Cindy Ward, appellant, and Anthony Burch were granted a divorce by the Henry County Superior Court in 1991. The final divorce decree awarded custody of the couple’s oldest child to Burch and awarded custody of the three remaining children to Ward. Under the decree, Burch was to pay Ward $28.00 per week per child as support for the three children living with her. Although the decree did not expressly provide for child support payments for the child living with Burch, it required Ward and Burch to equally divide the cost of medical care not covered by insurance for all of the children.
In 1994, Burch filed an application with the Department of Human Resources “DHR” for assistance in recovering child support from Ward for the child in his custody. In 1997, DHR filed a Petition for Support to establish Ward’s obligation to pay child support to Burch. After a hearing to determine the appropriate amount of child support, the trial court entered an order directing Ward to pay $40.00 per month in support. Ward thereafter filed, and the Court of Appeals granted, an application for discretionary appeal. In that appeal, the Court of Appeals held that the 1991 divorce decree established child support obligations for Ward with respect to the oldest child in that Ward was required to pay a portion of the child’s medical expenses not covered by insurance. Ward v. Department of Human Resources, 241 Ga. App. 298, 299 527 SE2d 3 1999. Although the Court of Appeals agreed with Ward that DHR erroneously filed a petition to establish a support obligation where one already existed and failed to follow the specific procedures set forth in OCGA § 19-11-12 for modifying a child support obligation, it found the error to be harmless based on its conclusion that Ward was not prejudiced by DHR’s failure to comply with OCGA § 19-11-12. Ward, supra at 300. We granted Ward’s petition for certiorari to consider whether the Court of Appeals applied the proper standard for determining when DHR may collect additional child support for a custodial parent. For the reasons that follow, we reverse.
