Child Support...basis for Class Action Suit?

Factual Questions
21

I’d really prefer answers to my questions, but, what the hell, Nickrz has me fired up now. In response to him:

1- Ok. The ex’s house and car are partially in support of my son. But where does support end and extravagance begin? Since the divorce and her remarriage, she has purchased two brand new cars and a four-bedroom house, and her husband doesn’t make that much more than me. I drive a '92 Cutlass with 110M and I can’t afford to get my soffets replaced.

2- Swing and a miss there, Nick. Medical coverage and daycare are NOT part of the dissolution agreement. They are tacked on above and beyond child support. My lawyer didn’t goof. You did when you made that assumption and statement.

3- You said “If you want to visit, you pay.” Hmph. Now try to square that with your later statement about moral, ethical and societal responsibilities. Am I not complying with all of those responsibilities by spending every possible moment I can with my son? Certainly you’d agree that a participative father is better than the one who mails the check and says “see ya.” I personally think that those people should pay more. After all, by spending the time that I do with my son, I’m lessening the “burden” (as you seem to imply it is) on my ex wife. Do I want to be recognized for it? Damn straight I do. Should transportation costs be figured into the equation? Of course.

4- In a previous post you said that my ex had all sorts of “incidentals” to pay for such as toys. I said that I bought the toys, and you said that my beef was with her and not the court. Wrong. My beef lies squarely with the court for requiring no accountability.

5- Yes, I pay for half his dinners, but (listen closely now) I pay for them TWICE. Once via support, and once when he’s with me.
Get it? I’ve already paid for them, but I get to pay for them again.

6- Do I want to be paid for my time thereby lessing the amount of support I pay? See #3 above.

7- Regardless of your statement, I am equally involved in my son’s life, even in the court’s eyes. We have joint legal custody. That means I’m just as responsible as my ex, but since she has sole physical custody, I have much less authority.

8- Would I withhold my support if we were still married and she made twice as much? Of course not. But that’s irrelevant. Then you asked if she made ten times as much, would I expect to have my payments attenuated. Of course. Don’t be absurd. Think of it like this: Your kid works as McDonald’s and you, yourself, get a huge raise and are now pulling down huge bucks somewhere. Would you help your kid out in making a large purchase, say tuition, or would you say, “Sorry, kiddo. You’re poor and must suffer.” Those same morals and ethics you mentioned before should require you to help out because you’re in the position to do so.

I have never shirked any obligation to my son. I’m as proud to be his father as a guy can be. I’ll continue to be there for him at every opportunity.

But the child support I pay is excessive, and I’m trying to find out if I can challenge the law based on the issue I raised as to whether not taking the custodial parent’s household income into account equates to a violation of due process and unequal treatment under the law.

22

I do not think that you could ever talk about inequality in “household income” because your exwife’s new husband (who contributes) is in no way, shape, or form legally responsible for your kid. If you remarry, your child support figures will not be recalculated to take into account your new wife’s income because she too will not be legally responible for your son.

Secondly, I agree with Nickrz that the problem seems to be more with your exwife than with the law. The law assumes (justly or unjustly–it dosn’t matter) that you are a deadbeat, and so mandated that you pay 25%, assuming that that will be the end of your contributions. Out of that 25% your exwife is supposed to buy clothes and toys, etc. If she is more or less using your son’s welfare as a way to extort more money from you " I’m not going to buy him clothes w/ the money earmarked for his support. You don’t have to either, you can let him freeze. . . " If that is the case, she is holding your son hostage and that sounds like a criminal offence. I would talk to a lawyer.

Finally, remember that living in a nicer neighborhood, while a luxury, is a luxury that your son is benefiting from. He’s probably able to go to better schools, for example, than he would if he lived in a neighborhood like mine, which satifies all your physical needs and where you hardly ever hear gunfire.

23

Ok, I’ll delete the words “household income.” Rephrase it to say my ex’s income only.

The point is, it’s only my income that is used to calculate the support. THAT’S the sticking point. It’s inequitable.

The amount I pay far exceeds my son’s basic needs so far as to leave plenty left over for discretionary spending.

Regarding my ex’s husband not being responsible…you mean to say he could let my son starve and not be held liable? He is obviously responsible to some degree. He may not be financially liable, but as long as my son spends part of his time there, he indeed does have some responsibilities.

And, as far as I can tell, he’s a pretty good guy. No problems with him.

24

I have some thoughts on this…

Keep in mind I live in Canada, so I wont address the legal or tax stuff.

As a sole custodial single working mother of 2, I think that the support should be calculated as such:

  1. Take the rent/mortgage payment and divide it appropriately. I need a 3 bedroom home, divide the rent by 3,( one third is my share,) divide the last two thirds by two, and that is my share for the kids, and his share.

  2. divide utilities as above.

  3. Car payments, gas, insurance, as above.

  4. grocery bills, as above.

5.Daycare, sports etc as above.

  1. Clothing bills for the kids split in half.

etc etc…once a total has been reached, then the parties should be responsible for the total.

If the dads half adds up to 5% or 50% of his income, I dont think it should matter.

My ex pays a small % of his pay to the support, while every damn cent I make goes to their support. Every month, I might spend a total of 40 -50 bucks just on me. In June my ex paid $1400 for a three wheeler. I drive a 20 year old car…fair? not hardly. The rest of his pay after his support is paid only has to cover his board at his momma’s.
Sickening.
I digress…

rhysdad, I do believe you are paying more than your share. if you have him 50% of the time…than your expenses should be equal to hers, thereby cancelling each other out.
There should be some precedent for this.

ps.
You are luck the new guy is ok. I wish my kids dad was more like you.
Good luck.

25

Rysdad, have you ever called your local district attorney & asked them why you pay 25% based solely on your income? It could be a real old law, maybe it’s time for them to change it?

My sort of stepson’s father pays, get this,
$160 a month support and did not even pay that for 12 years. I once checked his business on the web and it showed that it made more than 1.2M a year, but he claims to only make $700 a year [living in LA, yeah, right].

Sur wish you were his dad, that wuld make things easier for him.

26

Oh dear, I meant $700 a month, course :slight_smile:

27

Kellibelli, the problem w/ your system is that all those numbers are subjective. You say you have two kids and thus need a three bedroom house. Why not a two bedroom apartment? Or, alternitivly, why not a three bedroom house in the sort of neighborhood that where three bedrooms run 200K? (or, if you are in CA, 500K)

The same goes for clothes. If you divide the cost of clothes by three how do you determine that cost? The cost at Sears? at a thrift store? at Macy’s?

Food? Are children entitled to expensive health food that is better for them? Are birthday cakes a luxury or a need? How many times a month should a child eat out?

The fact is, we expect wealthy people to spend more money (although probably a lower %) on their kids than we do poor ones. If Kellibelli’s ex makes enough money that it is possible to help her buy a three bedroom house instead of a two bedroom apartment so that the kids can have thier own rooms and a yard, we expect him to do it as the best thing for his kids. If, on the other hand, Kellibelli’s ex makes 15K a year, and all he could do was help pay for that apartment, we wouldn’t consider it abusive to ask the children to share a room and not have a dog.

There simply is no flat rate for raising a child. Their are two parent families out their who make less than the child support payments of other people. Their kid’s needs are met. But we are talking about more than needs. As a society we tend to feel that children are entitled to a share in the family wealth while they are growing up. We think very poorly of wealthy parents who simply satisfy the needs of their children.

28

If your situation is anything like what Manda JO describes, then you might have a claim that you are, in fact, the primary caregiver for the child. I’d talk to a lawyer that has experience in cases where a parent is using the kids as a weapon. That might get you somwhere. If the mother is extorting money based on the child’s welfare, I’d look into some kind of abuse or neglect charge against her.

“I had a feeling that in Hell there would be mushrooms.” -The Secret of Monkey Island

29

Just to clarify, I was referring to Manda JO’s previous post, not the one that appeared directly before mine.

30

I realize the numbers would be subjective, but that is where the courts come in…if I make an outrageous claim for say clothing…the judge could look at it and say it was not acceptable…etcand as far as the fancy house/ car etc…remember, one third of those expenses would be solely mine, and then the final two thirds are divided…thus leaving me with essentially two thirds of the whole cost…why would I want to spend more than necessary for a home, car etc…( of course, if the custodial parent makes more money, then this whole theory flops as they can afford the best…but it has been my experience that the man is generally the support payer, and the higher paid employee, so my original position would apply to that type of situation.

In essense when the 2 parents are together, all the money goes to the home/child, and when the spouse leaves, that lowers only the grocey bill of the home…the rest of the bills are still there, and only half the income(or less) remains. I cant think of a better formula to measure support…a set percentage doesnt seem fair.To either party.

31

Rysdad says:

I don’t understand why that is inequitable. It seems to me that it doesn’t matter how much you earn, part of your income should go towards supporting your child, regardless of how much the spouse makes. If your spouse makes 100K a year, and you make 20K, does that mean you can say “I don’t have to give you anything because you make more money than me?”

Or are you saying that both parents should be paying equal amounts? Then in the case above, the parent making 100K a year could say to the spouse “I spend 20K a year for the kid, so you should too.” How will the other spouse manage that on a yearly salary of 20K a year?

Now if you’re upset that the money is being wasted by your spouse, that’s another matter and raises the issue of accountability. But I still think that a flat percentage of your salary seems a fair way to determine how much money should go towards child support.

How about an arrangement where the child lives with you 50% of the year and 50% of the year with your ex? Is that possible?

Jacques Kilchoer
Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.

32

From my research, there seem to be several different ways of computing support. Some of them seem rather reasonable. One such formula is based on the noncustodial parent’s income, but it includes an allowance for the other parent’s income like this:

1- NC parent’s income x .25 = Amount Child Should Receive (ACSR)

2- Both parents’ after tax income = Calculating Base (CB)

3- NC parent’s income/CB = Fair Share (FS)

4- ACSR x FS = Amount NC parent pays

So you say, what if the custodial parent isn’t working? Then I’d be no worse off since I’m paying 25% already, and the law states that 25% is the -maximum- any NC parent would have to pay for 1 child.

What if the custodial parent quits his/her job? Well, if the NC parent did that, child support begins to accrue because they “intentionally limited their own income.”
In that case, the NC parent would have their support raised to the ACSR calculated amount, but the custodial parent would, get this, owe the NC parent the shortfall that the NC parent had to cover during the period that the custodial parent didn’t work.

They can’t do that, you say. Sure they can. They do it to NC parents all the time.

And who’s going to determine if the custodial parent quit their job for a good reason, or if they quit just to increase the support? Well, there’s already a formula in place for that. It’s the one they use to determine if someone is eligible for unemployment insurance.

Look…I am fully willing to pay half of my son’s support. In fact, I’d love to pay half. But I’m paying -more- than half. I wouldn’t mind it that much if my ex was out of work or if she incurred some sort of major, unplanned expense that required her to make some major expenditures that could conceivably require depriving my son financially.

But that ain’t the case.

        --------------------

And, believe it or not, I get along pretty well with the ex, all things considered. We spoke at length last night regarding our son, and we again found that we have the same thoughts regarding his development. We shared some laughs even. Child support is really only the single issue where we disagree, and it’s obviously pretty divisive.

But it needn’t, and shouldn’t, be that way.

Child support laws were drawn up during an era after women and children ceased to be chattel but before women entered the workforce to a much greater degree. In my view, the laws haven’t kept up.

I’d love to be able to give the child support laws some legal evolutionary help.

My argument is that calculating child support based solely on the income of the non-custodial parent is inherently and intrinsically a violation of due process since the amount the child receives is not in any at all related to the amount the child needs or requires since the amount the custodial parent contributes is not included in the formula.

This really needs to be tested in court.

33

Kellibelli:

How would the judge decide what was outragous? I know households where say, a $200 prom dress would be considered outragous beyond reckoning, and others where to not buy an expensive prom dress would be tantamount to abuse. Are private piano lessons a legal entitlement? There is no black and white here, only grey.

Kellibelli said:

“In essense when the 2 parents are together, all the money goes to the home/child, and when the spouse leaves, that lowers only the grocey bill of the home…”

In which case, you can always change the home. You are renting a house now. Why are your kids entitled to that and not to a one bedroom unairconditioned apartment in a bad neighborhood where they both sleep in your room and go to a school w/ no library? Because they are innately more worthy than the children living in those conditions? Of course not. They are entitled to better than that and you have the right to insist that their father pay for better than that simply because they were lucky enough to be born to parents who made more than minummum wage. In the same vein, if their father made $6/hr, you (and the courts) would not be right to insist that he turn over every penny until he dies of exposure (or loses even that job because he can’t afford a place to shower).

What a parent ought to provide for a child is directly linked to the income level of the parents (plural). Therefore, the only way to determine child support is to take the parents level of income into account.

One more example:

Say a billionaire gets drunk one night and fathers a child on a cocktail waitress. If that billionaire were to sit down and say, “well, the poverty level for a woman and one child is X dollars per year” and sent an annual check for that ammont, we would consider it to be gross negligence even though he is, according to the government, meeting all of the child’s needs.

If a truck driver got drunk and fathered a child on a cocktail waitress, and sat down and said “well, if I sleep in my rig year round, and give up planning for retirement, I can send 50% of my income, or Y dollars, to the mom and kid” We would think he was doing the right thing and approve of his actions, even if his $Y was less than the $X of the billionaire. Why? because children are entitled to part of their family wealth and a child lucky enough to be fathered by a billionaire ought to get more than a fourth story walk-up. This isn’t fair to the child of a truck driver, but we live in a capitilist society with widely varing income levels, and this is the only possible solution.

34

Just a question…what if the truck driver fathered a child with a Rockefeller heiress?

35

I think that in that case the truck driver is still ethically required to contribute to his child’s support. The law has to be that way-- it’s a matter of princepal–parents out to support thier children. On the other hand, the Rockefeller heiress ought to turn it down–petition the courts herself to have it eleminated. But if I were the truck driver I would not want it eleminated all together. As America’s forign policy illustrates, finnacial support and inflence in policy are one and the same.

36

Manda, I agree wholeheartedly.

37

Rysdad,
two salient points (from your post above)

Should one spouse pay more than half? That depends on the salaries of each parent, and with which parent the child lives.
Assuming two parents with equal salaries, and the child lives with one parent, then the other parent should contribute more to the “common pot.” The calculations get more complicated when the parents don’t earn the same amount of money, one (or both) is remarried, etc…

Again we disagree. If the non-custodial parent makes $x, then a certain percentage of that (25 or some other number, I couldn’t venture a guess since I don’t have any children) should be devoted to the child, regardless of the income of the other parent. As other posters have mentioned, the amount the child “needs or requires” should be the same for everybody, but in a (capitalist) society depends largely on the incomes of the parents.

In your situation, you state that the other parent isn’t spending the same percentage of their income on the child. Assuming that’s true, it would be unfair. I would think however that it would be hard to prove, unless every expense is itemized.

Jacques Kilchoer
Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.

38

P.S.
By the way, Rysdad, let me state that I disagree with the general argument you are making, i.e. “child support based solely on the income of the non-custodial parent is a violation of equal protection under the law.”

I do agree that, judging from your description, you are paying more than your due for your child’s care and education. Dealing with the court system to correct that would, I imagine, be difficult. However you can take consolation in the fact that you can face your child (and the world) proudly and state that you haven’t run away from your obligations, as so many other have. You sound like a good parent.

Jacques Kilchoer
Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.

39

Thanks, Jacques. 'Preciate that.

Actually, I know why the courts do it this way. Because it’s easy. Otherwise they’d be clogged with divorcing parents with their accountants in tow trying to prove that their $75,000 per annums won’t even cover the basic necessities. Then the guardians ad litem would chime in. And the court-appointed accountants. Then the babysitters would get deposed. Then would come the attachments filed against the kid’s piggy bank.

All the while little Johnny watches mommy and daddy battle.

It isn’t much better under the current circumstances, but at least it’s over quick. 'Course, the same thing can be said about a guillotine.

Damn. I just want to be fair about the whole thing. There’s GOT to be a better, more equitable formula.

40

One complaint I have is that if the custodial spouse re-marries, the new husband/wife should have to share in the child care expenses.

My brother-in-law married a woman who already had one child out of wedlock, father unknown. He adopted the child because he thought it was the right thing to do. He had another child with her, and suddenly she decided he wasn’t right for her and left. She fell in with another guy and re-married within six months. She is a social worker, her new husband is a professional of some sort, and they live very well. My brother-in-law is a teacher in a community college, and the child care payments eat him alive. He lives in a tiny apartment and drives a beat-up old truck, and the child care payments leave him pretty much penniless after he pays his rent. His Ex-wife’s new husband is effectively getting a subsidy on his family, whereas if my Brother-in-law re-marries and has a new family, his wife and children will suffer because of the payments he makes, even though the other family probably makes three times what he does.

Somehow this doesn’t seem right to me. I don’t pretend to know what IS right, but something’s a little out of whack.