Law Commons^™

Correcting Contradiction: Limiting License Suspension As A Child Support Enforcement Mechanism In Pennsylvania, Robin Platte

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In many communities across Pennsylvania, maintaining employment without a driver’s license is extremely difficult. Section 4355 of the Pennsylvania Domestic Relations Code authorizes license suspension as a means to encourage child support payments. Unfortunately, license suspensions rarely result in obligors making payments. Instead, suspensions often lead to loss of employment and financial insecurity. Under Section 4355, if an obligor falls three months behind in child support payments, their professional, recreational, and driver’s licenses may be suspended indefinitely. Coincidentally, the obligor’s actual ability to pay may not be considered in a pre-suspension hearing. Even those who fall far below the national …

Actually, You Don’T Have To Show Your Work: The Arkansas Court Of Appeals Tells Trial Courts That When They Award Attorneys’ Fees In Domestic Relations Cases, They Need Not Explain The Basis For The Awards Or The Basis For The Amount Of The Awards, Terrence Cain

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

Arkansas follows the “American Rule,” which is that each litigant is responsible for his or her own attorneys’ fees unless a statute says otherwise. This rule is not without exceptions, however, and one such exception is the “domestic relations exception,” which says that Arkansas’s trial courts have the inherent authority to award attorneys’ fees in domestic relations cases. Between 2016 and 2021, the Arkansas Court of Appeals decided cases with attorneys’ fees awards ranging from $14,190 to $36,284.60, which one judge of that court remarked evidenced an ever-escalating amount of fee awards in domestic relations cases.

At one point, when …

Priority Contests Involving Deeds Of Trust After Hausman V. Hausman, Lynda L. Butler

Lynda L. Butler

No abstract provided.

Miller V. Miller, 134 Nev. Adv. Op. 16 (Mar. 15, 2018), Anna Sichting

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

When the parents share joint physical custody of one minor child but one of the parents has primary physical custody of the other minor child, the district court must use additional steps in order to properly utilize the statutory child support formula. Further, the courts must make specific findings of fact if they deviate from the standard statutory formula.

Vaile V. Porsboll, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 30 (June 22, 2017), Stephanie Glantz

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Nevada child support order controls Norway order when the parents filed for divorce in Nevada, even though the children reside in Norway. Additionally, the Nevada Supreme Court has jurisdiction to hold the parent in contempt and to impose sanctions for failure to meet his or her child support obligations.

Racial And Gender Justice In The Child Welfare And Child Support Systems, Margaret Brinig

Journal Articles

While divorcing couples in the United States have been studied for many years, separating unmarried couples and their children have proven more difficult to analyze. Recently there have been successful longitudinal ethnographic and survey-based studies. This piece uses documents from a single Indiana county’s unified family court (called the Probate Court) to trace the effects of race and gender on unmarried families, beginning with a sample of 386 children for whom paternity petitions were brought in four months of 2008. It confirms prior theoretical work on racial differences in noncustodial parenting and poses new questions about how incarceration and gender …

Bridging The Justice Gap In Family Law: Repurposing Federal Iv-D Funding To Expand Community-Based Legal And Social Services For Parents, Lisa V. Martin, Stacy Brustin

Faculty Publications

Parents in family court overwhelmingly proceed pro se; however, in child support courtrooms, government attorneys representing the state child support agency frequently play a pivotal role. These attorneys represent the state’s ostensible interests in ensuring that children are financially supported and in preventing welfare dependence; they do not represent individual parents. The outcomes of child support proceedings have profound, long-term constitutional and financial implications for parents, yet litigants rarely understand their rights or the role of the government.

Originally, the goal of state child support enforcement efforts was to recapture the costs of welfare expenditures. In 1990, two-thirds of cases …

Understanding Your Domestic Relations Rights In Virginia, 2016-2017, Julie Ellen Mcconnell

Law Faculty Publications

The Metropolitan Richmond Women’s Bar Association has published this booklet to help you understand the general legal circumstances that you may face in resolving domestic relations problems under Virginia law. Each person faces unique circumstances that may not be specifically addressed in a broad overview. This booklet is not intended to provide specific advice to you or to address your specific situation. You should use this document only as an introduction to understanding your legal rights.

This booklet is based on laws in effect in Virginia on July 1, 2016. Because laws are always subject to change, you should consult …

Developments In Family Law In The District Of Columbia: Three Significant Legislative Changes For Child Support, Meridel Bulle-Vu, Tianna Gibbs, Ashley Mcdowell

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

Over the last decade, the District's child support law has changed in three significant ways: (1) by the enactment of a statute that requires sentencing judges to notify obligors of their right to modify or suspend their child support order during incarceration; (2) by the passage of a law that requires the District of Columbia government to distribute up to the first $150 of child support collected each month to custodial parents who receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families(TANF); and (3) by substantial revisions to how child support orders are calculated under the District's Child Support Guideline (the Guideline).1 These …

The Effect Of A State Legitimation Process On Child Support Payments And Father-Child Relationships, Chalonda L. Smith

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

For noncustodial fathers, having legal rights and leaving an inheritance to their child or children are important aspects of being an active father. Georgia state law sees a difference between paternity and legitimation, and for some noncustodial fathers, although paternity is established and they are responsible for supporting that child financially and medically as deemed through child support enforcement, they have no legal rights to their children, nor can they petition the courts for visitation until legitimation is established. This correlational study examined the impact that the legitimation policy has on noncustodial fathers and their relationship with their child, as …

Why Turner V. Rogers Was And Wasn’T Correctly Decided: How The Fourteenth Amendment Should Be Read For Child Support Contemnors, Gina Rose Lauterio

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Second Coming Of Care, Kathryn Abrams

Kathryn Abrams

No abstract provided.

Making Sex The Same: Ending The Unfair Treatment Of Males In Family Law, Myrisha S. Lewis

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Child Support And (In)Ability To Pay: The Case For The Cost Shares Model, Pamela Foohey

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Currently enacted child support guidelines primarily focus on maintaining children's economic well-being when a single household is split into two. This article argues that this focus discounts another consideration which, when combined with the current analysis, could further advance children's well-being: the ability of parents to pay. An analysis of payment characteristics demonstrates that lower child support obligations may increase the amount of child support paid on average. Lowering presumptive obligations will make lower-income parents better able and more likely to pay their obligations, thereby increasing the amount of child support paid to lower-income children, while at most only marginally …

An End To The Deadbeat Dad Dilemma? - Puncturing The Paradigm By Allowing A Deduction For Child Support Payments , Reginald Mombrun

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

Gender And Nation-Building: Family Law As Legal Architecture Symposium - Nation Building: A Legal Architecture: Articles And Essays, Tracy E. Higgins, Rachel P. Fink

Faculty Scholarship

Although the discipline of family law in the western legal tradition transcends the public/private law boundary in many ways, it is the argument of this Essay that family law, in the private law sense of defining the rights and obligations of members of a family, forms an important part of the legal architecture of nation-building in at least three ways. First, access to the resources of the nation-state devolves through biologically and culturally gendered national boundaries, both reflecting and reinforcing the differential status of men and women in the sphere of the family. Second, the social institution of the family …

Disability And Family Relationships: Marriage Penalties And Support Anomalies, Robert E. Rains

Georgia State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Protecting Children By Preserving Parenthood, Jane C. Murphy

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

To Protect And Defend: Assigning Parental Rights When Parents Are In Poverty, Karen Czapanskiy

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

“What Is Sauce For The Gander Is Sauce For The Goose:” Enforcing Child Support On Former Same-Sex Partners Who Create A Child Through Artificial Insemination, Michael L. Hopkins

Saint Louis University Public Law Review

No abstract provided.

Transfiguration Of The Deadbeat Dad And The Greedy Octogenarian: An Intratextualist Critique Of Tax Refund Seizures, Bobby L. Dexter

Bobby L. Dexter

In light of the federal government's plenary collection powers, the states have, for several years, sought and, with the help of Congress, managed to secure the assistance of the United States in obtaining various forms of revenue. As early as 1975, Congress authorized the Department of the Treasury to collect past-due, child-support payments in the same manner in which it assessed and collected certain federal taxes under emergency or exigent circumstances (i.e., jeopardy assessment/collection). Because such collection procedures were often considered cumbersome and costly, however, Congress soon authorized the direct seizure of pending income tax refunds as a more efficient …

Domestic Relations Alimony And Child Support Generally: Provide For The Direct Appeal Of Child Support Final Judgments; Lower Annual Interest Rate On Past Due Child Support; Consider Both Parents' Incomes In Child Support Awards; Redefine Definition Of Gross Income; Adjust Child Support Awards According To Time Spent With Child; Remove Consideration Of Change In Child's Needs In Revising Alimony Or Child Support; Remove References To Children And Child Support From Alimony Sections; And For Other Purposes, Jennifer Goodwin

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act provides for changes to the calculation of child support to consider the incomes and financial situations of both parents in assessing the child support payment the noncustodial parent will make. The court shall follow worksheets and shall specify in its decrees and judgments any factors and reasons for deviations from the guidelines. The court may adjust child support awards based on the amount of time the noncustodial parent spends with the child. The Act creates the Georgia Child Support Commission, with members appointed by the Governor, to perform the tasks of gathering information relating to child support and …

Contesting Conservatisms, Family Feuds And The Privatization Of Dependency, Brenda Crossman

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

What's A Woman To Do?: A Look At Private Child Support Agreements In Virginia, Nicole Spain

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Case For Expanding Child Support Obligations To Cover Post-Secondary Educational Expenses, Carol Goforth

Carol Goforth

In Arkansas, a parent is only required to pay child support until the child turns eighteen or graduates from high school. Given the rising college tuition expenses and the increasing necessity for Post-Secondary Education to earn a living, the statute should be amended to extend a parent’s obligation further, to aid their child’s entry into college. In the past, exceptions have been made when a child had a severe handicap that justified further support. Recently, some states have required continued child support to help with the cost of tuition. For example, North Dakota issued a list of factors that could …

Models For Safe Child Support Enforcement, Susan Notar, Viki Turetesky

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

The Tragic And Chaotic Aftermath Of A Baby Switch: Should Policy And Common Law, Blood Ties, Or Psychological Bonds Prevail, Cynthia R. Mabry

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

You Made Your Bed...Now You Are Going To Pay For It: An Analysis Of The Effects Of Virginia's Mandatory Paternal Identification In Afdc Cases Will Have On The Rights Of Unwed Fathers, Kindra L. Gromelski

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

United States V. Lopez: Theoretical Bang And Practical Whimper? An Illustrative Analysis Based On Lower Court Treatment Of The Child Support Recovery Act, Sara L. Gottovi

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Child Support Enforcement For Low-Income Children: Part Of The Problem Or Part Of The Solution?, Paula Roberts

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

No abstract provided.