The weird and disturbing pronouncement in Street v. Street, 24 Va. App. 2, 480 SE2d 112, 11 VLW 801, 17/2 FLN 22 (1997), that a trial judge’s decision had to be controlled by expert testimony, whatever it said, because it was “uncontradicted,” has been reversed upon rehearing en banc.
The full-court opinion, at 12 VLW 317 (8/12/97), comes to the unsurprising conclusion that it was all right for a trial judge to refuse reduction of support obligations to an ex-husband who claimed that business was worse and his income was down. The full court finds that the record adequately establishes that the finder of fact had substantial reason not to find the mental health expert’s conclusions, however uncontradicted they were, to be persuasive. This husband had produced expert testimony to show that attention deficit disorder, anxiety and depression caused his business to deteriorate and his income to plummet. The credibility of witnesses is a matter for the trial judge, and is not determined by the experts themselves, the court en banc points out. Judges Elder and Benton dissent, for reasons stated in the panel opinion.