Father files suit alleging misconduct in child support process
A man is suing his former girlfriend’s new boyfriend, alleging that together with his ex, the other man conspired to conceal her financial situation from the court during a child support proceeding. The proceeding ended in an unusually high award for the mother of the child, who is now 5-years-old.
The complaint gets into some complex parts of both tax law and the way that courts evaluate assets for child support purposes. Essentially, the woman’s ex is claiming that the two created a plan to avoid both tax liability and the appearance of having a source of financial support in order to claim that she needed a larger amount of child support.
The interesting part of these allegations is that if the woman had simply received gifts from her new partner, that does not necessarily equate to sustainable income that could be used to support her child with her ex. Furthermore, it is not the role of the non-parent boyfriend to financially support the child in the eyes of the court.
In fact, the suit does not even name his former girlfriend as a defendant, but does disparage her dating history as a part of his argument that she asked for more money than she needed, alleging that she always has a different millionaire boyfriend to support her. Again, this is a questionable argument since it is the job of the actual parents, not various boyfriends of the mother, to support a child.
It is important to remember that child support is awarded to help the child maintain the standard of living that they had when their parents were together or if they were supported in an equitable manner by each parent. This means that the amount that a child “needs” will be very different from case to case, given the different lifestyles of the people involved.
Source: The New York Times, “Millionaires Clash Over Socialite’s Child Support Claims” Peter Lattman, April 26, 2013
More information about the factors involved in determining child support can be found on our Las Vegas divorce site.
