Child Support Enforcement - Sarpy County Nebraska

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