Husband and Wife — Support — Amount of order — Earnings of husband — Sharp drop coincident with imminent support proceedings — Defendant president and shareholder of corporation — Retroactive order upon agreement of parties.
In a proceeding for the support of a wife, in which it appeared that at the conclusion of the hearing in March, 1962, the court below entered a temporary order of $40 per week pending final hearing, and counsel for defendant agreed that any final order should be dated as of the date of the hearing; that the net income of defendant, who was president and owned one-half of the stock of a corporation which operated a large automobile sales agency, for 1960 was approximately $23,500, before payment of income tax; that defendant contended that his earnings for 1961 amounted to only $7,800, as evidenced by an employer's withholding tax statement; that in April, 1961, six months before the separation, the defendant had submitted an estimate of his income tax for 1961 at exactly the amount paid in 1960 on the basis of earnings of approximately $23,500; that the net worth and the earned surplus of the corporation increased substantially during the year 1961; and that the court below, holding that the natural suspicion engendered by the sharp drop in earnings coincident with the imminent support proceedings was confirmed by analysis of the records and the evidence, and having in mind the agreement of defendant's counsel at the first hearing, entered an order, after the final hearing, of $100 per week for the wife, retroactive to the date of the first hearing; it was Held that the order of the court below should be affirmed.
Argued September 12, 1962.
OPINION PER CURIAM, November 15, 1962:
The order of the court below is affirmed on the opinion of Judge BOYLE of the County Court of Philadelphia, as reported in 28 Pa. D. C. 2d 410.