In re the Marriage of: Kelly Susan LaPara, petitioner, Respondent,

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by
Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A21-0343

In re the Marriage of:
Kelly Susan LaPara, petitioner,
Respondent,

vs.

Timothy Michael LaPara,
Appellant.

Filed March 14, 2022
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded
Segal, Chief Judge

Anoka County District Court
File No. 02-FA-18-1978

Beverly K. Dodge, Lindsay K. Fischbach, Barna, Guzy & Steffen, Ldt., Minneapolis,
Minnesota (for respondent)

Shannon L. Ort, Tasya Rivera Martin, Terzich & Ort, LLP, Maple Grove, Minnesota (for
appellant)

Considered and decided by Reyes, Presiding Judge; Segal, Chief Judge; and Florey,
Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
SEGAL, Chief Judge
In this marital -dissolution appeal, appellant -husband argues that the district court
abused its discretion by (1) including husband’s income from summer -research grants in
the calculation of his gross income, (2) awarding respondent -wife temporary spousal
2
maintenance, and (3) failing to include the spousal -maintenance award in wife’s gross
income—and not deducting it from husband’s gross income —when calculating child
support. We affirm the district court’s inclusion of husband’s summer-grant work in
husband’s gross income and the grant of temporary spousal maintenance, but reverse and
remand the child-support determination because the district court erred by failing to include
the spousal-maintenance award in the parties’ gross incomes for purposes of calculating
child support.
FACTS
Appellant Timothy Michael LaPara (husband) and respondent Kelly Susan LaPara
(wife) were married in 2003 and have three minor children. Wife petitioned for dissolution
of the marriage in 2018. Husband and wife r eached agreements regarding custody,
parenting time, and the division of property and debt. The remaining issues were submitted
to the court for resolution at a trial held in the fall of 2020.
As of the time of trial, b oth husband and wife were employed by the University of
Minnesota. Husband is a full-time tenured professor at an annual salary of $116,766. His
employment as a professor requires him to work only nine months per year, but he elects
to have his salary paid over 12 months. Husband also regularly receives income from
grants for summer-research work. While the summer-research grants are not guaranteed,
husband obtained grant income every year throughout the parties’ marriage. His income
from the grants averaged $35,690 between 2017 and 2020. The district court included this
average in calculating husband’s monthly gross income for the purpose of calculating child
3
support. The district court thus found that husband’s monthly g ross income was in the
amount of $12,704.1
Wife works 30 hours per week as a scientist at the University and earns a monthly
salary of $4,300 ($51,598 per year). Because wife works 30 hours per week and did not
prove that she could not work full-time, the district court found that wife was “voluntarily
employed on a less than full -time basis” and imputed the income from ten more hours of
work per week at the same salary to wife. Thus, the district court found that wife’s monthly
gross income was $5,733.
The court found that the parties’ reasonable monthly expenses for maintenance
purposes were roughly equal. Husband claimed his reasonable monthly expenses were
$5,890, which the court reduced to $5,300 after making an adjustment related to child -
related expenses and other modifications. Wife claimed her monthly expenses were
$7,812.87. The district court found that wife’s proposed budget included several items
attributable to the children, not to wife, and removed them to avoid double counting those
expenses. The district court also found that several other expenses were “unreasonable .”
The district court determined that wife’s reasonable monthly expenses were $5,635.31.
Wife sought an award of either temporary or permanent spousal maintenance in the
amount of $1,405 per month.2 The district court awarded temporary spousal maintenance

1 Since October 2019, husband has had additional income from employment by a rental
management company. However, the district court did not impute this income to husband
for child-support purposes, and this income is not at issue on appeal.

2 At trial, wife requested temporary spousal maintenance for seven years , approximately
half the length of the parties’ marriage . However, in her proposed findings of fact and
4
to wife for a period of seven years, but at the reduced rate of $424.88 per month . The
district court explained that the parties “lived an upper-middle class lifestyle” during the
marriage and “enjoyed a substantially comfortable marital standard of living.” The district
court noted an “ongoing potential hiring freeze” by wife’s empl oyer and that, even after
she was able to return to full -time work, it would take time for wife to attain their marital
standard of living. The district court also noted that wife was “left with relatively less
financial cushion than” husband, that wife had “made contributions as a homemaker which
furthered [husband’s] employment” and had “foregone earnings, seniority, retirement
benefits, and other employment opportunities” as a result, and that wife was “active in the
acquisition, preservation, depreciation, and appreciation . . . of various marital property .”
Finally, the district court found that husband was “able to provide for [wife’s] need -gap
while also maintaining his own financial position.”
The district court stated that it arrived at the amount of the maintenance award by
spreading one year of husband’s average summer-grant income ($35,690) over seven years,
reasoning that “even if [husband’s] summer-grant work is too irregular and speculative to
qualify as income, the money he actually receiv ed from those grants significantly
contributed to the marital station the Parties enjoyed,” and that this amount was “just,
beneficial to [wife], feasible for [husband], and appropriate in this case.”
On the issue of child support, the district court determined that husband had a net
child-support obligation to wife of $1,911 per month. The district court did not consider

order submitted to the court after trial, wife requested that spousal maintenance of $1,405
per month be awarded on a permanent basis.
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the spousal -maintenance award when determining the parties’ share of the combined
parental income in calculating child support.
Husband now appeals the award of temporary spousal maintenance and the child-
support calculation.
DECISION
Husband contends in this appeal that the district court erred by including his income
from summer-research grants in the calculation of his gross income. Husband also argues
that the d istrict court erred because wife did not establish a need for the spousal -
maintenance award and that the district court’s method of calculating the amount and
duration of the maintenance constitutes an abuse of discretion. Finally , husband claims
that the district court erre d because it failed , when calculating child support, to add the
award of spousal maintenance into wife’s income and deduct it from husband’s income.
We review these issues for an abuse of discretion. Dobrin v. Dobrin, 569 N.W.2d
199, 202 (Minn. 1997); Rutten v. Rutten, 347 N.W.2d 47, 50 (Minn. 1984). A district court
abuses its discretion if it misapplies the law or makes findings that are “against logic and
the facts on record .” Honke v. Honke, 960 N.W.2d 261, 265 (Minn. 2021) (quotation
omitted). In determining whether a district court abused its discretion, this court reviews
legal questions de novo and factual findings for clear error. Kampf v. Kampf, 732 N.W.2d
630, 633 (Minn. App. 2007), rev. denied (Minn. Aug. 21, 2007). A finding is clearly
erroneous if it is “manifestly contrary to the weight of the evidence or not reasonably
supported by the evidence as a whole.” Id. (quotation omitted). In other words, clear error
exists “if the reviewing court is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has
6
been made.” Vangsness v. Vangsness, 607 N.W.2d 468, 472 (Minn. App. 2000) (quotation
omitted).
I. The district court did not abuse its discretion by including husband’s summer-
grant income in his gross income.

Husband contends that the district court erred by including his summer-grant
income in his gross income for purposes of calculating child support. Determining each
parent’s gross income is the first step in calculating child support . Minn. Stat.
§ 518A.34(b)(1) (2020). Gross income is defined in the statute as including “any form of
periodic payment to an individual, including, but not limited to, salaries, wages ,
commissions,” and various other types of payments listed in the statute. Minn. Stat.
§ 518A.29(a) (2020). Husband argues that his grant income should not have been included
in the calculation of his gross income because it was not a “periodic payment .” He also
argues that the income comes within an exemption in the statute for “compensation
received by a party for employment in excess of a 40 -hour work week .” Minn. Stat.
§ 518A.29(b) (2020). We are not persuaded by either argument.
As the supreme court has noted, the term “periodic . . . generally means marked by
repeated cycles, or happening or appearing at regular intervals.” Haefele v. Haefele, 837
N.W.2d 703, 710 (Minn. 2013) (quotation omitted). Here, wife testified that husband has
received summer-grant income annually since at least the beginning of the parties’
marriage and the income thus can be characterized as both “repeated” and “happening at
regular intervals.” Husband argues that , notwithstanding this history, the grant income
does not qualify as a periodic payment because the grants have become more difficult to
7
secure in recent years, are “voluntary and not mandated by his employer,” and “do not
provide guaranteed compensation.”
The district court acknowledged that while “[husband’s] summer-grant work is
subject to contingency and uncertainty as to amount, duration, and availability,” the district
court found that “the opportunity for [husband] to engage in summer-research work has
been regular over the course of the [p]arties’ marriage” and the work is therefore periodic.
We conclude, on this record, that the district court’s finding that his summer-grant
income was a periodic payment is not clearly erroneous. As the district court noted,
contingent and variable income may nonetheless be periodic so long as it occurs regularly.
The statute itself include s “commissions” and “self-employment income” as examples of
periodic payments, both of which can be subject to contingencies and variability . Minn.
Stat. § 518A.29(a). As another example, t his court has affirmed in numerous cases that
annual bonuses can be periodic payments, even though the bonuses were “not guaranteed
and [were] uncertain as to amount,” as long as the record supported the determination that
the bonuses were paid more or less on a regular basis.3 Desrosier v. Desrosier, 551 N.W.2d
507, 509 (Minn. App. 1996); see also Novak v. Novak , 406 N.W.2d 64, 68 (Minn. App.
1987), rev. denied (Minn. July 22, 1987) . But see Sinda v. Sinda, 949 N.W.2d 170, 176
(Minn. App. 2020) (affirming exclusion of bonuses from gross income where the evidence
“provide[d] little basis for determining that wife regularly receives a dependable amount
of bonus income”).

3 We also note that this court has upheld the use of averages in calcula ting gross income
for support purposes. See Veit v. Veit, 413 N.W.2d 601, 606 (Minn. App. 1987).
8
We are similarly unpersuaded by husband’s second argument that, even if the
summer-grant income qualifies as a periodic payment, the income should nevertheless have
been excluded from his gross income because it comes within the exemption in the statute
for income from “ employment in excess of a 40 -hour work week” under Minn. Stat.
§ 518A.29(b). The statute sets out five criteria, all of which must be satisfied, for the
exemption to apply. The statute provides that “[g] ross income does not include
compensation received by a party for employment in excess of a 40-hour work week, provided
that” all five of the following criteria are satisfied:
(i) the excess employment began after the filing of the
petition for dissolution . . . ;
(ii) the excess employment reflects an increase in the
work schedule or hours worked over that of the two years
immediately preceding the filing of the petition;
(iii) the excess employment is voluntary and not a
condition of employment;
(iv) the excess employment is in the nature of
additional, part-time or overtime employment compensable by
the hour or fraction of an hour; and
(v) the party’s compensation structure ha s not been
changed for the purpose of affecting a support or maintenance
obligation.

Minn. Stat. § 518A.29(b)(2).
The district court reasoned that , because husband ’s position as a professor only
requires him to work nine months per year , he is not emplo yed 40 hours per week year -
round and his summer work is therefore not “in excess of a 40 -hour work week.” See
id. (b). Husband argues that his professorship is considered full -time employment by the
University and that his summer-grant work is thus “in e xcess” of full-time employment
and thereby falls within the exemption.
9
We need not determine , however, whether husband’s summer-grant work is “in
excess of a 40 -hour work week .” Even if the summer-grant income is deemed to be in
excess of a 40-hour work week, husband cannot satisfy all of the criteria required to qualify
for the exemption. For example, husband cannot show that his summer -grant work only
“began after the filing of the petition for dissolution” as required by Minn. Stat.
§ 518A.29(b)(2)(i), or that the grant work “reflects an increase in the work schedule or
hours worked over that of the two years immediately preceding the filing of the petition ”
as required by Minn. Stat. § 518A.29(b)(2)(ii). Here, husband acknowledges that he has
regularly performed summer-grant work and, although husband asserts that “the amount of
work in securing these grants has become more difficult each year,” he does not assert that
the hours of the grant work itself have measurably increased. The requisite criteria are not
satisfied, and we conclude that the exemption is not applicable.
We therefore discern no abuse of discretion by the district court with regard to
including husband’s summer-grant income in the calculation of his gross income.
II. The district court did not abuse its discretion by finding that wife was entitled
to an award of spousal maintenance.

Husband next argues that the district court abused its discretion by awarding
temporary spousal maintenance to wife. A district court may order spousal maintenance if
it finds that the spouse seeking maintenance:
(a) lacks sufficient property, including marital property
apportioned to the spouse, to provide for reasonable needs of
the spouse considering the standard of living established
during the marriage, . . . or
(b) is unable to provide adequate self -support, after
considering the standard of living established during the
10
marriage and all relevant circumstances, through appropriate
employment . . . .

Minn. Stat. § 518.552, subd. 1 (2020). Maintenance may be awarded on either a temporary
or permanent basis, and in an am ount “as the court deems just . . . after considering all
relevant factors.” Id., subd. 2 (2020). And district courts are accorded broad discretion
regarding spousal maintenance. Dobrin, 569 N.W.2d at 202. The statute provides a non-
exclusive list of eight relevant factors, but the overarching focus is on “the financial needs
of [the spouse seeking maintenance] and her ability to meet those needs balanced against
the financial condition of [the spouse from whom maintenance is sought].” Erlandson v.
Erlandson, 318 N.W.2d 36, 39-40 (Minn. 1982).
Husband asserts several challenges to the award of temporary spousal maintenance,
claiming that the district court erred (1) in finding that wife had a need for temporary
spousal maintenance; (2) by failing to consider the appropriate spousal -maintenance
factors; and (3) because the district court’s method of calculating the amount and duration
of the maintenance award is not supported by the facts or law. We address each argument
in turn.
Need for Spousal Maintenance
Husband argues that the district court abused its discretion in awarding spousal
maintenance because wife has not shown a need for spousal maintenance and the award
would, in fact, leave wife with a “substantial monthly surplus.” Husband asserts, based on
the report of his financial expert, that “[wife’s] after -tax monthly income [without
11
maintenance] would be $6,490 (based on a receipt of the court -ordered child support of
$1,911)”—significantly more than wife’s reasonable monthly expenses of $5,635.31. 4
Husband’s ar gument, however, fails to take into account that the district court
deducted child-related expenses in determining wife’s reasonable monthly expenses. In
reducing wife’s claimed monthly expenses, the district court deducted expenses for
childcare, school lunches, the children’s extracurricular activities and other school-related
expenses, along with portions of wife’s budget for groceries, phone, dining out, clothing,
and recreation. The district court explained that these expenses were being deducted from
wife’s monthly expenses because they were attributable to the children and were “already
accounted-for within the statutory child -support guidelines.” The district court correctly
noted that wife’s monthly expenses were “being considered for the purpose s of spousal
support, not child support,” and reduced them accordingly to avoid “double -count[ing].”
Husband’s argument that child support should be added to wife’s income when the
children’s expenses were deducted from her reasonably monthly budget compa res apples
to oranges and is erroneous.
The record shows that wife’s current gross monthly income is $4,300 working part-
time; if wife were to work full -time, her gross monthly income would be $5,733. Using
husband’s own value for wife’s “after -tax cash flow” (but not including child support),

4 Husband’s expert calculated that wife’s monthly “after-tax cash flow” working full-time
would be $6,290, assuming monthly child support of $1,711. Husband added an additional
$200 per month based on the district court’s award of $1,911 per month in child support to
reach his estimate of $6,490.

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wife would earn $4,579 per month after tax, if she was working full -time. And wife’s
reasonable monthly expenses as found by the district court are $5,635.31, leaving a gap of
$1,335.31 per month between her expe nses and her current 30-hour-per-week gross
earnings of $4,300. The record thus supports the district court’s finding that wife had need
for temporary spousal maintenance and we reject husband’s argument that child -support
payments should have been considered in calculating wife’s income.5
Spousal-Maintenance Factors
For his second argument regarding maintenance , husband argues that the district
court erred because it did not adequately consider the statutory factors for determining the
amount and dur ation of a spousal -maintenance award set out in Minn. Stat. § 518.552,
subd. 2. The statute provides:
The maintenance order shall be in amounts and for periods of
time, either temporary or permanent, as the court deems just ,
. . . after considering all relevant factors including:

5 Husband also argues that the district court “did not make a finding regarding [wife’s] net
income” or monthly deficit. Instead, it considered her gross income and reasonable
monthly expenses. This court recently held that

a district court must consider the spouse’s net or after -tax
income (rather than gross or pre -tax income) if there is
evidence in the record of the spouse’s anticipated income -tax
obligations and if the difference between the spouse’s gross
income and net income may be determinative of the spouse’s
need for spousal maintenance.

Schmidt v. Schmidt, 964 N.W.2d 221, 224 (Minn. App. 2021). Here, however, considering
wife’s after -tax income would likely increase the gap between wife’s income and her
expenses and thus favor wife, not husband. Husband has not shown prejudice arising from
the alleged error and wife has not asserted this as an issue on appeal. We therefore decline
to consider the alleged error.
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(a) the financial resources of the party seeking
maintenance, . . . ;
(b) the time necessary to acquire sufficient education or
training to enable the party seeking maintenance to find
appropriate employment, . . . ;
(c) the standard of living established during the
marriage;
(d) the duration of the marriage and, in the case of a
homemaker, the length of absence from employment . . . ;
(e) the loss of earnings, . . . and other employment
opportunities foregone by the spouse seeking maintenance;
(f) the age, and the physical and emotional condition of
the spouse seeking maintenance;
(g) the ability of the spouse from whom maintenance is
sought to meet needs while meeting those of the spouse
seeking maintenance; and
(h) the contribution of each party . . . [to] the marital
property, as well as the contribution of a spouse as a
homemaker or in furtherance of the other party’s employment.

Minn. Stat. § 518.552, subd. 2. The statute requires the district court to consider the se
factors, but the court “is not required to make specific findings on every statutory factor if
the findings that were made reflect that the district court adequately considered the relevant
statutory factors.” Peterka v. Peterka, 675 N.W.2d 353, 360 (Minn. App. 2004).
The district court here addressed the eight statutory factors in its findings of fact and
conclusions of law. For example, t he district court discussed wife’s financial resources
and that wife has “relatively less financial cushion” than husband.6 The district court found
that wife works less than full -time and “has foregone earnings, seniority, retirement

6 Husband takes issue with this wording, arguing that “[a]n exhaustive search of caselaw
provides no basis to make an award of spousal maintenance because one party is left with
a ‘relatively less financial cushion than the other.’” However, given the cont ext of that
statement in the district court’s discussion, we understand the comment as addressing
factors (a) and (g) under the statute. Minn. Stat. § 518.552, subd. 2(a), (g).
14
benefits, and other employment opportunities” due to the marriage, and that she has “made
contributions as a homemaker which furthered [husband’s] employment.” The district
court noted that “due to the [global COVID -19] pandemic and the uncertainty around an
ongoing potential hiring freeze at [wife’s] employer, a need for spou sal [maintenance]
exists for [wife] to cover the time between her current part -time work and her full -time
employment.” The district court further commented that it “will likely also take a while[,]
. . . even once working full -time,” for wife to achieve the “upper middle -class lifestyle”
standard of living the couple enjoyed during their marriage. The district court , however,
also found that wife likely did not need additional education or training to become self -
sufficient and that the duration of the p arties’ marriage “was too short to award [wife]
permanent maintenance,” and thus awarded only temporary maintenance. Finally, the
district court balanced wife’s needs against husband’s ability to meet his own needs,
finding that “[husband] is adequately a ble to provide for [wife’s] need -gap while also
maintaining his own financial position.” The district court thus did consider the relevant
statutory factors and we reject husband’s argument to the contrary.
Method of Calculating the Amount and Duration of Maintenance
For his final argument regarding the maintenance award, husband contends that the
district court’s method of calculating the amount and duration of the maintenance was an
abuse of discretion. “The purpose of a maintenance award is to allow the recipient and the
obligor to have a standard of living that approximates the marital standard of living, as
closely as is equitable under the circumstances.” Peterka, 675 N.W.2d at 358. However,
unlike the calculation of child support, Minnesota law does not prescribe a specific formula
15
or rigorous guidelines for calculating spousal maintenance. The statute authorizes the
district court to award maintenance “ in amounts and for periods of time . . . as the court
deems just.” Minn. Stat. § 518.552, subd. 2. The district court thus has “wide discretion”
in determining the amount of maintenance, and “each case must be determined on its own
facts.” Erlandson, 318 N.W.2d at 38-39.
The district court here calculated the amount of temporary spousal maintenance by
spreading one year of husband’s average summer-grant income—$35,690—over seven
years—approximately half the length of the marriage—because this income “significantly
contributed to the marital station the [p]arties enjoyed.” While this methodology is open
to question, that does not mean that the award constitutes an abuse of discretion. Husband
here has a significantly higher income than wife and, as noted by the district court, wife
currently works three-quarter time and may not be able to increase her hours immediately
to full -time employment. The amount of the maintenance awarded is als o a relatively
modest sum, equaling the average amount husband receives from a single year of summer-
grant income , spread over seven years. Based on this record, we discern no abuse of
discretion by the district court in either the amount or duration of t he temporary spousal-
maintenance award.
Further, even if we agreed with husband that the district court’s method of
calculating spousal maintenance was an abuse of discretion, such an error would “require
reversal only if [it] resulted in prejudice.” See Sinda, 949 N.W.2d at 176 (applying
harmless-error analysis to spousal-maintenance award) ; see also Minn. R. Civ. P. 61
(defining “harmless error” as error that “does not affect the substantial rights of the
16
parties”). Husband contests the district court’s calculations, but the only prejudice he
asserts is that wife does not need spousal maintenance. And the award, which is
substantially less than the gap between wife’s reasonable monthly expenses and her current
gross earnings, is well-supported by the district court’s analysis of the spousal-maintenance
factors discussed above. See Katz v. Katz, 408 N.W.2d 835, 839 (Minn. 1987) (noting that
an otherwise correct determination will not be reversed “s imply because it is based on
incorrect reasons”). Thus, any abuse of discretion by the district court in its method of
calculation would be at most harmless error.
III. The district court abused its discretion by excluding the spousal -maintenance
award from its child-support calculation.

Finally, husband argues that the district court’s child -support calculation was in
error because it excluded spousal ma intenance from the parties’ gross income s. Wife
agrees that spousal maintenance should have been considered in calculating child support.
Under Minn. Stat. § 518A.29(a), wife’s gross income should include “spousal maintenance
received under a previous or der or the current proceeding.” And, under Minn. Stat.
§ 518A.29(g) (2020), husband’s gross income should exclude “[s]pousal maintenance
payments . . . ordered payable to the other party as part of the current proceeding.” The
district court here neither included the spousal-maintenance award in wife’s gross income
nor deducted it from husband’s when determining the parties’ gross income for child -
support purposes. T his constitutes a misapplication of the law . And one of the ways a
district court can abuse its discretion is to misapply the law. Honke, 960 N.W.2d at 265.
Thus, the district court abused its discretion when setting child support. We therefore
17
reverse in part and remand for the district court to amend its child-support calculations to
include the amount of spousal maintenance paid to wife in her gross income and to exclude
that amount from husband’s gross income.
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.