Friend of the Court issues

Dec 16 16:55 UTC 1998

We have some issues with the Livingston County Friend of the Court.  
These aren't earth shattering,life and death issues, but they're 
persistent and annoying, and so I thought I'd seek some input.

My wife is divorced, and has custody of her 7 year old son.  His father 
is supposed to pay child support, which is supposed to be withheld from 
his wages.  He says the money is being withheld, but we're not getting 
it.  He's changed jobs twice in the last year; each change has brought a 
couple months of delay in our receiving the child support check.

My wife wrote to the Friend of the Court once again, asking where the 
money is.  I haven't seen the letter she got back, but she read parts of 
it to me, and it sounds like they've tried calling the ex-husband's 
employer's payroll office (located in Houston), had trouble getting 
information from them, and wrote back to us saying something along the 
lines of "Well, we tried, but they were hard to deal with, so we can't 
get the information you requested".  My wife had a similar experience 
writing to request information about missing child support checks over 
the summer.  Friend of the Court made a half-hearted attempt to check 
into what the problem was when they weren't receiving money, and wrote 
back to us, saying "We tried, but they weren't cooperative enough and so 
we didn't get any information."

My wife also asked by phone for an accounting of the checks they record 
her as being sent.  This was so she could determine how many she's 
behind, and whether any are supposed to have been sent but just were not 
received.  She was told they'd send an account listing right away.  
Since then she's written them a letter and gotten a response back, so 
obviously they didn't send the information "right away".

There have been similar problems with Friend of the Court since we got 
married 3 years ago.  I've pressed for my wife to demand information, go 
to court if she has to and ask for their help, or even sue, but she's 
not willing to do that.  She fears retribution.  Maybe if her ex-husband 
tried to get custody from her, the Friend of the Court would help him 
by saying she's difficult to work with, or something.  I think that's an 
unlikely situation, and that she'd have a backlog of years of 
documentation showing all the trouble she's had getting her money, and 
all the effort she's made.  (She does keep the letters she sends.)  But 
it's her kid, and her decision, and if anything like that did happen, it 
would be pretty awful.

The father is a decent enough guy, hard as it is for someone in my 
position to say that about an ex-husband.  (I can hardly be 
expected to like him much, or him me.)  Anyway, this isn't an issue with 
him; it shouldn't have anything to do with him as long as he's working.  
(The money is withheld; he never sees it or touches it.)

It's not a lot of money.  We are not dependent on it.  If it never 
comes, or comes 4 months late, we'll get by; we're not missing any meals 
or rent payments.  It is very annoying and frustrating.  

My issue for today is: how does one go about holding the Friend of the 
Court accountable?  Everyone who has dealt with the Friend of the Court 
has had many frustrating experiences, but has anyone ever managed to get 
a problem resolved with them?  Do you have to sue over matters such as 
this?  *Can* you sue?  Is there really a risk of retaliation if you try 
to resolve a problem?  Is the Friend of the Court overwhelmed with 
difficult and important cases, from people who have to have some help or 
have severe consequences, or is it reasonable to expect responsiveness 
and helpfulness from them?

Thanks for any comments!

response 2 of 28:

Dec 16 18:40 UTC 1998

Why aren't you challenging that, Misti?  The Friend of the Court should 
at the least be accounting to you for the money.

response 4 of 28:

Dec 17 04:24 UTC 1998

My impression is that avoiding Friend of the Court is very desirable, but
that it requires good planning and lawyer work BEFORE you get a (friendly)
divorce.  A friendly judge might be able to help you get rid of them, but
i wouldn't count on it.

response 6 of 28:

Dec 18 01:06 UTC 1998

Jep, that last comment is telling.

It's very possible for two people to no longer want to be married yet
continue to behave like responsible adults.

response 8 of 28:

Dec 18 01:54 UTC 1998

Rare, but i've seen it.  Though i'd judge such arrangements to be far
more likely if it was both partner's second divorce (or they'd otherwise
had really-sunk-in experience with how bad Friend of the Court can be).

response 10 of 28:

Dec 19 02:08 UTC 1998

Kids can have a great home and family and yet have divorced
parents.  Geez, you guys only know some pretty sad excuses
for parents.

response 12 of 28:

Dec 19 04:36 UTC 1998

I know some *much* healthier *friends* who raise their kids in two houses,
and some really unhappy and unhealthy "partners" whose kids became less
stressed out once the parents split, even though the adults are still not
quite happy about it.  When I was little, I bought my parents' line that
divorce was for really extreme cases (abuse, severe mental illness, etc.) but
in retrospect, I'd sooner have had the model of two healthy people going their
own ways, than have watched them tearing at one another with only me to keep
them "together".  Oh well.

response 14 of 28:

Dec 22 18:33 UTC 1998

I'll stand by #9.  I've seen very close up the effects of a split family 
on the kid.  I've heard my stepson (age 7) cry himself to sleep because 
he can't have his dad with him.

response 16 of 28:

Dec 23 01:29 UTC 1998

In a world where no one is allowed to get married (or pregnant) before the
age of 35 and no one is allowed to marry anyone unless they've known them for
at least 10 years and lived with them for at least 3, it might be possible
to guarantee the outcome of marriage.

Meanwhile people will make mistakes.  Sometimes very serious ones.

response 18 of 28:

Jan 19 15:10 UTC 1999

Our issue with the FoC is that we don't have any idea how much they've 
received, or when they received it.  We've asked for such information, 
but never been able to get it.  We just know my wife doesn't get checks 
very regularly; she's supposed to get weekly checks, but they are 
currently several weeks behind, and we've been told nothing about what 
will be done to bring the account up to date.

Also, my wife is worried that if she pushes too aggressively for 
information and results, the Foc could become biased against her in the 
event of future custody disputes.  Does that ever really happen, Aaron?  
(You'd probably know better than anyone else I know!)

response 20 of 28:

Jan 20 14:25 UTC 1999

According to the Ann Arbor News, Livingston County has a citizen's 
oversight committee for the Friend of the Court.  (Each county is 
required to have one by state law, but most counties, in fact, do 
not.)

Also according to the AA News, the committee in Livingston doesn't even 
have the ability to see records, and so they have no power or 
capabilities at all.  Sigh.  I was excited when I saw the article in 
yesterday's paper, talking about an oversight committee for Washtenaw, 
but the details proved to be very discouraging.

The article is on-line at:
http://aa.mlive.com/news/index.ssf?/news/stories/focourt.frm

I'm afraid I don't have much sympathy for Livingston County Friend of 
the Court.  If we were dependent on them doing their job so we could pay 
the rent, we'd be in the street.  And some people are in exactly that 
position.

response 22 of 28:

Dec 5 03:08 UTC 2003

I have had scarce dealings with the FoC up to this point.  I had a 
dispute with my ex, and tried calling them to ask for help.  Then 
called again, and again... I kept a log of my various calls.  I sent 
them two letters.  I sent them a fax.  I never got calls back or any 
response.  That's when I went in to discuss the dispute with them.  My 
case worker knew about all of my attempts to communicate with him, but 
they'd been exceedingly busy, and you know how it goes.

I understood his position.  His job isn't all that much different from 
my own doing customer support.  Things get too busy to handle it all, 
so you do your best to prioritize, and things down the list never get 
dealt with.  They never will.  I've been through that myself from the 
other end.  When you're in customer support -- including his type of 
support -- whatever you're dealing with is more important to the other 
person than it is to you.

Very educational for me.  Not very helpful, though.

I was polite and respectful and made sure he'd remember me as not 
being unpleasant, and I went on my way.  I was (and remain) glad it 
wasn't life or death.  I try to keep in mind that maybe it *is* for 
someone else.  Hopefully he will help them.

response 24 of 28:

Dec 6 00:25 UTC 2003

it has precedent...


/points at ----------> IRS