Thirteen years after his youngest son turned 18, and after 13 contempt motions and four contempt findings, Mr. B was finally forced to pay off more than $30,000 in back child support. According to his personal injury lawyer, Mr. B had been living in a shack in south central Kentucky near Lake Cumberland since at least 2005. He had fallen off some scaffolding while working in Cincinnati in 2005 and, according to his lawyer, was completely unable to work or support himself, much less make good on his long delinquent support obligations.
Mr. B had three children and since his divorce in 1988, was supposed to be paying $500 per month towards current and past support for all three children. Even during the kids' minority, which ended for the youngest in 1995, Mr. B was not a perfect payor: CSE had to file six contempt motions during that time.
Things went from bad to worse in 1999 when regular wage assignment payments stopped. In 2000 and 2001, workers comp. paid about one-half of Mr. B's monthly obligations. In November 2002, Mrs. B received the last money she would receive on the case for five years: the disbursement was $11.90.
In 2007, the former Mrs. B called Clermont County CSE investigator Judy Taylor. It seemed that Mr. B had let slip to one of the (now adult) children that he would be coming into a big chunk of money. With only this slim clue, Judy began searching various court dockets in Southeast Ohio and northern Kentucky. Lo and behold, Mr. B had a claim against ABC Company in the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas. His Complaint, filed by a very reputable downtown Cincinnati law firm, alleged that scaffolding supplied by Mr. B's employer ABC Co. had collapsed on the job, causing Mr. B to fall and seriously injure himself.
"How seriously?," wondered CSE staff attorney Edward Santen. A call to Mr. B's blue chip injury lawyer was unsatisfactory. The lawyer was unwilling to disclose the amount of the claim, and would only say that the case was due to go to mediation in a few weeks. Moreover, said the lawyer, Mr. B did not believe he owed $30,000 in back support. Rather, Mr. B was claiming that he had paid child support through the State of Kentucky for several years.
"Would CSE take less than the $30,000?" asked Mr. B's lawyer. After discussion, negotiation, threats of a Rule 75 Domestic Relations Temporary Restraining Order and a complete failure by Mr. B to provide any proof of support payments through the state of Kentucky, it became apparent that Mr. B stood to get far more than $30,000 out of his injury case, even after his lawyer received his contingency fee.
So the answer was, "No;" CSE would not accept less than the entire arrearage owed, even though about $12,000 of that was owed to the State of Ohio. About this time, the former Mrs. B started complaining that $30,000 wasn't enough. She thought CSE had under calculated the arrearage. An audit revealed that the exact amount due in total was $30,848.09, and that was sufficient to silence both of the parties and Mr. B's attorney.
On August 7, 2007, Mr. B settled his injury claim for a confidential amount which was likely in excess of $150,000. On September 5, 2007, CSE received a check on Mr. B's blue chip law firms account in the exact amount of the back support due: $30,848.09. CSE promptly forwarded the check to Payment Central in Columbus and Columbus promptly refused to accept it! It seems that checks over $25,000 cannot be accepted. If only we had that problem more often. Happily, Mr. B's attorneys were happy to take their check back and issue two new ones, each for one-half of the amount due.