles in each of their homes for [the child]” or to ensure “all of [the child's] needs [were] met.”

The mother's remaining arguments, save two discussed below, consist of disagreements with the judge's weighing of the evidence and assertions that the record evidence was insufficient to support the judge's rulings. In our review, we defer to the judge's factual findings unless they are “plainly wrong or clearly erroneous,” Schechter v. Schechter, 88 Mass. App. Ct. 239, 245 (2015), and “[t]he judge is afforded considerable freedom to identify pertinent factors in assessing the welfare of the child and weigh them as she sees fit” (citation omitted). Malachi M. v. Quintina Q., 483 Mass. 725, 740 (2019). We discern no abuse of discretion in the judge's rulings challenged by these arguments.

We are likewise unpersuaded by the mother's assertion that she was impermissibly constrained by the time limit imposed by the trial judge. “[A]s the guiding spirit and controlling mind of the trial,” the judge was in the best position to assess what amount of time was reasonable for the parties to complete their presentations. Clark v. Clark, 47 Mass. App. Ct. 737, 746 (1999). On this record, “approximately five hours” was reasonable. Finally, we reject the mother's jurisdictional challenge to the judgment entered on September 18, 2025, nunc pro tunc to June 11, 2025. The mother argues that, by filing the notice of appeal on July 8, 2025, she divested the trial judge of jurisdiction to consider a motion filed by the father on August 19, 2025, seeking to alter or amend the judgment and findings to correct a mathematical error. Not so; the power to make an entry nunc pro tunc is “inherent in the courts” (citation omitted). Commonwealth v. Yasin, 83 Mass. 343, 353 & n.9 (2019). The trial judge was permitted to amend the findings and judgment to “render efficacious” her decision to omit the father's perquisites from the child support calculations.² Id.

Judgment entered on September 18, 2025, nunc pro tunc to June 11, 2025, affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   The mother's assertions relating to the child's allergic reaction during the father's parenting time are not properly before this panel. Both the event and the ruling on her related motion postdated the trial; further, the ruling (on August 6, 2025) was an interlocutory one, relating to a new modification complaint the mother had filed, and no appeal was taken from the final judgment on that complaint. See Fazio v. Fazio, 91 Mass. App. Ct. 82, 87 n.13 (2017); Mass. R. A. P. 3 (a) (2), as appearing in 481 Mass. 1603 (2019).

2.   We do not address the mother's challenge to the joint custody determination, which she waived at oral argument.