Ziyad v. Ziyad CA1/1

Filed 4/10/15 Ziyad v. Ziyad CA1/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

GINA W. ZIYAD, Plaintiff and Respondent, A142226 v. NIGEL A. ZIYAD, (Alameda County Super. Ct. No. RF08404954) Defendant and Appellant; ALAMEDA COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF CHILD SUPPORT SERVICES, Respondent.

Appellant Nigel A. Ziyad has repeatedly asked the trial court to reduce the amount of the monthly child-support payment he is obligated pay his former spouse, respondent Gina W. Ziyad.1 In this appeal, he challenges an order reducing his payment somewhat, but not as much as he sought. We affirm. I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND Gina filed a petition for dissolution of marriage in August 2008, and the petition was granted, effective December 31, 2009. The parties continued to litigate various matters, including child custody, child-support payments, and visitation.

1 For the sake of clarity, we refer to the parties by their first names since they share the same surname. (In re Marriage of Leonard (2004) 119 Cal.App.4th 546, 550, fn. 2.)

1

In the past few years, the parties have returned to court several times over Nigel’s obligation to make monthly payments to support his twin teenagers. In April 2013, following a hearing, the trial court ordered Nigel to pay $1,252 each month in child support (the April 2013 order). As part of the April 2013 order, the trial court found that Nigel had custody of the twins four percent of the time and had a monthly taxable gross income of $4,258, and that Gina had a monthly income of zero. Although Nigel did not appeal the order, he has tried multiple times to have it modified, with limited success. In Ziyad v. Ziyad (Oct. 28, 2014, A141194) [nonpub. opn.]), this court affirmed a January 7, 2014 order denying a request to modify the April 2013 order. In our opinion, we noted the appellate record lacked a transcript of the hearing held before the court issued its original April 2013 order and that without the transcript, we were unable to determine whether Nigel’s later request to modify the child-support order alleged any true changes of circumstances.2 This appeal is from an order entered by the trial court on May 22, 2014, on another attempt to modify the April 2013 order (the May 2014 order). In support of his request giving rise to this order, Nigel alleged that Gina obtained employment in June 2013 and changed her monthly expenses to $1,468. He also alleged the amount of child support required under the April 2013 order was “excessive” and incorrectly calculated, resulting in an “undue hardship.” In March 2014, Nigel filed an income-and-expense declaration stating he (1) earned $120 per month from Retail Technology Group, where he had worked for about a week, (2) received $189 per month from the supplemental-nutrition assistance program, and (3) had a total average monthly income of $367.25. Nigel did not complete the section of the form that called for an itemization of his monthly expenses, instead writing “N/A” where the form asked for his total monthly expenses. In the section asking for installment payments, he attested he owed monthly payments of $4,258 for home expenses (the same amount the trial court previously had determined to