Zhe Zheng v. Feifei Xia

Summary

The Connecticut Appellate Court affirmed the denial of the defendant’s postjudgment motion seeking to require the plaintiff to pay 100 percent of their child’s private school tuition and related costs. The court held that the defendant failed to demonstrate a substantial change in circumstances since an earlier order denying similar relief. The court also concluded that her claims concerning parenting-coordinator obligations and school field-trip costs were not properly raised through a motion for modification.

Holdings

1. The trial court properly denied the motion for modification because the defendant failed to prove a substantial change in circumstances since the 2018 order that would make continued adherence to that order unjust or inequitable.
2. The appellate court would not reweigh the evidence or substitute its judgment for the trial court's assessment of the parties' educational history and the evidence concerning private versus public schooling.
3. A motion for modification was not the proper procedural vehicle to seek redress for the plaintiff's alleged failure to comply with the separation agreement's parenting-coordinator requirement.
4. The defendant could not obtain consideration of the field-trip costs through her motion for modification because she did not seek modification of the existing allocation of extracurricular-activity expenses, and a modification motion was not the proper vehicle to enforce an alleged failure to pay.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the trial court clearly erred in finding no substantial change in circumstances warranting modification of the child-support order.
2. Whether the trial court improperly failed to give appropriate weight to the parties' alleged history of prioritizing elite, tuition-based education.
3. Whether the trial court improperly failed to find the plaintiff in violation of an obligation to meet with a parenting coordinator regarding educational disputes.
4. Whether the trial court improperly failed to consider the child's regular school field-trip costs.

Disposition

affirmed