Can You Get an Order for Child Support from a Non-Working, Welfare Collecting Parent

[EA1070a]

My question is, would hiring a lawyer and suing her for child support through the family court be worth my wild? Like I said, my goal is to adopt, we really don't care about getting money from her. But if it would help, I would be willing to do it (or more specifically, my husband would be willing to do it).

This statement says it all.

You can't get blood out of a turnip. One attempt to obtain support was already shot down. Why do you think another attempt would be successful?

Your statements that you only want info re: support and aren't interested in termination of mom's parental rights is disingenuous.

No court is going to take mom's parental rights from her because she's poor. And if she starts exercising visitation, then seeks unsupervised visitation and it's granted, after a while she could very well get a support order against your husband.

Your best bet is to butt out and just keep things as they are.

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Also, if the child's father has a lawyer, why are you even here? He's paying for legal counsel, let him present this to his lawyer.

[misskkay]

This statement says it all.

You can't get blood out of a turnip. One attempt to obtain support was already shot down. Why do you think another attempt would be successful?

Your statements that you only want info re: support and aren't interested in termination of mom's parental rights is disingenuous.

No court is going to take mom's parental rights from her because she's poor. And if she starts exercising visitation, then seeks unsupervised visitation and it's granted, after a while she could very well get a support order against your husband.

Your best bet is to butt out and just keep things as they are.

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Also, if the child's father has a lawyer, why are you even here? He's paying for legal counsel, let him present this to his lawyer.

It wouldn't be wise to go off of one opinion, his attorney suggested it as a tactic to force a step parent adoption. Of course we wanted to get more opinions since we were under the assumption the only way you could get child support from a parent is if they have income. It sounded like the lawyer was viewing this potential child support order as their cash cow so to speak.

Like I said previously, this isn't about money. If mom was ordered to pay and stepped up her game and became involved in the childs life, that would be good for the child right? Even if dad was ordered support in this situation.....

And if she doesn't and disappears completely and I am able to file for adoption on the grounds of abandonment, that would be good for the child right? That way the child would know that even if his dad and I were to split, I wouldn't disappear in the childs life and he would still have a mother.

[CourtClerk]

My question is, would hiring a lawyer and suing her for child support through the family court be worth my wild?

You can't sue for child support. There is already a child support case open. Let me elaborate for you since you want to know what California's position is. I'll start by (some) of my qualifications:

I was a DCSS child support officer before I went to work for the Los Angeles Superior Court. In the 10 years I was employed by LASC, I spent the majority of my time in family law. Here is where your "plan" is EXTREMELY flawed.

There is a child support case already open. Because of that, the family court will not make a decision on child support. That will be deferred to the court already dealing with that aspect of the child custody/visitation/support process. That is policy, that is proper procedure and it's written in the CRC (California Rules of Court) which pretty much makes it law.

The court will not order a parent receiving welfare benefits to pay support. They will not require a parent to use government funds to pay for a child outside of the grant that is received. Can't do it. Won't do it. Your husband "may" be able to request that the court issue a seek work order, however, in the event that she doesn't get a job, in her case, there is no penalty because once again, they will not require her to pay support because she's receiving welfare benefits.

If she's poor enough to receive welfare benefits, she's not going to be penalized for not paying the supervised visitation fees. She simply can't afford it and regardless of the bench officer's opinion as to her husband's income, he's not required to utilize his income to pay for those fees. Notice that regardless of his comments, he didn't order the spouse to pay the fees. Why? Because he can't. Effectively because of her circumstances, she can't exercise visitation, so you're going to have a very hard time trying to prove abandonment. She's unable to come up with the money required to pay for the visitation I'm sure she's going to say she would like to utilize.

Likewise, a court can only order a parent to provide medical insurance for a child if it can be obtained at "low or no cost." Low or no cost has been established at 5% of the obligor's income. Her income is zero. In normal circumstances, that would mean that the child would be eligible for Medi-Cal, but since she's the noncustodial parent and it is assumed that the custodial parent has insurance for the child, she's not required to provide that either. In fact, she can't. She wouldn't even be required to put the child on Healthy Families because the premium would be more than 0 and that would be more than 5% of her income...

You're welcome. Have a nice day.

[misskkay]

You can't sue for child support. There is already a child support case open. Let me elaborate for you since you want to know what California's position is. I'll start by (some) of my qualifications:

The case can be closed if orders are not enforceable, or if the amount owed is in total $500 or less. So why would you assume a case is open when you go into explicit detail as to why no order would be in place or enforceable?

[Dogmatique]

Perhaps because CC has lived and worked it for umpteen years?

Just a guess.

[CourtClerk]

The case can be closed if orders are not enforceable, or if the amount owed is in total $500 or less. So why would you assume a case is open when you go into explicit detail as to why no order would be in place or enforceable?

Why pre tell would you close a case to open another one? You really want your husband pay the cost of filing a motion for support for something he's already asked for in a free venue? Why did I assume a case was already open? Because you went into all this detail about DCSS being involved. See, they only get involved if there IS A CASE. They don't go around knocking on doors asking folks if they can handle their child support issues because they're bored. Someone has to go to THEM.

Yeah, you're bitter.

[misskkay]

Why pre tell would you close a case to open another one? You really want your husband pay the cost of filing a motion for support for something he's already asked for in a free venue? Why did I assume a case was already open? Because you went into all this detail about DCSS being involved. See, they only get involved if there IS A CASE. They don't go around knocking on doors asking folks if they can handle their child support issues because they're bored. Someone has to go to THEM.

Yeah, you're bitter.

He didn't close the case, dcss did because there was no order to enforce. They sent a letter stating he could reopen the case in the future if circumstances change. His attorney said he should file with the family court instead of going back to dcss because family court would be faster and the attorney was confident they would order support even with the circumstances being the same (to our knowledge of course). So like I have posted countless times, I was hoping for advice as to whether or not this was actually a possibility or if this attorney was just hoping to get more money. But apparently this is a question no user can actually answer without additional commentary on a situation in which you only have the most minimal facts.

[mmmagique]

If your readers only have minimal facts, the onus is on the one supplying the facts. (that's you)