Gale v. Gale

----ooOoo----

Sharon F. Gale,
Plaintiff and Appellant,

v.

Howard D. Gale,
Defendant and Appellee.

MEMORANDUM DECISION
(Not For Official Publication)

Case No. 981449-CA

F I L E D
October 7, 1999
    1999 UT App 279 -----

Fifth District, St. George Department
The Honorable James L. Shumate

Attorneys:
Terry L. Hutchinson, St. George, for Appellant
Howard D. Gale, St. George, Appellee Pro Se -----

Before Judges Wilkins, Billings, and Orme.

ORME, Judge:

We have determined that "[t]he facts and legal arguments are adequately presented in the briefs and record and the decisional process would not be significantly aided by oral argument." Utah R. App. P. 29(a)(3).

Appellant obtained a judgment against appellee in the amount of nearly $50,000. She takes issue with the trial court's handling of child support that accrued during a fifteen month period in 1986 and 1987, a decade before the trial court held its evidentiary hearing herein.

As we see it, the trial court simply did not believe appellant's testimony that she received no child support during this period. The trial court did believe appellee's testimony that he had paid child support during this period, but in the absence of supporting documentation, it only credited him with 80% of the total due, a level of support it found consistent with his historical practice.

Appellant should not have waited ten years to bring her claim that this child support went unpaid. Appellee should have kept and produced better supporting documentation notwithstanding the passage of time. Given these realities, and the credibility determinations the trial court apparently made and to which we defer, we cannot say that the facts found by the trial court were clearly erroneous or that its judgment was improper.

Affirmed.
 
 
 

______________________________
Gregory K. Orme, Judge ------

WE CONCUR:
 
 
 

______________________________
Michael J. Wilkins,
Presiding Judge
 
 
 

______________________________
Judith M. Billings, Judge