I have a court order for $500/month but my son's father stopped paying about 3 years ago. I live in California and CSS has been of no help. I must provide them with his employer as he claims he is unemployed yet his benefits were denied. I suspect he is getting paid under the table. I was getting by but I just lost my job, what is my next step?

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Originally Posted by zoey27

I have a court order for $500/month but my son's father stopped paying about 3 years ago. I live in California and CSS has been of no help. I must provide them with his employer as he claims he is unemployed yet his benefits were denied. I suspect he is getting paid under the table. I was getting by but I just lost my job, what is my next step?

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Go back to Court with your evidence (not just your suspicions) and ask that he be held in contempt for failure to pay court ordered support.

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Originally Posted by zoey27

I have a court order for $500/month but my son's father stopped paying about 3 years ago. I live in California and CSS has been of no help. I must provide them with his employer as he claims he is unemployed yet his benefits were denied. I suspect he is getting paid under the table. I was getting by but I just lost my job, what is my next step?

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Yours is a difficult but unfortunately not uncommon situation.

You can try a contempt if you want. If the court will issue the OSC dad will just defend by saying he has no job and no ability to pay. So a contempt might not go anywhere (any proof he has income, assets?).

I usually advise that people let DCSS do its thing. If you've assigned the case to them for collection its in their hands anyway until you take the case back. Ask DCSS if they can pull his drivers license or any professional license (contractor's for example) he might have.

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Originally Posted by cadillac59

Yours is a difficult but unfortunately not uncommon situation.

You can try a contempt if you want. If the court will issue the OSC dad will just defend by saying he has no job and no ability to pay. So a contempt might not go anywhere (any proof he has income, assets?).

I usually advise that people let DCSS do its thing. If you've assigned the case to them for collection its in their hands anyway until you take the case back. Ask DCSS if they can pull his drivers license or any professional license (contractor's for example) he might have.

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Doesn't California jail a parent who doesn't pay the Court-ordered support? Of course, they can't pay support while they're in jail but in NY it gives the parent some encouragement to find a job and pay the support when they get out.

Yeah, California does jail people for not paying child support sometimes; but, I think those cases are more the exception than the norm.

I know the guy in our county who runs the DCSS office and he's put deadbeat dads in jail before. But it seems like those cases are maybe under 10% of all cases involving non-support/delinquent support. You have to really know how to put together a criminal case to get a conviction, and I would imagine you'd have to have some fairly egregious facts. The average lady who's not getting her support paid just isn't going to get DCSS to pursue a criminal case.