Child support court date

[socrateaser]

>the "truth" also would include "your honor, you had ordered
>the Respondent to pay atorney's fees by X date for a prior
>contempt action and when she had not paid I was bound to pay
>my attorney the fees that the Respondent failed to pay
>including CS, which both at the time of a job change put a
>burden on me financially, however please notice that Cs was
>paid to the Respondent 2 weeks prior to her actual filing her
>petiton that I had refused to pay."
>
>you take on that above please?  

You weren't bound to pay your attorney. You paid voluntarily, when in fact you had no obligation to pay. This argument is a looooser.

[wysiwyg]

I respectfully disaggree as the fee aggreement I signed with the attorney specifically states that if the other party does not pay awarded attorney fees per a contempt order, I am still responsible, I had a demand to pay from the firm there fore I paid.  However, the firm did allow me to wait out the time to see if she paid.  When she did not, I paid per the agreement adn the bill.  Still a lost cause?

[socrateaser]

>I respectfully disaggree as the fee aggreement I signed with
>the attorney specifically states that if the other party does
>not pay awarded attorney fees per a contempt order, I am still
>responsible, I had a demand to pay from the firm there fore I
>paid.  However, the firm did allow me to wait out the time to
>see if she paid.  When she did not, I paid per the agreement
>adn the bill.  Still a lost cause?

If you have ANY borrowing power at all, and you fail to pay child support timely, then you are in contempt, because the prima facie case is simple:

1. a valid and enforceable order for support exists;
2. defendant knew of the order;
3. defendant didn't pay.

Prove all three, and defendant is in contempt, unless defendant can prove inability to pay, which means that if you had no reasonable means of raising the money, then that is a valid defense. But, even if you could have taken a cash advance from a credit card, and you failed to do so, then your defense would fail and the contempt would stand.

So, unless paying your attorney left you with no reasonable means of paying the support order, then you're in contempt for failure to pay.

However, #3 above requires conscious and willful disregard of the court order, i.e., if you didn't pay because you reasonably believed that you did pay through withholding, then your failure was not conscious and willful.

Which is why my prior post represents the sort of testimony that would defeat the contempt charge. You asked your employer to investigate, and your employer didn't act timely, so the fact that your employer failed to pay on your behalf, is not your willful or conscious disregard of the court order, thus no contempt.