Resources
Child Support Resource Library
Welcome to the YoungWilliams Child Support Resource Library. Search by keywords or use the filters to select categories of interest to you. Currently, our Library consists of academic and government research articles and reports from around the country, federal opinions, and case law from states in which our full service child support projects are located.
Incorporating Strategies Informed by Procedural Justice into Child Support Services: Training Approaches Applied in the Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) Demonstration
The federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) funded the Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) Demonstration Grant to explore ways to integrate procedural justice principles into child support enforcement. Six sites were awarded grants. This article shares the lessons learned with respect to training the employees at the six sites.
Fireoved v. Fireoved (Kansas 2019)
The application of the multi-family credit is discretionary. When calculating support, the costs of the child’s health insurance and reasonable costs of child care are added to the gross child support obligation. The district court has discretion to determine the reasonableness. The mother had primary residential custody of the parties’ child. She notified the father she intended to move to another city, and the father filed for custody. The trial court granted his petition and ordered the mother to pay support. The mother appealed. On appeal, she argued the court should have applied the multi-family credit because she supported her new husband’s child and that the father didn’t provide sufficient proof of his health insurance and child care expenses. The court of appeals found that application of the multi-family credit was discretionary. The mother didn’t ask for it during the trial, and the court was under no obligation to apply it automatically. The court also found that while it might not have been clear how the father calculated the amount he spent for insurance and child care, the mother didn’t object to his worksheet during the trial and failed to rebut the presumption of reasonableness.
State v. McKee (Kansas 2019)
A prior conviction of nonpayment of child support may not be used to prove the element of intent in a subsequent proceeding. The father was convicted of nonpayment of support in 2003. He was charged on a separate count in 2012. Before the trial began, the state filed a motion to admit the conviction into evidence and the defense objected. The court overruled the objection at that time, but stated it would rule on any objection to the evidence at the time it came up at trial. The state made no mention of the conviction in its opening statement, but the defense did. The state then elicited testimony about a witness about the conviction during its case in chief. The court gave the jury a limiting instruction. The father was convicted and appealed. The court of appeals found facts to support both sides. Ultimately, the court found that even if there was an error, it was harmless. The state provided enough evidence of intent, that even if there was an error, there was a small chance it would have changed the outcome of the trial.
In re N.J.C. (Colorado 2019)
Deferred compensation isn’t income for child support when a parent doesn’t have the ability to use the money to pay expenses. The mother and father were unmarried and had a child. The father, a doctor, took a new job, and the mother filed to modify child support. The father’s income consisted of a base salary and an annual contribution to a deferred compensation plan that would not be available to him until retirement. The father had to meet specific conditions before receiving any of the deferred compensation. The mother argued this contribution should be considered income. The magistrate didn’t include the deferred compensation as income, and the juvenile court adopted the magistrate’s decision. The mother appealed. The court of appeals noted income from deferred compensation wasn’t included or excluded from the statutory definition. The court looked to other decisions that found when money wasn’t available to reduce a parent’s daily living expenses, it wasn’t income for child support.
Unger v. Unger (North Carolina 2019)
Criminal contempt for child support is appropriate when the contempt addresses past violations of a child support order. The inclusion of a purge provision doesn’t change the contempt to civil. The father failed to make child support payments, and in 2012, the mother filed for contempt. The parents reached an agreement, which was captured in an order. The order included a 30-day jail sentence, which was suspended, and further provided that ff the sentence was imposed, the father could purge himself of the contempt and shorten the sentence. The father again failed to pay, and the court entered an arrest order. The record isn’t clear as to what happened with the arrest order, but six years later, the father motioned for relief under Rule 60 from these orders. The Court dismissed the motions, and the father appealed. On appeal, the father argued that the use of the word “purge” voided the first order because there was no mention of how he could purge the contempt. The appellate court disagreed and found the contempt was criminal, and the sentence punished the father for past behavior. The court of appeals noted that it has held that a purge provision does not change a suspended criminal sentence into civil relief. The court of appeals found his other claim for fraud was time-barred.
In re Thrailkill (Kansas 2019)
Military retirement benefits are income for child support. The mother filed for divorce. Both parents were retired military. The father was career military and was currently receiving retirement and disability benefits. The mother hadn’t served as long, so she wasn’t eligible for her retirement pay until age 60. The district court equally divided the retirement benefit. The mother would receive half of the father’s now; then the father would receive half of the mother’s benefit once she was eligible. The district court included the father’s retirement as income for child support. The father appealed. He argued that his retirement wasn’t income since it had been divided as part of the property settlement. He also argued the court should have used a lower amount for his disability payment because it would reduce after the divorce. The court of appeals upheld the district court’s decision. It found the statutory definition of income included income from “all sources,” and that even though the benefit was divided, it was still income. Further, it the trial court properly considered the father’s income as of the time of trial to calculate support. The father’s testimony about a reduction in disability was speculative.
Schwager v. Messer (Tennessee 2019)
The start date for a modified child support amount is the date that the action as filed. The parents divorced, and in the decree agreed to a downward deviation of support for two years. At that time, they would exchange financial information and recalculate support. Six years later, the mother filed to modify the child support. She argued that support should be retroactive to the date the parties agreed to in the decree. Following a lengthy action, the trial court recalculated support, but started it as of the date of the filing of the modification petition. Both parents appealed the order on various grounds. The mother argued that support should be retroactive to the agreed review date in the decree. The court of appeals agreed with the trial court as to the start date. The Tennessee Supreme Court has clearly stated that provisions which involve child support lose any contractual nature when merged with a divorce decree and are subject to modification. Child support modifications must follow statute, so the appropriate start date for the modified amount was the date of the filing of the petition. The father appealed the trial court’s calculation of the mother’s income. The trial court averaged the mother’s income and excluded bonuses, which weren’t guaranteed. The court of appeals found no error.
Spencer Diaz v. Department of Human Services, State of Mississippi and Lora M. Ledet
A technical error will not render a paternity acknowledgement void. When the mother and father met, the mother was already pregnant. The father signed a paternity acknowledgement several months after the child’s birth. Several years later, the parents separated, and the state of Mississippi filed to establish support. The father filed to disestablish paternity, claiming fraud. The chancery court denied his petition, and he appealed. He argued that the notary did not keep a required logbook and this voided the acknowledgement. He also argued the placement of the notary seal obscured the notary’s name and ID number. The court of appeals upheld the chancery court’s decision. It found the acknowledgement form clearly states the consequences of signing the affidavit and a minor technicality will not made an acknowledgement void. The appellate court also found it appropriate to deny the petition to disestablish. The father had claimed the child as a dependent on his taxes and listed himself as the child’s biological father on school forms.
State of Tennessee ex rel. Haynes v. Daugherty
In a contempt proceeding, a court may not impose a cash-only bond. This violates the parent’s constitutional right to pretrial release, equal protection, and due process. In this contempt case, contempt was filed against the father for failure to pay child support, and the trial court set a cash-only bond. The court set bond as the amount of the child support arrearage and ordered all payments be forfeited immediately upon payment and applied to the child support order. The father applied for an extraordinary appeal. The court of appeals found that setting a cash-only bond in a child support case violated Article 1, §15 of the Tennessee Constitution, as well as the father’s rights to equal protection and due process. The court of appeals found that Article I, §15 was designed to limit the court’s discretion in determining who has a right to pretrial release. Further, requiring a cash-only bond treated the father more severely than a criminal defendant. The court found no rational basis to support making it more difficult for the father to be released from jail than a criminal defendant. The court also found that such a bond violated due process because there was no evidence of the actual amount owed or inquiry into his ability to pay.
Personalized Outreach Testing Early Parent Engagement in Washington’s Child Support Program
The state of Washington applied Behavioral Intervention techniques to see if it could raise parental engagement in the order establishment process. Data showed that a high number of new orders were set by default, without parent involvement, and that the payments received in the first six months of these orders were minimal. Washington designed an intervention to increase engagement, build a better relationship between the parent and the agency, and thereby increase payments.
