Child allowance may be cut if unaffordable for the father

Green light to cutting the child support if the fatherdoesn't earn enough to pay it. The Court of Cassation has thus upheld the appeal of a separated father who had asked in vain, both at first and second instance, for a reduction in the EUR 600 that he had to pay monthly in favour of his only daughter, who during the course of the proceedings had become a teenager but not self-sufficient. A disbursement that the man had to deduct froma salary of 1,400 a month, already more than reduced by the 700 euro mortgage due for the purchase of a house in his and his two sisters' names.

With his accounts in hand, the appellant had therefore asked for a comparison of his economic conditions with those of his ex-girlfriend, who had a monthly income of approximately EUR 2,600 and sole ownership of the building in which mother and daughter lived. The trial judges had, however, focused their attention more on the couple's income gap than on the applicant's choice of employment, which had changed from partner in a partnership to employee.

A decision, in the view of the judges, that was a pejorative one due to personal will. The opinion of the Supreme Court was different, according to which the plaintiff had not chosen to make his economic situation more critical, but to change it precisely in order to be able to count on a fixed income, eliminating the unknowns to which he was exposed, as a partner, in a sector in crisis such as the one in which he operated. For the Court of Cassation, themaintenance contribution set at EUR 600 was on a collision course with the principle of proportionality, set by Article 337ter paragraph 4 of the Civil Code. An error that could have been avoided by the judges on the merits, who had instead considered irrelevant the "intervening worsening changes in income," reads the order, "insofar as they were the result of a 'unilateral choice', and not insofar as they affected the income situation of the parties.

Therefore, the appeal of the man who had asked to reduce the cheque to EUR 300 was accepted. A request that the Court of Appeal of Bologna, as the referral judge, will now have to assess again in light of the principle of proportionality indicated by the Supreme Court.