[nmo11]

I am a father who was recently awarded residential custodian of my two children. Since then, I have also been award child support from their mother. In an effort to pay me minimal retroactive child support, she has brought to the courts attention that she has accumulated previous medical bills of which she would like me to pay half of. From mentioning this, she has delayed the retroactive portion of the child support order until mediation occurs. My question is this: will I have to pay half of uncovered medical expenses that occurred while we were together almost 11 years ago? She wants me to pay half of our second child's birthing expenses. We had two children together; the first one was born while we were on welfare and the second was born after she received a large sum of money for a previous lawsuit and didn't have insurance so the we had to pay lots of medical bills for the second child. She has never tried to collect half of these expenses previously and we have been separated for over four years. The only reason she is trying to collect on this now is because she owes me money - do you think that the court will recognize that?

[ScottGem]

If you had expenses while you were married and she paid those expenses out of a settlement then I doubt if the court would consider you responsible for them. That settlement would probably be considered comingled funds. On the other hand, if you had expenses paid while on welfare, its possible that the state will want to recoup some of those.

[nmo11]

Sorry. We were never married and she paid for the doctor visits and such with her settlement money since I was working in a factory making a little over mimium wage. We did have a joint account in which all of our bills were paid out of. I believe she paid all the bills either by cash or check (from out account) so can she say I didn't help pay? Also, if we were on welfare with the first child and incurred no out of pocket expenses at the time because she did not work and I was still working at the factory for a little over mimium wage, could the state try to recoup money from us after the fact?

[ScottGem]

Yes the state can try to recover money they laid out to support you after the fact.

Since you weren't married and she paid expenses, there is the possibility the courts might consider you owe her.