Legal Question in Family Law in Massachusetts

illegal child support order

mass, norfolk county probate court

father filed for divorce and custody of minor children (3 & 4 girls). father has proven neglect by mother to children, court gave dss legal custody and dss placed the children in the fathers home, for over a year now. mother to have visitation. now the court has ordered father to pay child support to the mother, mother only has visitation, my attorney says that i am getting screwed and it is not right, courts favor the mother, i need help in finding case laws on this ie: illegal child custody or any other help that you can provide to me. thank you very much for your cooperation,


Asked on 10/23/00, 10:50 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

Barbara C. Johnson Law Office of Barbara C. Johnson

Re: illegal child support order

I'm going to guess that you might be

paying spousal and not child support. I'm also

going to guess that mom isn't working and the court

doesn't want her to be financially dependent on

the state. And I'm going to guess that you showed

mom to be so dysfunctional that you gave her an excuse

for not working and the court an excuse for saddling

you with support payments.

We see this when a spouse -- more often the hubby --

comes in and says I want

to force him or her to be mentally examined.

Then when the spouse is certifiable, the scenario I just described takes place: she gets a loooong vacation and he gets to make out a looooong check.

The Boomerang syndrome. Throw it out there and it comes back and hits you.

To avoid the boomerang, you and your lawyer must

be extremely careful how the situation is

presented to the court. This takes skill both

in writing pleadings, making arguments of law

and fact to the court, the ability to put the

right spin on the facts.

This is not the time to say, See, I told you you were nuts.

Which judge?

Please let me know if events are NOT as I've described.

Thanks.

Read more
Answered on 11/15/00, 11:01 am


Related Questions & Answers

More Family Law, Divorce, Child Custody and Adoption questions and answers in Massachusetts