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Amid layoffs, child support pacts fraying

Stressed-out parents ask family court for help, relief
By Joseph P. Kahn, Globe Staff | April 13, 2009

A Massachusetts family court system that is strained during the best of times and taxed with implementing
new child-support guidelines faces another challenge: divorced parents seeking relief from - or
enforcement of - support arrangements as their financial and employment situations deteriorate.

Although the probate court system, which has jurisdiction over child-support cases, does not keep
statistics on modification petitions, judges and lawyers within the system say such filings have increased
noticeably in recent months as the ranks of the unemployed and underemployed have swollen. Layoffs,
cutbacks, and battered investment portfolios have affected custodial and noncustodial parents on all ends
of the socioeconomic spectrum, along with tens of thousands of Massachusetts children.

Nationally, the picture is just as grim, according to a survey released last month by the American Academy
of Matrimonial Lawyers. The 1,600-member group reports a 39 percent increase in the number of divorced
spouses seeking changes to child-support arrangements in a tight job market and deepening recession.

"From a day-to-day perspective, we've definite ly seen an uptick," said Essex County Probate Judge Amy
Blake, who practiced domestic relations law for 15 years before her appointment to the bench last July.
Although no single factor explains the increase, Blake added, the economic downturn clearly plays a role.
The chief justice of the Probate and Family Court, Paula Carey, concurs, noting that contempt citations
have risen sharply in recent months as more litigants have fallen behind on their obligations, whether
employed or not. Carey is particularly concerned about those who represent themselves in court, either
because they can't afford an attorney or because they believe they can be their own best advocate. "Many
don't understand that if they lose their jobs, they need to come back right away and get [the divorce
agreement] modified," said Carey. Otherwise, she said, they're already in trouble because child-support
modifications are not retroactive to the date a job was lost or a similar change in financial circumstances.

Carey chaired a 12-member task force that reviewed the state guidelines over a two-year period beginning
in October 2006. Under federal law, states must update their guidelines, which apply to married and non-
married parents alike, every four years. Spelled out in the new guidelines are a recognition that healthcare
coverage is vitally important to children's welfare and a commitment to streamlining the process by which
adjustments are made. The guidelines establish minimum payments, set at $80 a month, but do not cap
them at the high end. The revamped guidelines already face a stiff legal challenge, however, another
reflection of tough economic times. This afternoon, Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Linda Giles is
scheduled to hear a lawsuit filed by the Boston-based nonprofit Fathers and Families. The group contends
that the guidelines unfairly burden noncustodial parents financially and were unconstitutionally
implemented by the courts, not the state Legislature. According to the lawsuit, the new guidelines
sometimes double or even triple the support levels previously mandated, causing further stress on
splintered families.
"We do the best we can to make sure that kids at least get the basics," said Carey, defending the current
system. "That's not always easy to do, especially at lower income levels." But, she said, "All of us
understand that when someone loses a job, there's a tendency to crawl into a hole - and they shouldn't.
We want to help them."

Gayle Stone-Turesky, an attorney who worked on the task force, says the group was particularly
concerned with protecting lower-income families. "Even before the economy went south," said Stone-
Turesky, "these people were clearly struggling." According to many divorce lawyers, however, most cases
going to court are being brought by parents seeking lower payments because they've lost their jobs or
face foreclosure on their homes. Those getting regular support "are grateful to be getting it," said attorney
Marylinne Rice. "We're seeing more cases where both sides can't afford" to keep up financially. In the
past, she adds, when someone lost his job, the argument to the court would be, "He's fully employable."
"That's gone by the boards," she said, although courts usually require proof that a litigant has applied for
work on a regular basis.

Divorce attorney Fern Frolin estimates that calls to her office about contempt and modification cases are
running 25 percent above normal. She likens today's economic downturn to the 1980s housing recession,
when divorcing couples were stuck with houses they could not sell. "That was tough, but this year it's not
just housing, it's everything," said Frolin. One example, she says, is the small-business owner whose
backlog of accounts receivable - money owed to the company but uncollected - makes his business
appear healthy on paper, when in fact there's little available cash to divide between parties. "You can't pay
child support with receivables," she noted. "I've never seen that before."

For middle- and upper-income families, another financial pressure point is investment vehicles like
retirement accounts and college-tuition funds, frequently regarded as communal property in divorce
agreements. These funds, normally expected to grow in value, are now being tapped for cash or
decimated by a sinking stock market, say observers like Boston attorney Donald Tye. As a result, he says,
many judges are adjusting court-ordered private-school and college tuition payments to fall more in line
with state-college fees than with those charged by elite prep schools or Ivy League colleges.

Kelley Bothe, a Wellesley psychotherapist who runs support groups for divorced parents, says the
emotional havoc being wreaked on families is palpable. One woman in her group is a stay-at-home mother
suddenly forced into the job market to help support her children. Two fathers are business owners who are
simultaneously coping with a bad business cycle and devastating personal loss. Another is facing
foreclosure on his home. Where children are involved, the anxieties grow even more pronounced. "In any
divorce, people worry about finances," said Bothe, "yet there's often a shared goal to provide for kids in
the way they're used to. But if the income is suddenly compromised, parents wonder, How are we going to
do this and give our kids the lives they've had?"

Beverly attorney Edmund Greene has seen both sides of the child-support issue, legal and personal.
Greene, divorced four years ago with a 5-year old daughter, is petitioning the court to reduce his $360
weekly support payments by half. His private practice has dried up, says Greene, and fully a third of his
income comes from unemployment while he continues to look for full-time work.
Meanwhile, Greene is helping other probate court litigants on a pro-bono basis - including some who are
fighting against proposed court-ordered cuts in the child-support levels they receive. "These people can't
navigate the system by themselves," he says.

For one divorced father of four who requested anonymity because his case hasn't been settled, the
crumbling economy has had consequences beyond the emotional and financial. His $1,400 weekly support
payments, plus additional expenses like health insurance and tuition, had been based on a court judgment
in 2007. The man works for a realty business, and since the real estate market has frozen, his income has
plummeted. Earlier this year he fell $23,000 behind in what he owed, including attorney's fees to his ex-
wife's lawyer. With his modification petition still pending, he was handcuffed in court and put in jail for 30
days. A pretrial hearing on his case is scheduled for May.
"Of the 45 guys I was in jail with," he said, "12 to 14 were probate cases. So I know I'm not alone."

Child-support collections down
By ANDREW WOLFE Staff Writer
awolfe@nashuatelegraph.com

CONCORD – People working for a living may be first to feel the effects of a down economy, but their
children won't be far behind. Child-support collections in New Hampshire have dropped slightly, about 3
percent, comparing the last six months to the same period one year earlier, according to state Department
of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Mary Weatherill. Still more telling of the times, the amount of
money collected from garnishing wages has dropped, while the amount collected from garnishing
unemployment compensation, a relatively small figure, has risen nearly 90 percent, Weatherill said.

Weatherill ran numbers on the Division of Child Support Services collections for the first 24 weeks of the
current federal fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. She also retrieved the same numbers for the first 24 weeks
of the 2008 federal fiscal year, for comparison.The state collects support for roughly 50,000 children in
New Hampshire, from about 35,000 parents, Weatherill said. "Caseload has not changed, and the amount
of kids has not changed," Weatherill said, so the drop in collections means that those children, like so
many adults, must make do with less. The state collected $38,924,860 in child-support payments in the
first 24 weeks of the current fiscal year, Weatherill said. Most of that money came from wages or income
withholdings. Collections from unemployment rose 90 percent, from $135,063 in 24 weeks last year to
$255,269 so far this year. "It's a huge increase when we compare the same time last year," she said,
though it doesn't begin to make up for the $593,000 drop in wage withholding.

The amounts collected from federal tax refunds also increased, from just over $1 million last year to
$1,505,489 this year, about 43 percent, she said, while direct payments made through the division
dropped nearly 14 percent, from $8,237,266 last year to $7,089,632 this year. "It is a trend that we are
experiencing, the effects of the economy on people's ability to keep up with their child-care obligations,"
Weatherill said. "The unemployment situation is directly related to the problem." While some parents are
simply falling behind, others are seeking court orders to reduce their support payments. Staff at
Hillsborough County Superior Court in Nashua said they have seen a sharp increase in the number of
people filing requests to reduce child support payments, either as a result of layoffs or reduced hours and
income.

The court serves Nashua and a dozen surrounding towns. The court used to see about 100 requests to
reopen domestic cases every month. About three months ago, it spiked by about 25 percent, according to
court staff. Cases can be reopened for various reasons, including a change in custody, but requests to
reduce child support are by far the most common, and a loss of job is by far the most common reason, she
said.In January and February of 2008 combined, Court Clerk Marshall Buttrick said, the court received 166
requests to reopen domestic cases, while there were 205 such requests – an increase of about 23 percent
– during the same months this year. Once a request for modification is filed, it takes time to mail out copies
to the other parent, give the other parent time to respond, schedule a hearing and get an order. Delays
are longest in Hillsborough and Cheshire counties, where the courts don't have independent family
divisions, Weatherill said. "There is quite a delay. People are filing for modifications, and they are being
told it will take about five months before they get a hearing" in those two counties, Weatherill said.

Elsewhere in the state, in the family division courts, she said, "Those cases are being heard much quicker
. . . a matter of weeks versus a matter of months in some cases." If a judge agrees to modify a support
order, however, the change typically will be backdated to the time of the request, so it's important that
parents file requests sooner than later if their economic circumstances have changed, Weatherill said.
People who can't afford to pay their child support typically can't afford to hire a lawyer to help reduce it,
which often makes things more difficult, court staff said.

A look at requests to reduce child-support payments
By ANDREW WOLFE Staff Writer
awolfe@nashuatelegraph.com

NASHUA – The Telegraph reviewed a small sample of recently reopened domestic cases in Hillsborough
County Superior Court.

The cases included a Pelham man, whose request to reduce his $150 weekly support payment was
dismissed because he apparently had failed to arrange for the child's mother to be served notice of his
request. The man lived with his mother, and paid $150 a week in support while working for a lawn-care
company, even during a time when he had custody of his son, court records show. He filed to reduce his
support after being laid off in December, and then filed again after the court dismissed his request on
March 9, court records show.Requests to reduce support are routinely dismissed for such failures to follow
court procedure. In 2005, the state ordered a 28-year-old Chichester man to pay $85 a week to support
his 3-year-old daughter, whose mother, a 27-year-old Nashua woman, was on welfare. In 2007, the man's
request to reduce his support payment was dismissed for lack of notice to the mother, despite the fact that
his daughter was then living with the man, who was unemployed and on welfare himself. On March 9, he
renewed his request. Some cases seem less sympathetic than others. On March 23, for instance, a
Hudson man who had two more children despite having trouble supporting his firstborn, sought to suspend
his $50 weekly payments for the eldest child, which he hadn't been making anyway.

Other examples found include:

A Wilton man who divorced in 1996 has been paying $250 a week to support his two teenaged sons, whom
his ex-wife moved to New York. On March 16, he filed a request to reduce his payments, saying that he'd
been laid off from his job at a Tyngsborough, Mass., machine shop. He had been making more than
$5,000 a month in gross pay, but now he is waiting for unemployment payments, the man stated. When he
called to talk with his ex-wife about the situation, she hung up on him, he wrote. His request hadn't yet
been scheduled for a hearing.

On the same day, in the same court, a Manchester man filed a request to reduce his court-ordered $100
weekly child support payment for his 10-year-old son in Texas."I've been out of work for 10 months, my
unemployment benefits have run out. As soon as I find work I resume my payments I always have paid in
the past," he wrote. "I just have no income and I ask the court not to incarcerate me for non payment
please allow me to keep searching for employment."

A Litchfield man who made more than $5,800 a month working for a high-tech company in Westford,
Mass., at the time of his divorce in 2006 had fallen more than $10,000 behind in support for his two
children by the time he filed a request to reduce his $337 weekly payment, court records show. He was laid
off in March 2008, but didn't file to reduce his support until March 20, writing, "I earn less, economy is poor,
I need retraining and cannot afford it, I am homeless and unemployed."

A Greenville man who lost his job at a Hudson plastics company filed to reduce his $187 weekly payment
for two children on March 19, writing that he had to get by on unemployment and $337 a month from the
military.