In this appeal from a final judgment of divorce and an order denying reconsideration, the court rejected a trial judge's reliance on Gilligan v. Gilligan, 428 N.J. Super. 69 (Ch. Div. 2012), to the extent it held an award of social security disability to a spouse during the marriage was not sufficient to establish a party's inability to work for purposes of income imputation in the calculation of spousal and child support. The court held here that despite Gilligan's holding, the court continued to hew to its holding in Golian v. Golian, 344 N.J. Super. 337, 338-43 (App. Div. 2001), that when the Social Security Administration has determined a party is disabled, a presumption of disability is established and the burden shifts to the opposing party to refute that presumption
The court also rejected the trial judge's reliance on income averaging in her determination of whether a party was earning income commensurate with his or her earning capacity because the judge ignored current earnings and relied upon six years of income that were earned prior to the parties separating, which was more than five years before the trial date. The court held that the judge on remand should use the years prior to the trial when determining earning capacity.Finally, the court concluded that the trial judge also improperly deviated from the Child Support Guidelines by relying on the elimination of parenting time in the final judgment of divorce. The court concluded that because the amount of parenting time is an element of the Child Support Guidelines, a reduction based on elimination of parenting time did not support a finding of an injustice warranting a downward deviation in support.