Browse cases by category
- Attorneys & Legal Services
- Bankruptcy
- Civil Procedure & Administrative Law
- Civil Rights
- Consumer
- Criminal
- Disability
- Economic Development
- Education
- Elections
- Employment
- Environmental Justice
- Evidence
- Family Law
- Food Programs
- Government and Governmental Services
- Guardianship & Conservatorship
- Health
- Housing
- Immigration
- Juveniles
- License (Auto & Others)
- Mental Health
- Migrants
- Native Americans
- Other
- Prisons
- Public Utilities & Energy
- Rural Issues
- Senior Citizens
- Social Security & SSI
- Taxation
- Torts
- Unemployment Compensation & Unemployment Insurance
- Veterans & Military
- Welfare
- Wills & Estates
- Workforce Development
Mendez v. Mendez
No. NWD 088272 (Cal. Super. Ct., Los Angeles County, filed Sept. 27, 2004) ; Clearinghouse Number: 55914
Description
County May Collect Family Support and Welfare Reimbursements Only Up to Amount of Welfare Benefits Paid for Child’s Support
Abstract
The court discharged an alleged debt of about $80,000 that county
claimed petitioner husband owed in welfare reimbursements for Aid
to Families with Dependent Children payments. In so ruling, the
court limited the amount of family support and welfare
reimbursements that county was allowed to collect to the amount of
welfare benefits that county paid for a child while his parents
were separated. Husband and respondent wife first married in 1978,
divorced in 1982, reconciled in 1986, and remarried in 1990. Their
son was born in 1981, and wife obtained an order for child and
spousal support in the divorce. She also received welfare for their
son (and two other children not by husband) while they were
divorced. Under state and federal law, by receiving welfare, wife
assigned her rights to collect family support to county, which was
a party in interest in the lawsuit. The district attorney claimed
that county was allowed to collect the interest-bearing family
support payments until all welfare payments made to wife—for
her entire life, for all her children—were repaid. Husband
and wife disagreed. Husband had reimbursed county about $17,000
over the years. The court ordered county’s child support
department to stop collecting family support arrearages and
unreimbursed welfare payments and ordered that the amount that
husband had paid discharged those debts in full. Counsel reports
that the district attorney withdrew its motion to reconsider after
husband and wife filed their opposition.
Additional Information
Files
- Notice of motion and joint motion of petitioner and respondent to stop district attorney's enforcement of spousal support arreages
- Response of petitioner and respondent to CSSD's further points and authorities regarding arreages
- [Proposed] order stopping L.A. County Child Support Services Department's enforcement of family and support arrearages and discharging debt in full
- Opposition of petitioner and respondent to CSSD's motion for reconsideration
- Order stopping L.A. County Child Support Services Department's enforcement of family support arrearages and discharging debt in full
Filed under:
Feeds: Atom
Southwest is the official airline of the Shriver Center.
| Headquarters: | Boston Office: |
| 50 East Washington Street, Suite 500 | 89 South Street, Suite 407 |
| Chicago, Illinois, 60602 | Boston, Massachusetts, 02111 |
| (312) 263-3830 (voice) | (617) 946-4672 (voice) |
| (312) 263-3846 (fax) | (617) 275-8991 (fax) |
© Copyright 1996-2012 Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law