Divorce Lawyer: Ways in Louisiana Child Support May Be Modified

When dealing with child support, a divorce lawyer often has to tell prospective clients that they cannot seek modification of child support.  Sometimes people want to modify child support payments so that they can save up to buy themselves a new car.  Such modification should not be granted.  Only the court will acknowledge a good faith change in material circumstance.  But if you lost your job and cannot find you work, your case may warrant a modification in child support.

When one loses his or her job, he or she may be unable to pay child support.  If this is the case, you may be asking your divorce lawyer what I can do to lower my child support payment.  Well, in order to seek a modification in child support payment, you must petition the court and be able to show a material change of circumstance. A material change of circumstance is a change of financial status not caused by the obligor’s voluntary pay cut.  

For example, let’s say Harold was a doctor making $500,000 a year when he was ordered to pay child support.  The court ordered him to pay $7,000 a month.  However, due to slow business, he was laid off.  He had to get a job waiting tables to make ends meet.  As a result, he was making $45,000 a year.  Harold’s divorce lawyer will likely argue that going from making half a million dollars a year to making $45,000 is certainly a material change of circumstance.  As such, he may petition the court to lower his child support payment for the time being.

Let’s look at another example that a divorce lawyer could face.  Harold was a tenured law professor making $145,000 a year. Based on that, he was paying $5,000 a month in child support.  Fed up of paying child support, he decides to quit his job as a professor and goes to work for a gas station making minimum wage.  He then seeks to modify his child support payment.  Unfortunately for Harold, his child support payments will not be modified because he voluntarily chose to make less money for the purpose of evading child support payments. This does not constitute a material change of circumstance.

Nevertheless, a party not being employed or being underemployed through no fault of his own should not be considered to be voluntarily underemployed or unemployed.  Also, material changes of circumstances do not mean an ex spouse can petition a court for modification on every little change that happens in their income.  Let’s say for example, Harold is making $75,000 a year.  Based on that, he is paying child support.  However, his stocks lost some value due to the recession.  He now consults a divorce lawyer to lower his child support payments.  A court may not consider this change to be material.  If he lost a significant portion of his savings to the stock market and has no additional income coming in, then he may have a claim.  But if he is still making $75,000, a court will be hard pressed to lower his payments.

When dealing with issues of child support, it is very important to know the issues in which a court takes into consideration.  Once a judgment of child support is ordered, a material change in circumstances is required for a person to modify the child support payment.