Some Pennsylvania custodial parents know it can be extremely frustrating dealing with matters of child support. Sometimes the ex does not comply with a court order to pay, and sometimes the court will not consider the heartfelt plea to reexamine a previous ruling. That is what happened to one mother who asked a panel to review an earlier child support decision.
When the woman and her husband divorced five years ago, the judge presiding over their child support case ruled that the husband did not have to pay child support for a period of time because changes in the man’s salary had taken a turn for the worse. After three years, the woman returned to court with the same presiding judge and asked him to reevaluate her ex-husband’s finances and order him to begin paying child support. Although the father’s salary was nearly twice what it had been at the time of the initial ruling, the judge declared that, were the mother working a full-time job instead of part-time, the salary she would be earning would be almost as much as that of her ex, and therefore there was not enough difference to overturn his previous decision.
The mother appealed the judge’s decision, and the panel found her to be in the right. They observed that the lower court did not take into consideration a comprehensive account of the financial circumstances of both parents and the changes that had occurred in the three-year time span. They reversed the lower court’s decision with a directive of an adjustment to the amount of child support to be paid by the father.
There are child support cases that must continually be brought before the court for numerous reasons, such as a change in income. Because it can be difficult to navigate the laws for an effective presentation in court, the expertise of an attorney is highly recommended. In the efforts for a favorable outcome, there are attorneys who will advise a client according to the regulations of the state of Pennsylvania.
