Any one had CS lowered due to an illness?

[cathy]

Either as the payer or the payee?  If so, what proof was needed?  What was done to show if the person could/could not work due to the illness?  Was there any consideration given to whether the person would qualify for disabilty?

[Cookiemomma4]

I don't know the specifics, but I do know that my father's order to pay (to his 2nd wife) was ended by the courts because he was too ill to seak gainful employment.  He was ordered to seek disability and list his minor children....he has yet to do so and that was about 2 years ago...there has been no further action from what I am told (2nd wife is only a few years older than me and tells me a bit more than I need to know...)

Also, I recieve a dependant benifit for my daughter from Social Security "from" her father.  With this in place I can get a small amount (around 12 a week) from her father and an order from Domestic Relations should allow her to be covered under medical assistance from what I have been told by the enforcement officers at Domestics.  They said that the amount that is paid by the government is taken off of what he would "owe" me on a weekly basis...To me, it just never seemed worth it to pursue it as of yet.  

[4honor]

under certain circumstances in my state(WA) I have heard and/or read (I peruse the supreme court unpublished records frequently) instances where it has been lowered or eliminated due to a terminal illness or permament disability. (one was for terminal cancer, one for end stage congestive heart failure, and one was for a severe brain injury.)

I did not know any of these people personally and could not tell you anything additionally.

[ocean]

I know to get on short-term disability you need a dr's note. It lasted for 6 months from his job. After that it was a lot harder to get long term SS disability. A dr has to state that you will be out at least a year and have a load of proof. Then disablilty will accept or deny. I know here, that if a person gets disability, child support usually will be dropped to 0 because the child can get through disablilty. The only way child support gets dropped is if the NCP goes to court and asks. I hear it takes a few months to get to an approval from disabillity and they pay a month behind. Are they receiveing disability now? If not, our state has a $25/month min that you still have to pay in CS.

[cathy]

We go to court Friday - so I guess we will find out.  It all came up pretty suddenly....

CSE issues a motion to notify that a show cause was going to be entered.  This is something they have started doing if a payment is 30 days late - pretty aggressive!  So, PBFH shows up in court and tells the judge she wants to modify child support because she has thyroid cancer.  Judge told her she had to file a motion to modify.

This was on March 17th and somehow we got on the calendar for this Friday!

I am pretty sure she is still working.  The judge did tell her she needed a letter from her doctor with prognosis/diagnosis.  Who knows what she will bring?  And really - we don't doubt she has thyroid cancer - but the type she has is one of the most treatable and has and extremely high survival rate.  

So it will be interesting to see what happens - especially if the doctor's letter (if she brings it) doesn't say anything about her ability to work, but just states she has been diagnosed.

[ocean]

Do you know where she works? I would try and call and see if she still works there. She should have to bring in paystubs for the last month to show what she has been doing. The bad part is that you can get many dr's to sign off on things for work.  Do you have a lawyer for this? Good luck!!!

[cathy]

They messed up and issued the original motion to notify to be heard at 9am this morning, and motion to modify to be heard at 2pm.  Laywer has us on standby to see if she can get it heard at 9am.

There wasn't really time to subpeona records - and PBFH did not provide any documentation.  It will be interesting to see what she brings to court.

I did call her work number on 3/20 and she answered.  Tried to call a couple of time this week, but phone was too fuzzy to tell if it was her or not.

Guess we will see.....I'll post and let you know who it turns out.  Should be interesting!

[cathy]

Well PBFH brought a letter from the doctor stating that she wasn't responding to treatment and would need to reduce work schedule.  Oh course, we didn't see the letter until court, it didn't say anything about how reduced, how long, etc etc.

So after an insane conversation between the judge and PBFH - we learn that PBFH has put in for part-time starting at the end of the month, but couldn't really come up with exactly how many hours that meant. After pressing, PBFH actually came up with pay stubs.  Of course, these were current stubs were she is still working "full time" (or around 30 hours plus sick day pay).

The judge was very perplexed as to what to do - seeing as there was no real information to base any judgement on.  But she want to do something, so she lowered it with no prejudice until we could get documentation later after PBFH's work schedule actually changed.  She calculated based on 25 hours per week.

Somehow, the clerk plugged the numbers in and child support dropped from $340 to $66!!!  Unreal!  Only thing we can figure it that it drop her below poverty line - although we have no way of knowing since we didn't have the numbers to run before hand.  I actually just ran them with the calculator on the CSE website and got $115 - - so who knows.....

PBFH is still $2400 in arrears and the judge initially wanted to set it for a total of $150/month - $66 for child support and the remainder for arrears.  Of course, PBFH whined and they put it at $120.

AND she had a court appointed lawyer helping her - which she shouldn't have.  The court has these lawyers to help if there is a chance of jail time.  Since there wasn't in this case, she should not have received help from the court appointed lawyer.  Oh well - - whatever!

So - we get to go back in September and actually get real paystubs.  Of course, when the judge says this, PBFH pipes up that she isn't planning on being in the state in September (from what we have gathered, she is moving to Florida in August when her husband is suppose to be released from probation).  Judge told her too bad, she would have to come back!  

Of course, if she moves I'm sure she will be unemployed.  So who knows what they will do in September.

[ocean]

No way!!!! Ugg...were you there when the clerk inputed the numbers? Could you "fight" the number they came up with if it was after you left? That is a big jump down for a few hours different. What did your lawyer say? If she plans on moving then she is going to quit this job anyway....I understand the judges view but he could have made her come back "when" she moved her hours downward and when you guys could have asked for the dr to explain what her treatment entails.......ohhh I am angry for you :(

[cathy]

We were in the courtroom and the clerk was up by the judge putting the numbers in. I don't know if she made a mistake or what, but it doesn't match what I get using the calculator on the state's official CSE site.  Oh well.....

I think our lawyer was more disappointed than we were.  We are very lucky in that both my husband and I work and have good jobs - we don't need the money.  The main reason we even filed for child support was to keep her from harrassing us with motions.

Long story short - her husband was molesting the girls and she refused to believe it.  The day of the criminal trial for her husband, she had us served with contempt motion (because we refused to force the girls to go to visitation) and a motion to have all parties undergo mental evaluations (which I personally found amusing as she is totally nuts!).  Anyway, after the scum bag molester ended up pleading guilty to a lesser charge, we told her that if she didn't withdraw her motions, we would file for child support.  She didn't - - until after we filed.

I am rather annoyed that the numbers don't make sense and that the judge didn't insist on some proof or actual data and wait until we had it.  I'm also annoyed that it went into effect for this month, even though she isn't going part-time till the end of the month.   Oh well -- in the general scheme of things, they are minor annoyances.  The important thing is that the girls are safe, happy and well taken care of.

Right now, we are considering again offering that she terminate her parental rights.  If she did, we would forgive arrears and she wouldn't have to worry about child support.  As it is, she really has no parental rights - she hasn't even seen the girls in 3 years.  (They are now 15 and 16 1/2).  I don't think she will though........

The other thing we are considering - in September, instead of listening to her whine and going thru all the bs, we may just go into court and ask that child support be terminated so that we don't have to deal with her anymore at all.

But thanks for your support!  I just really feel for those that need the help and get screwed out of it..........and I feel for the ones that get screwed out of it as well.  We were on that side for a while as well!