Legal Question in Family Law in California
spousal support and incarceration
My divorce became final in 98. We had joint custody and my husband had been paying me spousal support and Child support.Then I made bad choices and went to prison for 2 years. While I was there, my ex had our children put into his custody. This was ok, I couldn't do anything anyway. I was served papers regarding this. Now my ex won't give me any money and claims he doesn't have to. I discovered he had legally had my spousal support stopped because of where I was and now I have been informed that I cannot have this changed. I never received any papers informing me of this. Is there anything I can do to get the spousal support reinstated? The kids are over 18 now, so there is no child custody crap. I have been out of prison since July of 99 and I am having a very difficult time finding a job with a felony conviction and bad credit for myself. My life is very difficult and I need the money. What can I do?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: spousal support and incarceration
Given the information you have supplied, it is not possible to give you an answer. You need to have all underlying court documents reviewed by an experienced family law lawyer.
I suggest that you consult with an experienced family law lawyer immediately, and take a copy of the court file with you. Experience is not expensive, it's priceless!
You will find some valuable information on various family law issues at my web site.
Good luck to you!
Brian Levy, Esq.
www.calattorney.com
Re: spousal support and incarceration
If you never received any notices of the proceedings, and particularly the original petition for modification, while you were in prison, the modification order might not be valid. It was the responsibility of him and his attorney to see that all such papers were served on you. In that case, you could file a petition to have the modified judgment vacated and the previous one reinstated.
However, if you were at least served with the initial modification petition and simply ignored it, you might not have been entitled to further notices and the judgment might then be valid. The modification petition would have had to include a request to modify spousal support for that to have been ordered. If you missed that and didn't read it carefully, you could be out of luck. However, you might still be able to go back to court and try to get it reinstated going forward, now that you are out of prison, but it will be in the discretion of the court, based on the equities. Under those circumstances, it probably wouldn't reinstate it retroactively.
If your husband affirmatively misrepresented his intentions regarding spousal support and you reasonably relied in not attempting to respond or contest, you might be able to either sue him for fraud, or use that as grounds to vacate the new order and reinstate the prior, or re-modify it. If the original spousal support order was part of a settlement agreement, your chances of a retroactive reinstatement will be better.
As Mr. Levy stated, you really need to see a lawyer right away to review the entire file on both the original and modified orders.
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