Setback for Enforcement : Prosecutors May Appeal Ruling on Child Support

Orange County prosecutors said Friday they may seek a U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing courts to hold parents in contempt of court for refusing to pay child support.

Until May, a spouse who ignored a court order to pay child support could be held in contempt, unless the spouse could prove inability to pay. But then the state appellate court in Santa Ana ruled that prosecutors must prove the spouse can pay, often an impossible task in the case of the self-employed. The state Supreme Court refused Thursday to review that ruling.

Negative Impact Cited

Assistant Atty. Gen. Cynthia Besemer said Friday the high court’s decision was “of major concern to all district attorneys in California. It definitely has a negative impact on enforcement of child support across California.” Besemer is statewide coordinator for the attorney general’s child-support unit.

E. Thomas Dunn Jr., an Orange County deputy district attorney, said five to 10 child-support cases a week involve self-employed parents, whose former spouses often have no alternative to welfare if child support is not paid.

“It means I can toss their files away,” Dunn said. “There’s nothing I can do for them.”

Besemer called those cases “very difficult. The self-employed spouses are the only ones who have access to information on their earnings.” And they cannot be forced to testify, she said.

The case the Supreme Court refused to review involved Philip William Feiock, 43, an Orange County resident who divorced his wife, Alta Sue, in 1976.

Prosecutors obtained a court order in 1984 directing Feiock to make monthly child-support payments of $150 for his three children, Douglas, 16, Robert, 14, and Jennifer, 13.

When Feiock failed to make payments for six months, prosecutors asked that he be held in contempt of court, and the appeal followed.

Prosecutors said the threat of jail is sometimes the only lever they have to convince non-paying spouses to meet their obligations. Besemer said it is often a last resort.

“You don’t want somebody to lose their job,” Besemer said. “You want them to maintain their job and pay. But sometimes, jail is the only way.”