Dad Overpays Outstanding Child Support And Still Winds Up In Jail

[bonnie]

Dad Overpays Outstanding Child Support And Still Winds Up In Jail

News One

Jan 6, 2014 By Ruth Manuel-Logan

Clifford Hall is certainly no deadbeat dad, yet he was slapped with a 180-day sentence for overpaying his child support, reports My Fox Houston.

According to family court documents, Hall was reportedly delinquent on his child support payments, owing some $3,000 for his 11-year-old son. Yet, the dutiful dad had actually been meeting his obligation as the payments were being withheld by his employer.

The original child support agreement Hall had with his unidentified ex was somehow modified and no one bothered to tell him. Hall’s employer deducted child support payments from his check that, according to his attorney Tyesha Elam, were all over the place.

“I discovered for some reason his employer was withholding a large amount some weeks, a small amount some weeks, a zero amount some weeks.”

When Hall and his ex stood before Judge Lisa Millard’s court last November, he was informed twice that he owed his ex no monies.

However, Hall’s ex wife’s attorney argued that his client wanted him to pay her $3,000 legal tab and the judge agreed. According to the court papers, Hall was also being accused of failing to follow the visitation agreement that had been put in place. Hall also claims that the visitation had also been modified, again, without his knowledge.

Judge Millard wound up sentencing Hall to six months in jail.

Hall told My Fox Houston, “When she said ‘I remand you to the Harris County Jail for 180 days’ my mouth just dropped. I can’t be there for my son in jail. I can’t pay child support in jail. This is not in the best interest of the child.”

Now Quanell X, who is a community activist, has involved himself in Hall’s case and is demanding that the state’s judicial board investigate this travesty of justice. “The court failed the child,” he told My Fox Houston. “The court failed Mr. Hall. The system broke down.”

Judge Millard says that a motion of reconsideration could have been filed which would have allowed her to hear both Hall and his ex wife’s arguments again.

Meanwhile Hall, who must turn himself in to begin serving his 180-day sentence in a few days, is having his attorney appeal the case.

[LifeHiscost]

Doesn't surprise me in the least from a population of "civil" servants that considers that which God calls abominable just another lifestyle.

God cares! Jesus saves!

[Gregory Matthews]

Well, I am going to have to comment on the several factors that I see going on in this case:

1) I was professionally involved with a woman who was in a nasty divorce case. She had been ordered to obtain a loan on a home she jointly owned with here soon to be ex-husband and to use the proceeds from that loan to pay him his ownership share. She was sent to jail, for 60 days, for a failure to complete the loan process (one attempted loan had been refused) by the time of the next court date. The judge sent her to jail, as a single parent. This did not help the child. The loan had to wait until she got out of jail, which she obtained and paid him off.

2) There are some things of interest as Bonnie has posted the story above:

a) Courts will often award legal fees to the prevailing party.

It looks like the man was held responsible for the legal fees not for child support.

c) The man should have known when no money was withheld from his pay that his ex-wife was not being paid what she was required to pay her.

d) In litigation, each party is required to provide a contact point where they can receive documents. Orders from the Court are mailed to that contact point. If revisions in the orders were mailed to that contact point the expectation is that the party will have received them. If the party does not accept the document, the party is still responsible for their content.