Legal Question in Family Law in Illinois

Can we be held in contempt if not ordered to pay?

We just received filed papers on a Child Support Modification which we agreed upon. Order states we are to pay additional amount effective ''upon said entry by Judge''. No where does it state the date it was filed or that we are to pay from that date. We all signed-has been signed by a judge and filed. Now the attorney states we owe her(mother) the amount for 4 or 5 weeks prior to the order ''in good faith'' because they thought we were going to start paying it earlier. We never even discussed this- let alone agreed to it. Do we legally owe this money? Attorney told us if we do not pay it he will take us to court (Right to show cause) and it will cost us more than that to ''fight them off''. Thanks you for any help in advance.


Asked on 1/04/01, 9:18 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Tiziana Ventimiglia Tiziana Ventimiglia, Attorney at Law

Re: Can we be held in contempt if not ordered to pay?

I have a feeling that there is a little more to know about your situation... however, you are only obliged to do what the court order says... if the order does not reflect what you really agreed upon then it is a totally different issue and you may have to go to court to litigate this particular issue. I advise you to read the order very carefully to see if indeed it does not state a date from which payments should start. I know that you quoted language from the order that appears to say that you do not have to start paying until the order is entered, however, I look for other ambiguous language in the order that might be interpreted differently. If no such language exist then you are fine, you do not have to pay. However, they can still take you to court to enforce another "verbal agreement" that you may have had in the past, such agreement being totally different and SEPARATE from the contents of the latest order. It would be difficult to win for them... but they might try it. Good luck.

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Answered on 1/05/01, 10:04 am


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