AC45592 - Marcus v. Cassara (Motion to modify child support regarding extracurricular activities, "In the present case, we first conclude that the court
exceeded its authority in modifying the order regarding
the costs of extracurricular activities because it based
its decision on a ground that was not contained in the
plaintiff’s motion for modification. ... In his motion for modification, the plaintiff did not
characterize the order as a substantial deviation from
the child support guidelines or argue that the court
issuing the December, 2009 decision improperly failed
to make the requisite findings in support thereof. In
fact, he did not request that his obligation be entirely
eliminated or reduced to $0 and, instead, he requested
that the order be modified so that each party would be
‘‘equally responsible’’ for the expenses of the children’s
extracurricular activities, i.e., that they each would pay
50 percent of those costs. The court, therefore, improperly considered whether the extracurricular activities
order was a deviation under the child support guidelines
and modified the order on a ground not contained in the
plaintiff’s motion for modification. ...
To be clear, we do not suggest that the extracurricular
activities order is not subject to modification. Instead,
we conclude that the order was not modifiable on the
basis that it was a substantial deviation from the guidelines. The court considering the plaintiff’s motion for
modification still had the ability to modify the extracurricular activities order on the basis of a substantial
change in the circumstances of either party; see Powers
v. Hiranandani, supra, 197 Conn. App. 405–406; and,
in the present case, the plaintiff argued that there had
been "material changes in circumstances’’ because the
defendant was unilaterally signing the children up for
activities ‘‘[that] he cannot afford.’’ In its ruling, the
court did not consider the financial reasons on which
the plaintiff relied, expressly observing that it had not
decided the motion on this basis. Accordingly, on
remand, the court should consider the merits of this
basis for modification in adjudicating the plaintiff’s
motion."