| David letterman had a TRO because a woman claimed he was harassing her with code words over the television on his show. [0] The judge granted it "because she filled the form out properly." This varies wildly by jurisdiction, but the burden of proof can be pretty slim and the judges in some jurisdiction have been on the record saying they grant them out of fear if something goes wrong when they haven't that they'll be held responsible. [0] http://www.ejfi.org/PDF/Nestler_Letterman_TRO.pdf >Also: Child support, or even alimony, is a recognition that in a marriage, the income may be produced by a single party, even if the overall roles and responsibilities were divided equally. If someone is a stay-at-home-partner, they may not be bringing in the cash income, but they are still 50% of the effort of operating that family unit as they tend to take on more responsibilities such as cooking and cleaning and child rearing which all need to be done by someone. When a marriage ends, the low-income partner cannot necessarily immediately shift into self-sufficient career mode, and obviously the child should be seeing the necessary financial support they would have, so the income of the two parents needs to be compared with where the child spends most of their time (and hence, incurs the most expenses). This is an interesting monologue but we all know the reasoning by child support. I'm merely pointing out it's a real specter. When I'm married if I lose my job there's no court process and if I have to take a shitty one and spend way less money on the kid then we will adapt; but after a divorce you have an "imputed income" which is what the judge expects you could make. The judge also expects you're spending 20% of that imputed income towards the kid even though if when you were married it could be just 5% and the kid was fine. If I have to take up trucking and the judge says I really could be an engineer and I'm slacking then I could end up in jail. Granted most people making an effort probably aren't going to end up in jail but merely the fact you have potential debtor's prison hanging over your head at all times is a very real concern even in the event it is justified. To point out the absurdity of child support debtor's prison as currently run, see the story of the guy arrested because he was held hostage in Iraq while working the contract job he needed to work to pay his child support... [1]. The reasoning? He did not mail the support while the captors were pointing a gun to his head. IMO any system where you can be jailed because you didn't make payments because you were taken hostage while trying to earn support for your children is just utterly fucked. [1]
https://greensboro.com/ex-hostage-jailed-in-child-support-ca... |