Florida court ordered fresh child-support calculation after husband’s household payments were counted as wife’s income. (AI image)
A Florida appeals court on Wednesday ordered a fresh calculation of child support in a dispute involving a mother whose monthly income of $1,500 had been assessed at $10,100 after a lower court included $8,600 paid by her new husband towards household expenses. Rampartap and her former husband, Darryl Rampartap, divorced in 2016. In 2018, however, the court directed Darryl to pay $225.42 in child support, described in the judgment as bimonthly. The arrangement continued until Bianca approached the court again in 2024.
Because he covered those expenses, after the lower court included the money spent by her new husband as her income, the appeals court has now ruled that it could not be treated as her income simply. Because she was caring for their child without any parenting time being exercised by Darryl, the dispute arose after Bianca sought a change in child support. The court assessed Bianca’s new husband’s expenses as part of her finances, even though her own reported earnings were much lower.
Bianca Rampartap had sought higher child support from her former husband, Darryl Rampartap, who had moved to Trinidad and stopped spending parenting time with their child, according to the judgment document available on Justia. She said Darryl had left the United States and was no longer spending overnight time with their child, despite the earlier arrangement being based on shared parenting. Nearly a decade later, their disagreement over financial support for their child brought them back to court. By then, Bianca had remarried, while Darryl had moved abroad. the calculation of the revised payment created another problem Although the court accepted that their circumstances had changed. In her challenge to the decision, Bianca maintained that money spent by her husband on their shared household was not income paid to her. No child-support payment was ordered initially. The parents were also asked to divide the costs of extracurricular activities and summer camp equally.