Child support arrearages petition... questions..

[usone123]

Hi,

I'm new here and wondering if anyone can help....Just a little background - March 08 hubby petitioned the court 4 custody because my step daughter (SD) wanted to move here  (she's 15) and this is a better environment all around for her here.  Well her mom went ballistic when she got served and threatened to kill her if she betrayed her again to her father, so we got an ex parte temp custody order.  they went to counceling a whopping 2 times and they sent her back home to her mom since she was deemed safe and they were ordered into more counceling.

SD ended up deciding she wanted to stay in IL to finish high school, so we settled our custody case and just ended up modifying visitation to make it set in stone so we didn't ahve to rely on the mother's whims of when DH could see his child.  As soon as she got SD back, she filed for an increase in support cause her life revolves around money and she warned us she'd retaliate and she did..  we ended up settling her petition and DHs support almost doubled to what he was paying in the past (it hadnt been reviewed in many years so we knew it was coming).

Now fast forward 3 months....

Tuesday evening we checked email and found our ex-lawyer had emailed us a scanned version of a petition that was served on them via fax Tuesday afternoon. The court date was set for thursday at 930 so we got just barely a days notice.

The lawyer let her lawyer know he's not representing us anymore and that her petition was not proper anyway and needed to be dismissed but apparently her lawyer is a moron, which we knew before.

DH called the court yesterday to see if he could appear by phone and they had him call this morning, which he did, and they said this petition wasn't on the docket for today and they didn't know anything. So we emailed BM's (bio mom's) lawyer to find out if it was being filed or not and to make sure she knows DH is pro-se now. No response.

Our ex-lawyer emailed us this afternoon with a copy of today's court order that required they allow us 21 days to respond and sched another court date on Oct 10. So much for not being on the docket.....

So now we need some help with what to do - I've taken a civil court procedures class as I'm training to be a paralegal, so the layout and wording isn't an issue - but my class was in CT, and this is in IL, and I know the terminology is not the same.

They filed a Motion and it was titled "Petitioner's Motion for Modification of Child Support Arrearage Payment"

and she listed off 13 points to argue that since DH pays $100 a week now (80 current and 20 arrears) that she is entitled to another $100 in arrears each week. The only valid points were the 1st 5 that gave the cases history, and then the one bullet about how much he currently pays for arrears. Everything else had math errors, the wrong statute citation (had nothing to do with support, only income withholding), inaccurate information about past court orders, etc...

Like I said, her lawyer is a moron and she is no better. Their request is based solely off a statute that doesn't state what they are claiming it states - so I'm thinking we could do a motion to dismiss, but I don't know.

We cannot in any way shape or form afford to hire a lawyer to fight this for us, lots of personal/financial stuff went on since the custody modification settled months ago and its just not possible.

Is she allowed to ask for more arrearages if no significant change has happened? I know she can't ask for more current support without a significant change, but not sure on arrears.

Based on what she filed - would we be filing an "Answer" or a "Counter Petition" or something else? I know what to write in it, just don't know what to call it. i'm thinking a motion to dismiss would probably be the logical thing to do....

Also, do you think it's possible to appear by phone? How would that be accomplished? If not, any way you think we could get her to reimburse travel costs since she keeps starting these lawsuits as revenge?

Also - should anything about her retaliation efforts and her "threats" to retaliate be mentioned in the response. After the last settlement ni June when CS went up and custody stayed the same, she continually sent him ranting and raving emails asking for extra money for this or that and got turned down. She curses constantly and attacks him and in one email she told him not to worry because she has a plan for him. Then last month she asked for more money and we pitched in a portion that we belived reasonable and she has been calling and leaving him nasty messages - one was where she ordered him to tell their daughter that she's not allowed to have a boyfriend - the rest were harassing him for ignoring her calls. We told her months ago that he is only communicating with her via email and she continues the harassment. Her last voicemail went something like "So you think you are slick and you think you are smart by avoiding me and not answering my calls and not calling me back. Well you know what, it always comes back to bite you, and you know this"

She's proven herself to be quite crazy over the years so this is just the tip of a very large iceberg....

So any advice on moving forward would be appreciated.

I was already plenty wordy, but let me know if you need any specifics to help us more easily.

Thx  :)

[jenjen]

NOT SURE WHAT STATE YOUR IN BUT, I STRONGLY DO NOT RECOMMEND APPEARING BY PHONE, i DID THIS ONCE AND THERE WERE PEOPLE THERE(CSE PEOPLE) WHO TESTIFIED THAT THEY NEW ME, AND HAVE HAD MEETINGS WITH ME. THESE MEETINGS NEVER HAPPENED AND THOSE TESTIFING I HAVE NEVER MET AND I GOT RAIL ROADED.  

IF HIS DAUGHTER WANTS TO LIVE WITH HIM, JUST HAVE HER COME FOR A VISIT AND NOT GO BACK, AT 15 THE COURTS WILL NEVER INTERFERE BY TRYING TO FORCE THE TEEN BACK, BIO-MOM WILL BE MAD BUT, EVENTUALLY SHE'LL GET OVER IT. YOUR NOT HOLDING THE TEEN AGAINST HER WISHES, SHE JUST SIMPLY WANTS TO LIVE WITH DAD AND AT HER AGE IF, MOM BRINGS THIS TO COURT THE JUDGE WILL ALOW THE CHILD TO REMAIN WITH DAD.

ESPECIALLY IF SHES A GOOD TEEN, GOOD STUDENT, THE JUDGE WILL NOT TAKE A CHANCE ON CAUSING A SITUATION WERE THE CHILD MIGHT RUNAWAY TO BE WITH DAD.

THE CHILDS DESIRE TO BE WITH HER FATHER IS NOT UNREASONABLE AT 15.

IF BIO-MOM PERSUES TAKING YOU TO COURT FOR THE RETURN OF THE CHILD, DONT WORRY GO TO THE HEARING DONT BRING YOUR DAUGHTER AND IF THEY INQUIRE ABOUT WHY THE CHILDS NOT IN COURT YOU CAN EXPLAIN THAT THE CHILD DOESNT WANT TO HAVE ANY CONFRONTATION WITH THE MOM (BACK IT UP WITH ANY THREATENING E-MMAILS U MAY HAVE.

MOST LIKELY THE JUDGE WOULD SCHEDULE ANOTHER HEARING ORDERING THE CHILD TO BE PRESENT AND IN MOST CASES AFTER KNOWING WHY THE CHILD DIDNT APPEAR THE LAST TIME, THE JUDGE WILL SPEAK TO THE CHILD IN PRIVATE AND HONOR HER WISHES.

IF THE DAUGHTER WANTS TO LIVE WITH DAD THEN DONT SEND HER BACK AND FILE FOR A MODIFICATION. CHILD WISHES TO LIVE WITH DAD, DAD IS ABLE TO CARE FOR CHILD, CHILD REFUSES TO RETURN TO MOM, DAD IS WILLING TO LET CHILD RESIDE WITH HIM, DAD FEARS IF CHILD IS FORCED TO RETURN CHILD MAY NOT RETURN(RUN AWAY)


BOTTOM LINE: AT 15 TEEN CHILD CAN CHOOSE

[Kitty C.]

First of all, jenjen.........all caps is hard to read and interpreted as 'yelling' in cyberspace.  Just an FYI.........

As for a 15 y.o. choosing where to live, often that is decided on a case-by-case basis, but since we're not talking about the parents living just down the street form each other, for the NCP to not send the child back coud be tantamount to kidnapping.  Often, CO's include clauses that say something to the effect that both parents have to work together and promote the other parent to the other.  If one parent refuses to send the child back to the other, that isn't looked at as a choice of the child, but the unwillingness of the parent to conform to the CO and that parent can be held in contempt or worse.

The OP needs to confer with an atty. before taking any drastic action.

[usone123]

Thanks but we won't be kidnapping her any time soon - and that petition to have her move here was dismissed months ago when we settled in June.  His daughter decided she'd rather stay out there to finish school and we knew we couldn't fight that.

The current case is solely that she wants more money towards arrears when nothing has changed since June.