Doug Butts says, "Prove me wrong that Judge Rodney Page is legislating from the bench"

Today a comment was left on one of my earlier posts titled, Why is Doug Butts auditing Judge Rodney S. Page by someone claiming to be a judge who used the tag, "keeping it real." Although I have already addressed Judge Real on that thread I have decided that it is time for another post. I want to thank my neighbor Rob for allowing me the use of his blog to have a voice and to say, "Prove me wrong that Judge Rodney Page is legislating from the bench!"



Here's my post.


I have yet to have anyone prove Judge Rodney Page had the authority to change the statues listed below. Here's how he ruled on cases between 1995-2006 based on my audit.

78-45-7.15(3,6) - 356 times ruled at 50/50 *Correctly
78-45-7.15(3) - 4 times ruled at 1/3, 2/3
78-45-7.15(6) - 10 times ruled at 1/3, 2/3
78-45-7.16(1) - 3 times ruled at 1/3, 2/3
78-45-7.15(3) - 28 times ruled at 100%

Current law:

U.C.A. 78-45-7.15 Medical expenses,

(3) The order shall require each parent to share equally the out-of-pocket costs of the premium actually paid by a parent for the children’s portion of insurance.

(6) The order shall require each parent to share equally all reasonable and necessary uninsured medical expenses, including deductibles and co-payments, incurred for the dependent children.

U.C.A. 78-45-7.16. Child care expenses – Expenses not incurred.

(1) The child support order shall require that each parent share equally the reasonable work-related child care expenses of the parents.

Statute history:

Notice in 1990 the statute used to say “ratio to be determined by the appropriate court” ask yourself why would the legislature go through all the trouble to change the statute to say “shall require each parent to share equally” if the court had discretion to change it anyway? Results show in fact the court does not have discretion as some would have us believe.

1990 78-45-7.15

(1) Only the costs of health and dental insurance premiums for children are included in the base combined child support obligation table

(2) (b) both parents to share [equally] all other reasonable and necessary uninsured medical and dental expenses in a ratio to be determined by the appropriate court or administrative agency.

1994 78-45-7.15


(3) The order shall require each parent to share equally the out-of-pocket costs of the premium actually paid by a parent for the children’s portion of insurance.

(5) The order shall require each parent to share equally all reasonable and necessary uninsured medical expenses, including deductibles and copayments, incurred for the dependent children and actually paid by the parents.

1995 78-45-7.15

(3) The order shall require each parent to share equally the out-of-pocket costs of the premium actually paid by a parent for the children’s portion of insurance.

(5) The order shall require each parent to share equally all reasonable and necessary uninsured medical expenses, including deductibles and copayments, incurred for the dependent children [and actually paid by the parents.]

As of today statute wording has not changed

What has the appellate court stated on these statues?

Notice the yellow areas with the last case giving the court discretion only because the word “may” was used. They didn’t site any other statute but the exact wording of the give statute. Hence using the word ‘shall’ does not give the court discretion and using the word ‘may’ does.

Reddish v. Russell, 2005 Case No. 20040027-CA

[29] *fn2 Reddish additionally asserts Russell should have to pay all of the uncovered medical expenses of the child, but fails to reconcile the request with Utah Code section 78-45-7.15(6), requiring the parents to share this expense equally. See Utah Code Ann. § 78-45-7.15(6) (2002). Reddish also requested attorney fees, but because she is not the prevailing party, she is not entitled to them.

Wardle v. Bowen, 2005 Case No. 20031004-CA

[23] Father also argues that the trial court abused its discretion by requiring him to pay for half of Child's daycare expenses. We disagree. Pursuant to section 78-45-7.16(1) of the Support Act, 'each parent [shall] share equally the reasonable work-related child care expenses of the parents.' Utah Code Ann. § 78-45-7.16(1) (2002). The trial court found that the prekindergarten daycare costs at the Challenger School were fair and reasonable, Father presented no evidence that the fees were unreasonable, and Mother 'has not requested reimbursement from [Father] for any costs of private schooling for times when [Child] could have been in public school.' We affirm because Father has failed to challenge any of these findings and, while the cost of Child's daycare may have increased, this does not relieve Father of his statutory responsibility to share these costs equally. See id.

Larsen v. Larsen, 2003 Case No. 20010879-CA

[18] Husband argues that because Wife did not provide him with verification of the expenses, pursuant to subsection 7, the trial court abused its discretion when it awarded Wife the expenses. This court reviews questions regarding child support under an abuse of discretion standard. See Jensen v. Bowcut, 892 P.2d 1053, 1055 (Utah Ct. App. 1995) ('A trial court's decision regarding child support will not be disturbed absent 'manifest injustice or inequity that indicates a clear abuse of . . . discretion.'' (alteration in original) (citation omitted)). By using the term 'may,' subsection 8 of the statute gives the trial court discretion to grant or deny credit to a parent who incurred medical expenses based on that parent's compliance with subsection 7. Further, Wife submitted, and served on Husband, a verification of costs. Although the verification of costs was not submitted within the statutory time period, we determine that the trial court in this case did not abuse its discretion and therefore uphold the trial court's order regarding medical and dental expenses.

Other interesting statistics on Judge Rodney Pages method of rulings.

Notice how much more money Judge Page adds onto the three areas of child support, alimony, and attorney's fees when he did have discretion compared to how much he allocated for medical costs when he didn't have discretion. The table below shows that Judge Page allocated higher costs when he didn’t follow the law as compared to those instances where he did follow the law.

The challenge stands to anyone who can prove that Judge Rodney Page doesn’t have to split the medical costs equally as defined by the above statutes.

To all those who have given us overwhelming response with our audit….. Thanks!

Miscellaneous notes:

I have received questions asking if this the only problem I have with Judge Page. My answer is absolutely not. Maybe in some future posts I will give more details, but my main objective is to try to help others who are dealing with similar situations and to protect them from the brutality of judges like Judge Page. Let me leave you with one of the main reasons as to why I am doing this.

My research shows that a majority of of Utah judges will allow both parties in a divorce share photos and/or make copies of their children from photo albums and scrap books, but in my divorce this was not the case.

When I pleaded with Judge Rodney Page to allow me the opportunity to have copies of my children photos and scrap books his brutally refused. Talk about demoralizing someone who loves his children and yet I have videos of Judge Page saying yes to other fathers.

If Judge Rodney Page had a grudge or wanted to punish me he sure did a good job, but it's my promise that I will do all I can to stop Judge Page from doing the same to others. Judge Page should simply follow the law, and if there is no law, let all fathers who love their children have pictures of them while they were growing up.