OLIVIA QUAINOO v. VICTOR ANTWI

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-0

OLIVIA QUAINOO,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

VICTOR ANTWI,

Defendant-Respondent.

__________________________________________

July 13, 2016

Submitted February 29, 2016 Decided

Before Judges O'Connor and Suter.

On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey,

Chancery Division, Family Part, Essex County, Docket No. FD-07-003655-11.

Olivia Quainoo, appellant pro se.

Respondent has not filed a brief.

PER CURIAM

Plaintiff Olivia Quainoo appeals a Family Part order that dismissed without prejudice her application to enforce parenting time and denied her request to increase child support. We affirm.

Plaintiff and defendant Victor Antwi have three minor children. Plaintiff's work hours as a FedEx driver precluded her from picking up the children after school. Defendant, who was not then employed, was ordered to pick up and take the children home after school, but he stopped doing so in early 2014 when he regained employment as a cab driver.1 Plaintiff resorted to paying a friend $100 per week to pick up the children.

Plaintiff applied to the Family Part to enforce the order that compelled defendant to pick up the children after school and to increase child support to offset her transportation costs when he violated the order. The Family Part judge declined to enforce the order concerning the pick-up arrangements, saying, "[T]here is no enforcement of parenting time. So, . . . it's an unenforceable order," and dismissed plaintiff's application without prejudice. The judge advised plaintiff, "You need to make other arrangements."

As for the requested child support increase, defendant testified on the return date of the motion and claimed that as a cab driver, his income "[a]fter I pay for the cab, and gas, and all that" was $350 per week, which we discern was less than what his income was when the child support order in effect was entered. Plaintiff testified she was working fewer than forty hours per week, despite having two jobs, and her income had not increased above what she previously had been making.

Plaintiff presented the court with a notarized statement from a friend, which she did not include in her appendix on appeal, on which plaintiff relied as proof of her new transportation expenses. After doing the calculations, the court observed defendant's child support obligation would decrease even if the transportation expenses were taken into consideration. Plaintiff declined to withdraw her application for an increase in child support, which was $113 per week plus $30 per week toward arrears. The order that was entered denied the increase.

On appeal plaintiff raises this issue

THE DEFENDANT BROKE THE PARENTING TIME ORDER (2011) BY JUDGE WASSERMAN WHICH OBLIGATED HIM TO PICK UP HIS THREE CHILDREN FROM SCHOOL, YET JUDGE WASSERMAN DISMISSED THE PLAINTIFF'S APPLICATION FOR ENFORCEMENT OF THE ORDER.

Plaintiff's notice of appeal also stated she was appealing the order that denied her requested increase in child support, as does her brief. We thus address both issues.

We "defer to the factual findings of the trial court," N.J. Div. of Youth & Family Servs. v. E.P., 196 N.J. 88, 104 (2008), in recognition of the Family Part's "special jurisdiction and expertise in family matters." Cesare v. Cesare, 154 N.J. 394, 413 (1998). We give deference to the discretionary decisions of the Family Part judges. Donnelly v. Donnelly, 405 N.J. Super. 117, 127 (App. Div. 2009). Whether to impose sanctions in response to a motion to enforce a previous court order is a discretionary decision. However, "[a] trial court's interpretation of the law and the legal consequences that flow from established facts are not entitled to any special deference." Manalapan Realty, L.P. v. Twp. Comm. of Manalapan, 140 N.J. 366, 378 (1995).

We perceive no abuse of discretion by the Family Part judge in declining to enforce the order against defendant to pick up the children after school, although we disagree with the conclusion the order was not enforceable. A parenting time order can be enforced. Rule 5:3-7(a) provides remedies, in addition to Rule 1:10-3, for a violation of an order respecting custody or parenting time. In O'Donnell v. Singleton, 384 N.J. Super. 141, 144 (App. Div. 2006), we affirmed an order that required a parent to share driving responsibilities to effectuate the other parent's visitation.

We cannot discern from this sparse record, however, whether the judge erred in failing to enforce the order. Both parents had jobs that precluded picking up the children after school and by the time the application was heard, plaintiff had made other arrangements for the children.

As for plaintiff's request to increase child support, which required a showing of changed circumstances, Lepis v. Lepis, 83 N.J 139, 157 (1980); Smith v. Smith, 72 N.J. 350, 360 (1977), the transcript reflects plaintiff failed to make this showing. Plaintiff failed to demonstrate a need for an increase in child support even with her new transportation expenses. The Family Part judge properly denied the requested increase on these facts.

Affirmed.

1 Plaintiff has not included any prior Family Part orders in our record. In fact, the record is comprised of only plaintiff's January 7, 2014 verified petition for an Order to Show Cause with emergent relief.