Legal Question in Family Law in Minnesota

Re: changes in state of mn, hennepin county child support law

As you are already aware, the law has changed, effective January 2007. Under the new law, the income of both parties is taken into consideration in calculating child support. Your question does not provide quite enough detail, so several assumptions must be made.

First, assuming you are already divorced and have an existing child support obligation, the receipt of an injury settlement is largely irrelevant if (and I emphasize, if) your child support obligation is current and you are not in arrears.

If you have an arrearage, your settlement can be attached for the payment of child support. That is true regardless of any changes in the child support law.

If you received a settlement because of an injury affecting your ability to work, you may want to consider bringing a motion to modify child support. If you have arrears, some or all of your settlement may be attached, but your ongoing obligation could be reduced.

Second, if you are not yet divorced, child support is calculated based on your income. Some part of an injury settlement may be marital property (the portion attributable to lost wages, certainly), but it is not your income for the purpose of calculating support.

Re: changes in state of mn, hennepin county child support law

A personal injury settlement is not marital property. However,it can be considered when determining a child support award. Although child support is generally based on income, the statute allows the court to consider "all financial resources" of either party. As a result, it can be considered. Whether it has any impact will depend largely on whether you are working full time so that full guideline child support can be calculated.

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