Ogborn v. Hilts

In Ogborn v. Hilts (262 AD2d 857 [3 Dept., 1999]) the court held that the Family Court did not err in concluding that petitioner father's nonincome-producing assets could be considered in determining whether petitioner had established a sufficient basis for a downward modification of his child support obligation, since the CSSA grants Family Court discretion to attribute or impute income from nonincome-producing assets to a parent charged with the support of his or her children and the father therein did not dispute that he received an $ 85,000 personal injury settlement in 1996, he owned two vehicles valued at $ 16,000 and $ 14,000, a residence with a net equity of $ 79,000, an $ 8,000 building lot and an IRA with a value of over $ 5,000. In so holding the court held that it was not necessary for the court to be able to impute income from an asset in order to consider it as a resource, all resources may be considered, in whatever manner the court deems reasonable and that in a given set of circumstances, the court may determine that it is appropriate to require a parent to reinvest or liquidate certain assets to provide for his or her children.