Unemplyed mothers (How can a father fight it?)

[superdad01]

Hi,

 I got a quick question. Child's mother has been UNEMPLOYED for the last 4 yrs by choice. I have supported the Child's needs 100%  it would seem since she has no income.

Well now she is graduated from school and can beginning working as  RN. She is also engaged to Victim #2 and could possible be pregnant again. I don't think she is in any rush to get into the workforce. Sice she is CAPABLE of making more money are courts ever likely to take that into consideration when making or adjusting a childsupport order?

We basically share custody now because I have daily court ordered parenting time, but due to new working hours my avaible parenting time is slowly withering away.

Does anyone have any experience with fighting the fact that the other parent is certified to have a much higher income that minimum wage, in order to get the childsupport adjusted?

I am still fighting for full joint physical custody and overnights but in my experience you just can't win against a Unemployed mother.

[wendl]

usually they can inpute that person income to determine child support for a parent who is not working.

Do you have any overnight visitations

**These are my opinions, they are not legal advice**

[mistoffolees]

Courts will impute income if the person is capable of working.

In many cases, they'll impute minimum wage since there's no guarantee that a person can earn more than that. However, in the case of an RN, you could request that they impute the going wage since ANYONE with an RN degree can get a stack of offer letters any time they wish (many of them with signing bonuses). Ask your attorney how well this argument is received in your district.

As for the rest, I think your experience is wrong. I got joint (50:50 physical) custody of my daughter and her mother wasn't working at the time. You need a decent attorney.

[superdad01]

I am interested in knowing how your attorney presented this argument to the court. From my knowledge and experiece with what I heard I had a real good attorney but everytime we tried to get somewhere with it It came down to.... You;ll be at work and who would the child be better off with... A babysitter or her MOTHER?  MOm will be home all day etc. In my case their was no getting around it.

I also had a consult with another highly regarded attorney and he said that a person's income could not be imputed at a wage that they was not actually working at. so to say even if they are certified to be a RN they cannot be imputed at that income  because they have never technically made that kind of money.

[mistoffolees]

>I am interested in knowing how your attorney presented this
>argument to the court. From my knowledge and experiece with
>what I heard I had a real good attorney but everytime we tried
>to get somewhere with it It came down to.... You;ll be at work
>and who would the child be better off with... A babysitter or
>her MOTHER?  MOm will be home all day etc. In my case their
>was no getting around it.

In our case, we never got to litigation, so I can't tell you how to present it. We resolved the issue in mediation - and ex agreed to an income based on what she would be earning since she wanted to go back to work. But my attorney stated very clearly that if it DID go to litigation the judge would consider her reasonable earnings - so I cut out a bunch of nursing jobs listed in the help wanted section as evidence in case we got to court.

Be careful not to confuse custody with support. The issue of who the child would be better off with is a custody issue - not a support issue. Ideally, custody is determined first and then support.

>
>I also had a consult with another highly regarded attorney and
>he said that a person's income could not be imputed at a wage
>that they was not actually working at. so to say even if they
>are certified to be a RN they cannot be imputed at that income
> because they have never technically made that kind of money.

Generally, I'd go with what your attorney says. My statements apply only in my court district. While imputing income is not uncommon, it may not be universal and your attorney may be right. However, you may want to consider a second opinion and/or a google search to see if that really is the practice in your area.

Also, consider mediation. For many people, it's less expensive and less adversarial than litigation and a mediator can easily consider her potential earnings even if a judge would not allow it into evidence.