Comments on: May 4 roundup

By: Owen

Owen — Sun, 08 May 2016 20:40:48 +0000

The henry paisch story is quite slanted. Im no fan of child support or family court. Sure its for children that live with him or aged out but most likely he refused to pay his back support from before when they didnt live with him.
Im sure (ok im leaning towrd thinking) he has the ability to pay but refuses to.
Plus hes refusing to pay alimony too.

By: MattS

MattS — Wed, 04 May 2016 17:24:35 +0000

In reply to Hans Bader. Yes, the state of child support guidelines/laws is bad, but the case of Henry Peisch is even worse than that. All but one of the kids is either an adult or in his custody, and the courts still won't reduce his support payments. Oh, and the one child still living with mom has made repeated requests to the court to be transferred to dad's custody.

By: Hans Bader

Hans Bader — Wed, 04 May 2016 13:51:44 +0000

Thanks for highlighting the Bergen County cases denying the right to counsel before jailing people over unpayable, excess child support debts.

This is not an uncommon phenomenon in other states as well, as I explained at this link:

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/hans-bader/new-jersey-father-jailed-non-payment-support-kids-he-supports-and-lives

Partly this reflects defective state child support guidelines, which result in excessive child support obligations for many non-custodial parents that have beggared hundreds of thousands of non-custodial parents. (Unpayable child support cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, and thousands of fathers now are in the modern equivalent of debtor’s prison).