Child Support and Contempt: A $100,000 Fine
Tuesday / October 02, 2007
Delaying the production of documents to drag out
child support proceedings can be very expensive.
In this Wisconsin case, the divorce
decree required the ex-husband to produce his
personal and corporate tax returns to the
ex-wife each year by May 12. The ex-husband
failed to produce these documents at first
although he did produce them eventually, before
a contempt hearing scheduled at the request of
the ex-wife. The trial court held the ex-husband
in contempt, but the court of appeals reversed
that holding. The Wisconsin Supreme Court
reversed the trial court, holding that the
essence of the contempt was that the ex-husband
did not produce the documents in a timely
fashion which would have allowed child support
to be adjusted as the years passed.
The technical, legal question for the Wisconsin Supreme Court was whether the contempt was continuing in nature rather than completed in the past. In the latter event, the Court could not punish the ex-husband. But the Court held the contempt to be continuing so that the trial court's fine of $100,000 should be reinstated.
The moral of the story? Refusing to produce documents to delay child support adjustments can backfire in an expensive way.
The technical, legal question for the Wisconsin Supreme Court was whether the contempt was continuing in nature rather than completed in the past. In the latter event, the Court could not punish the ex-husband. But the Court held the contempt to be continuing so that the trial court's fine of $100,000 should be reinstated.
The moral of the story? Refusing to produce documents to delay child support adjustments can backfire in an expensive way.
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