Child Support Enforcement - Sarpy County Nebraska
Child Support Enforcement - Sarpy County Nebraska
Child Support Enforcement - Sarpy County Nebraska
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See Smeal Fire Apparatus Co. v. Kreikemeier (Smeal II), 279 Neb. 661, 782 N.W.2d 848<br />
(April 2010) for a reversal of caselaw regarding civil contempt orders.<br />
When a commitment to jail is utilized as a coercive sanction in a civil contempt<br />
proceeding involving willful and contumacious failure to pay child support, a court<br />
may sentence the contemner to jail for a specified period, provided the court order<br />
permits the contemner to purge himself or herself of contempt and be released from<br />
jail upon payment of a reasonable amount of money toward the back child support.<br />
To be reasonable, the amount of money required to be paid for a contemner to<br />
purge himself or herself of contempt of court must be within the contemner’s ability<br />
to pay. The trial court may take into consideration not only the assets and financial<br />
condition of the contemner and the contemner’s ability to raise money, but also<br />
the contemner’s ability to earn money through a work release program while the<br />
contemner serves the coercive sanction in jail. If a contemner complains that he<br />
or she does not have the ability to comply with the purge order, the burden is<br />
on them to prove that inability.<br />
Mays v. Mays, 229 Neb. 674, 428 N.W.2d 618 (1988)<br />
Of course this came out of <strong>Sarpy</strong> <strong>County</strong>…<br />
absent an application and notice requesting modification, a trial court has no power<br />
to modify, during the course of contempt proceedings, the terms of an earlier order<br />
for support or division of property.<br />
Penn Cal, L.L.C. v. Penn Cal Dairy, 264 Neb. 122, 646 N.W.2d 601 (2002)<br />
The district courts of this state have the inherent power to enforce compliance with<br />
court orders and judgments through contempt proceedings.<br />
Given the district court’s inherent power to punish individuals for contempt of its<br />
orders, a <strong>Nebraska</strong> district court has the inherent power to punish a judgment debtor<br />
for his contempt of a foreign judgment which had been properly registered under<br />
the <strong>Nebraska</strong> Uniform <strong>Enforcement</strong> of Foreign Judgments Act (UEFJA).<br />
Richardson v. Anderson, 8 Neb. App. 923, 604 N.W.2d 427 (2000)<br />
Discusses also the Clean Hands Doctrine. Some great language….<br />
A parent has no right to insist upon the pursuit of fruitless dreams of success. There<br />
comes a time when a parent who is a would-be entrepreneur but is unsuccessful<br />
must simply become employed.<br />
[The noncustodial parent] cannot remain unemployed while he lives in an impressive<br />
style and use that lack of employment as an excuse for not paying child support.<br />
Smeal Fire Apparatus Co. v. Kreikemeier, 279 Neb 661, 782 N.W.2d 848 (2010)<br />
This is not a child support case, but it has enormous impact on the world of civil contempt of court.<br />
Although there is no graceful way of retreating from this court’s previous rulings,<br />
some of our troubling contempt cases have created needless difficulties at both the<br />
trial and the appellate levels. An untangling of the snarls was long overdue. Our<br />
decision changes the legal landscape of our present contempt law. We overrule a<br />
long line of cases affecting a trial court’s jurisdiction, an appellate court’s jurisdiction,<br />
and the standard of proof in civil contempt cases.<br />
we overrule cases that have unnecessarily limited a court’s inherent and statutorily<br />
granted contempt powers and cases that have precluded appellate review of final<br />
civil contempt orders. These cases’ roots run deep. Correcting our contempt<br />
jurisprudence will require extensive pruning.<br />
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