Department of Health & Rehabilitative Services v. Buttiglieri

I respectfully dissent. This case involves the power of a trial judge to overrule fact findings made by a General Master to whom a support matter was referred, and secondarily, the more prosaic question of his power to do so without any additional evidence having been presented to him.

*1186The record is very sparse. It commences with Cynthia Ross filing a petition against appellee, Peter Buttiglieri, in the Family Court of the State of New York, Oneida County, in June of 1987, to obtain support for her two children under New York’s Uniform Support of Dependents Law. It was actually filed on behalf…