TN Dad With 71 Cents Can’t Be Jailed For Failing to Pay $150 Child Support
Tennessee child support collection case summary.
State of Tennessee ex rel. Judy Johnson v. Harold Newman, Jr.
The State of Tennessee brought this child support collection action against the father in Roane County, Tennessee. The father had been ordered to pay $264 per month in current child support, as well as $109.50 to cover arrearages, and the state alleged that he had not been paying. The trial court found him in contempt for failing to pay, and ordered him jailed until he could come up with $150 to purge himself of the contempt.
The father appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals, and argued that there had been no evidence presented that he had the present ability to pay the $150.
The appeals court first noted that the remedy of civil contempt was designed so that the contemnor “carries the keys to the prison in his own pocket,” in that he can get himself released at any time by complying with the order. But if he shows that he has no ability to pay, then the burden of proof shifts to the other party to show that he does, indeed, have the ability to pay.
In this case, the father had testified that he had been unemployed for months and was unable to pay his child support. He lived without rent in an outbuilding on a sister’s property and had no rent. He had just landed a job at the Waffle House, but he was arrested before he could start work. At the time of his arrest, his net worth consisted of the 71 cents he had in his pocket.
The appeals court agreed with the father that he had established inability to pay the $150, and that the other party had not come up with evidence to the contrary. Under those circumstances, jailing him for civil contempt was improper, since he did not have the keys to the prison (namely, $150) in his pocket.
For this reason, the Court of Appeals reversed the finding of civil contempt, while affirming the remainder of the lower court’s order.
No. E2014-02510-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Sep. 23, 2015).
See original opinion for exact language. Legal citations omitted.
To learn more, see Child Support Collection & Enforcement in Tennessee.
See also Tennessee Parenting Plans and Child Support Worksheets: Building a Constructive Future for Your Family featuring actual examples of parenting plans and child support worksheets from real cases available on Amazon.com.
