Facts
A. and D. were never married and have two children, B. and C., who live with the mother. According to the maintenance agreements approved on May 26, 2011, the father A. was obligated to pay maintenance contributions per child. A. married in 2015 and had the child E. (half-sibling of B. and C.) with his wife in 2017.
B. and C. filed a lawsuit in 2017 for modification of the agreed maintenance contributions and demanded retroactively higher contributions. The Civil District Court of Basel-Landschaft East and the Cantonal Court of Basel-Landschaft obligated the father A. to pay retroactively higher maintenance contributions.
C. filed a complaint against these judgments with the request for dismissal of the claim or determination of lower maintenance contributions.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court dismissed the complaints. From a legal perspective, the question was which basic amount should be used for the married family father A. as the maintenance debtor and whether the spouse should be taken into account in the calculation of the subsistence minimum.
The Federal Supreme Court held that the maintenance debtor must in any case be left with his own subsistence minimum. However, in the case of a married, registered partnership or cohabiting debtor with children, only half of the basic amount is to be taken into account, as the (new) spouse, registered partner or cohabiting partner of the pension debtor should not be privileged over the debtor's children.
The usual enforcement law surcharges are then to be added to the basic amount, insofar as they are relevant for the maintenance debtor alone, such as his share of housing costs, his unavoidable…