Jacobs

This is the second appeal in this case. In Marriage of Jacobs (1980) 102 Cal.App.3d 990 [ 162 Cal.Rptr. 649 ], we reviewed an order of the superior court refusing to modify a support order which had limited the wife’s support to $1 per year after a brief period. We reversed that order on the ground of the wife’s showing that that limitation had been imposed on the assumption that, by the termination date, the wife would have become self-supporting and that, since that assumption had proved to be in error, the wife was entitled to a modification to continue her support. On remand, the trial court, on October 27, 1980, granted the wife support in the amount of $200 per month, retroactive to May 1, 1980,—one day after the remittitur on the first appeal had been filed in the trial court.

On this appeal the wife, not attacking the order for future support, contends that it was an abuse of the discretion granted by section 4801 of the Civil Code not to have made the modification retroactive to the date when the modification was first denied. We agree with that contention.

I

It is agreed that, in January of 1980, the wife had become employed in a full-time job. The husband…