F&F: Appeal Court Reverses Judge Who Manhandled Dad in Child Support Case

Article here. Excerpt:

'When the Office of Child Support Enforcement tells us that 63% of those behind on paying their support obligations are the poorest of the poor – those who report earnings of less than $10,000 – it comes as no surprise. Of course it’s the poor who fall behind and who can’t afford a lawyer to go to court to try to modify the order. In fact, that’s so much to be expected that it’s a surprise when the guy fighting for his life was once pretty well off and who has the education to fight the system.

That looks to be the case described in OC Judge Reversed For Cruel Treatment of Ex-Husband in Child Support Case (OC Weekly, 12/30/11).

It seems that James Lockington was doing fairly well for himself before the housing bubble burst. He was a home-building executive in California who, when his divorce was finalized, was making almost $15,000 a month. That’s not fabulous wealth, but it’s a good income. His ex-wife Tricia was bringing in about half that, so his monthly child support obligation was set at $2,074. Fair enough.
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As it turns out, that’s a concept the Office of Child Support Enforcement has been trying to get family courts to heed for many years now. The OCSE has encouraged judges to pay attention to the basic idea, “don’t order more than the non-custodial parent can pay,” but the federal government encourages the opposite. Because it pays states for child support collected, the obvious reaction is to order child support levels as high as possible. After all, if you don’t order it, he certainly won’t pay it and if you do, maybe he will.

I’m sure Kreber understood the law perfectly well; he was just doing his part to get as much money from Washington for the Golden State as possible, and what matter if a few fathers get driven into the street as a consequence?'