Myles v. Lewis

388 So.3d 598

Galaundra MYLES, Appellant

v.Tyrone LEWIS a/k/a Trone Lewis, Appellee

NO. 2022-CA-01192-COA

Court of Appeals of Mississippi.

06/04/2024

ADAMS COUNTY CHANCERY COURT, HON. GEORGE WARD, JUDGE

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT: TRAVIS T. VANCE JR.

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: RICK D. PATT, Jackson

BEFORE BARNES, C.J., McDONALD AND LAWRENCE, JJ.

MCDONALD, J., FOR THE COURT:

¶1. Galaundra Myles filed a paternity action against Tyrone Lewis in the Adams County Chancery Court seeking past and future child support and payment of other expenses for her daughter, JDM.¹ The chancery court determined Lewis to be JDM’s father and granted Myles custody and Lewis visitation. The court ordered Lewis to pay past and future child support, and half of the child’s medical and dental expenses not covered by insurance. However, the court did not require Lewis to pay for the other items Myles requested or for her attorney’s fees.

¶2. Myles appeals and argues (1) that the monthly amount of support ordered by the court is too low, (2) that the chancery court failed to make a finding on the amount of income Lewis had and, thus, erred in assessing the amount of past child support, (3) that the chancery court erred in not requiring Lewis to pay half of the child’s private school tuition, half of her medical insurance premiums, and half of JDM’s extracurricular activity fees, and (4) that the court erred in failing to award Myles reimbursement for her attorney’s fees. On appeal, Lewis has filed a motion for payment of his attorney’s fees. Having considered the arguments of the parties as well as relevant precedent, we affirm the chancery court’s judgment in part, reverse it in part, and remand for further proceedings. In addition, we deny Lewis’s motion for attorney’s fees on appeal.

Facts

¶3. Myles and Lewis lived together off and on for several years until 2021. Together, they had two children. The older child was over the age of twenty-one when Myles filed the paternity action on November 1, 2021, to establish that Lewis was the father of her younger, fourteen-year-old daughter, JDM.² Of Lewis’s ten children, four, including JDM, were minors, but he was under court order to pay $200 per month support for only one child. Lewis said this other child turned twenty-one years old in December 2022, and he (Lewis) was almost finished paying the back child support he owed for that child.

¶4. Lewis had been a self-employed truck driver since 2013. He did business as Lewis Trucking LLC, and his Rule 8.05 financial statement filed in June 2022 showed he claimed his gross personal income of $1,733.34 per month. See UCCR 8.05. Lewis testified that he calculated this amount by taking his 2021 adjusted gross taxable income of $24,464, dividing it by twelve to get roughly $2,000 per month, and then subtracting the $200 per month court-ordered child support payment. On the Rule 8.05 statement, he listed living expenses of $1,804.67, including the $200 court-ordered child support payment. Lewis testified that he paid all his living expenses through the business account and that he also wrote himself a check for $400 per week from that account.

¶5. During the pre-trial proceedings, Myles sought to verify Lewis’s income and expenses by requesting him to produce bank statements, tax returns, checks, ledgers, and titles to any asset for the last two years. When Lewis failed to provide this information, Myles filed a motion to compel. At the hearing on her motion, the court granted Myles the relief she sought but ultimately allowed Lewis’s attorney to withdraw.³ Lewis retained new counsel on August 30, 2022, a month before trial.

¶6. Lewis provided tax returns for 2020 and 2021. In 2020, his business reportedly grossed $68,623. But after expenses totaling $57,992, Lewis’s preliminary net profit was $10,631. He then deducted expenses for the use of his home in his business and his final net business profit was $9,131. However, on the tax return, he reported personal income of $8,161, deducted the standard exemption, and paid no taxes that year. On his 2021 tax return, Lewis reported gross business income of $76,742, with $52,247 in expenses, and net business income of $24,494.⁴ Lewis reported this $24,494 as his personal income, and after deductions, he calculated taxable income at $8,170. But his return reflected that Lewis owed over $4,000 in federal taxes. These figures did not include the $92,000 PPP loan that Lewis received from the federal government in 2021.⁵

¶7. Myles obtained eight months of bank statements (January through September 2022) through a subpoena to Lewis’s bank. Lewis admitted that the January 2022 statement included a personal withdrawal of $23,000. Lewis said that he owed this to his family but he gave no explanation of why. He also withdrew $18,989 in April 2022 and $10,000 in May 2022. Lewis said that these amounts were to pay back loans "for the business." But he provided no specifics about these loans—when they were made, who was owed, and for what— nor did he provide any documentation of these loans or his alleged pay-offs. The eight months of 2022 bank statements reflected gross income to his business account of $150,802.45 through September 23, 2022.

¶8. Lewis claimed that his business expenses were high. As an example, he said that insurance on his truck cost $1,300 per month after an additional annual payment of $2,500. Gas had risen from $2 to $5.36 per gallon. However, Lewis also paid all of his personal expenses through his business account, which included purchases of furniture, clothes, child support, groceries, and payment of his utility bill. Lewis also admitted that a few months before trial, he had borrowed $45,000 from Ford Motor Credit to purchase a 2022 Ford Expedition. He said he bought this vehicle for one of the mothers of his other children who needed transportation. Lewis said that she pays him half of the $771 monthly note that is being drafted from his. business account. He said this purchase was not reflected in his Rule 8.05 financial statement in June 2022 because he bought the vehicle after he filed his statement.

¶9. Myles worked at Alcorn State University as Director of Academic Support and Facilities. Her Rule 8.05 financial statement reflected a gross monthly income of $3,862.50 and a net monthly income of $2,704.44. Myles totaled her living expenses, including JDM’s expenses for private school, at $4,814. Myles paid a monthly premium of $114.00 for medical insurance on JDM, which is deducted by her job from her gross earnings.⁶ Myles also paid $25 per month for the child’s asthma medication. Other expenses for the child that Myles listed on the Rule 8.05 financial statement included JDM’s school and sports expenses (detailed below). In addition, Myles said JDM needed braces that cost $2,800. Myles said Lewis told her that he would pay for these, but he did not and Myles was paying $295 per month on this bill.⁷ Myles also paid $100 per week for JDM to see a counselor for behavioral problems, and she gave JDM an allowance of $100 per month.

¶10. JDM had attended private school when she was younger and then public school from the fifth to the eighth grade. Just before the hearing, Myles enrolled the child in Adams County Christian School where she was active in sports, especially softball and basketball. Myles testified that she moved the child because JDM was very athletic and that she was not receiving the coaching in public school that she needed to reach the next level to get a scholarship to college. The school recruited JDM for her athletic ability but did not provide any scholarship and did not transport athletes to and from games. Myles said that her parents and siblings paid the $6,200 tuition but that she planned to pay them back when she received her tax return. In addition to the $550 registration for school, Myles paid a $100 workbook fee and $600 per year for uniforms. Altogether, the total costs averaged $820 per month. On her Rule 8,05 financial statement, Myles also said she paid $155 per month for JDM’s extracurricular activities. JDM also participated in a travel softball team, the Diamond Dolls, for which Myles paid $400 per month for travel to and from games and tournaments. This team traveled around the state, as well as to Louisiana and Alabama. Myles also said she had to borrow money from her brother to file this action and she had incurred a $1,200 bill for attorney’s fees. She asked the court to order Lewis to reimburse her for this expense.

¶11. Lewis testified that neither he nor Myles could afford private school and that he did not agree to JDM’s enrollment at Adams Christian. In his opinion, a private school did not necessarily offer a better education than a public school. He said this because JDM had gone to private school up to the fourth grade, but when he downloaded a worksheet for JDM to complete, she could not answer the questions. Yet the private school was giving her As and Bs. Lewis said that is when he stopped helping to pay for private school and JDM went to public school. He also said that if he were ordered to pay hundreds of dollars a month for private school, he would go out of business.

¶12. According to Myles, over the child’s lifetime, Lewis provided little to no support, noting Lewis’s purchases of four or five pairs of tennis shoes and payment of small sums of money ($100 once or twice) and on one occasion $500 for school uniforms. Lewis pointed out that the couple lived together off and on over the years and that he had contributed to the household and supported JDM during those times.

¶13. The chancery court tried the matter on September 29, 2022. The parties stipulated that Lewis was JDM’s father,⁸ and only Myles and Lewis testified.

¶14. On October 25, 2022, the chancery court issued its judgment. The chancery court adjudicated Lewis to be JDM’s father and awarded the child’s custody to Myles with specific visitation to Lewis. The court considered...