Legal Question in Family Law in Oregon

Child support debt

My father divorced my mother in 1969... We lived in Ma. There were three children in this marriage. In 1970 my fahter remarried moved out of Ma with an unknown residence. A court order for child support was filed but he was never located. In 1993 we found him in Oregon. Recently he died leaving his entire estate in a special needs trust for a girlfriend. Is it possible to collect unpaid child support from this trust by children or an ex-spouse considering time and age of children which are in their thirties.


Asked on 9/12/99, 6:05 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Barbara C. Johnson Law Office of Barbara C. Johnson

Re: Child support debt

Maybe. I had a similar case. That mother, whose children were emancipated, was able to collect, or I should say that she is collecting payments monthly and will do so for years. With interest, the money was huge. The premise is that each payment due is in effect a

judgment . . . and each judgment is good for

20 years from the date it was originally due. In Massachusetts, statutory interest at 12 percent is added to the amount due. Loads of cases backing that up . . . including the case I won for that woman.

In your case, the difficulty would be

that the early support payments are almost 30

years old. So the questions become, How old were the children in 1969? And

when was the last child emancipated

(18 if no college fulltime and possibly 23 if a

child went to college fulltime after graduating

high school).

See my site: http://falseallegations.com/emancipa.htm

Laches also does not apply to

child-support payments. Your mom would be the

plaintiff.

See my brief at

http://falseallegations.com/laches.htm

That's the appellate brief I wrote in the case after the

ex-husband appealed from the judgment against him in Probate and Family Court.

Also, how large was the estate? Was there a Will?

Where is it being probated? The trust itself

is not a probatable asset, but if it was a

pourover trust, there may be something which can

be done. Did you file a claim against his estate? Did you receive actual notice of the claim period?

If you didn't, you likely have another avenue of attack. It might still not be too late if certain statutory

procedures have not been followed. (I won one of those in Florida.)

If you are still in Massachusetts, give me a call.

Read more
Answered on 9/14/99, 6:15 pm


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