The decision of Heffley v. Heffley on June 24, 2026 illustrates how courts are failing to keep up with the 21st century employment market. Perhaps just as frightening is that it took the appellate courts almost two years to decide an appeal that was submitted on briefs (oral argument waived) more than a year before the decision was rendered. The case has been remanded to assess and impose support retroactive to 2022. That’s a tall order for a trial court that essentially ignored the case.
The Superior Court decision does not inform us when this support case for four children began but the docket number suggests 2019. We are told there was a hearing on support in 2020. At that time husband was employed as a sales engineer and had income from eight rental properties. Wife presented a “valuation expert” (?) who testified that husband’s net income in 2019 was $22,700 monthly in 2019 and $16,100 monthly in 2020. In 2021 an order was entered for $2,500 in child support and $1,500 in alimony. The opinion discusses an earning capacity for wife of $55,000 gross but says nothing explicit about whether it was adopted nor what the net would be after tax.
In November 2022 Father filed to modify and that produced a hearing in March 2023. At that hearing Father’s lawyer did the testifying even though that is improper. He said that Father’s “Pennsylvania income” in 2020 was $237,000 and his “2021 wages” were $253,000. We aren’t informed whether these wages are gross or net or why they matter in a 2022 filed modification proceeding. In mid-2022 Father took a new job targeted to make $260,000 but he decided to leave that job in November 2022. We should note that the opinion says Father was layed off but footnote 4 says he later acknowledged leaving the job. He filed for and received unemployment of $600 in early 2023. Presumably that’s a gross weekly benefit. In early 2023 the modification hearing was held and Father had a new job with a $186,000 base salary plus commission. He expected $10,000-20,000 in rental income from eight properties in 2022. The hearing officer concluded the proceeding in early March, 2023.
Mother’s earnings were found to be $44,000 which we have to assume is “net” on the $55,000 earning capacity. Child support was pegged at $1,375 and no reference is made to the former alimony award. Mother filed exceptions. The trial court took 16 months to decide the exceptions and both the hearing officer and the trial court appear to have ignored the fact that Husband was off unemployment and had a $186,000 job and a paystub when the hearing took place. Wife appealed. The trial court took another eight months to produce a two page opinion affirming the hearing officer’s recommendation. Again, the Superior Court took thirteen months from the date briefs were filed to decide that it was error to base support on unemployment income when the Husband had a paystub in the record showing a base salary six times his unemployment compensation. On remand, the trial court will need to decide support going back to November 2022, a period of 44 months.
The case was submitted to the Superior Court in May 2025. A first read of the appellant’s brief should have sounded alarms for a remand where we have self employment issues and the trial court analysis takes all of two pages. Yes, there are hearing officers who write such comprehensive case summaries, there is little more to say. But when one exception says “Husband’s actual payroll records were ignored” someone reviewing the case needed to sound the tocsin.
Instead, we have a 10 page opinion that contains lots of historic facts irrelevant to the modification proceedings. It took 13 months to write it, and it could have been done in two sentences. “We have an appeal from a case where the trial court used unemployment income to determine support when the “unemployed” payor had a job and a paystub reflecting 6x the income from unemployment. Reversed and remanded with instructions to provide a complete analysis of gross and net incomes since 2022 including self-employment income.”
In defense of the system, this case illustrates that people are changing employment constantly and often coupling regular employment with gig jobs or things like rental income. It’s messy and arduous. But the payee here has spent 20% of her kids’ childhood getting way too little support while staring at a paystub in the record which the judiciary simply ignored.
Heffley v. Heffley 1084 WDA 2024 J-S29019-25m – 106829900363783401.pdf