McDonald v Trihub

Yvonne Trihub (defendant) and Curtis McDonald (plaintiff) were unmarried and had a child, Gideon, in 1992. Trihub and McDonald separated when Gideon was an infant, and in the absence of a child-support order, McDonald provided between $275 and $475 per month to Trihub, until she and Gideon moved in with McDonald around 2000. Around 2006, Trihub sought a child-support order. At trial, McDonald’s evidence concerning his income was confusing, contradictory, and not credible. For example, McDonald claimed that his income in 2000 was $25,000, but his tax returns reflected an income of about $8,300. During cross-examination, when McDonald was asked to explain the numerous discrepancies in his evidence, he testified that he did not know, he did not see the point in keeping financial records, and someone would have to ask “the accountant,” who was a friend of McDonald’s. McDonald’s testimony established that he had worked as an automobile and motor-home mechanic and as an excavator operator; the court found that the average hourly wage in Anchorage for those positions was about $20.50 and $19.30, respectively. Finding that it could not reconstruct McDonald’s actual income with the evidence McDonald provided, the court imputed a wage of $20 per hour and issued a child-support order retroactive to May 2000 for a monthly obligation of $560. McDonald appealed, arguing that the court should have used his actual income in calculating retroactive child support.