Halle Berry Paying $16,000 Per Month For Child Support Payments

July 24, 2014 By

father's rights attorneys and advocatesHalle Berry has been involved in a long, drawn out litigation involving child custody and child support. She was recently ordered to pay $16,000 in child support payments to Gabriel Aubrey with regard to supporting the parties’ six year old daughter, Nahla. This child support has to be paid by her each month until Nahla is 19 years old or graduates high school, whichever event should occur first. In addition, Halle Berry was ordered to pay $300,000 in legal fees to Gabriel Aubrey and $115,000 in retroactive child support payments. It is reported these sums are pursuant to a settlement of a case involving Ms. Berry and Mr. Aubrey which had been pending in Los Angeles Superior Court.

History Between the Parties

Halle met Gabriel in 2005. Halle Berry is an Academy Award winning actress and Gabriel Aubrey is a Canadian model.

Relocating to France

At one point during their legal battles, Halle Berry brought a proceeding to relocate her daughter to France. She was unsuccessful in this proceeding. At the present time, both Berry and Aubrey have joint custody of the parties’ six year old daughter. However, Aubrey is the residential custodial parent.

Last year, Ms. Berry gave birth to another child with her current husband, Oliver Martinez.

father's rights lawyer on long islandElliot Schlissel is a father’s rights attorney. He represents fathers in custody litigation, child support litigation, and issues involving visitation rights and parenting time.

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Forensic Evaluator Removed: Report Not Accepted

July 3, 2014 By

father's rights attorney on long islandIn contested custody disputes, courts often hire a psychologist or a social worker to do a forensic analysis as to which parent would be better suited to be the custodial parent of the children. The forensic evaluator is supposed to look into all aspects of the interaction of the parents and the children and make recommendations in the children’s best interest as to which parent would be more suitable or the better residential custodial parent.

Forensic Evaluator’s Report

Justice Jeffrey Goodstein sitting in the Supreme Court Divorce Part in Nassau County, New York, recently had a case involving issues concerning a forensic evaluator’s report.

A father had brought an application to change custody. In the event of the modification of the custody, he also wanted his child support payments eliminated. The attorneys for the wife opposed the father’s application and a hearing was scheduled. The court appointed a forensic evaluator, a psychologist, to do a forensic analysis regarding parenting time and issues concerning custody of the children.

Forensic Evaluator’s Failures

The attorney for the husband brought an application to appoint a different forensic evaluator. In reviewing the application by the husband, the court made the following findings. The forensic evaluator who had been appointed, had failed to act with an acceptable standards for a forensic evaluator. This evaluator had not looked into Child Protective Services reports, issues concerning sexual abuse, and the facts and circumstances of the various mental health professionals that had cared for the father and mother and the children during the past few years. The evaluator said she rendered her report based on the interviews she had with the parties. The evaluator admitted she did not perform any psychological tests on the parties. Justice Goodstein found this evaluator had deviated from acceptable standards for forensic evaluations concerning child custody issues. He therefore did not accept the report into evidence and did not consider it in making a decision. However, he did find that although this forensic evaluator’s report would not come into evidence, he still needed the report of a forensic evaluator in order to determine the various issues concerning parenting time and custody presented to him in this case. He therefore had the parties retain a new forensic evaluator.

Are Forensic Evaluators Needed?

There is controversy as to the need for forensic evaluators in custody cases. The judge should be the ultimate decision maker of who gets custody and who is the more appropriate custodial parent for the children. In this case the parties spent a lot of money on one forensic evaluator and now they are going to have to spend a lot of money on a second one. Hopefully the second evaluator will do a more complete evaluation.child custody help for fathers

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Husband Unsuccessful in Setting Aside Child Support Provisions in Divorce Agreement

April 17, 2014 By

father's rights attorneysA husband brought an application to rescind and declare null and void the portions of a parties’ settlement agreement which dealt with child support. He claimed the amount of child support in the settlement agreement was unsustainable and overreaching. The wife in this case brought a cross application to declare that the agreement was enforceable.

Judge Lawrence Ecker sitting in the Supreme Court Divorce Part in Westchester County stated in his decision the agreement was negotiated over a period of years. There was a mediation concerning issues involving custody, child support, equitable distribution, and spousal maintenance.

Capping Child Support Payments

The husband presented arguments that he was not properly advised that a court could cap child support payments. The attorneys for the wife claimed the husband did not properly assert allegations of fraud or duress in his motion to set aside the settlement agreement and therefore he was actually arguing that he was misled by the mediator and his attorney.

Husband Participated in Negotiations

The court took into consideration the husband was a smart businessman and a financial expert. Judge Ecker found the husband participated in the negotiation of the settlement agreement. The husband’s emails were presented in support of these allegations.

Judge Ecker also noted in his decision there was no obligation for a judge to cap the combined parental income at $136,000 or any other specific amount. The court in its decision found the husband had obtained competent counsel. His attorney had actively participated in negotiations with regard to the settlement agreement. The husband had voluntarily entered into the agreement and the agreement was valid and enforceable. The court rejected the husband’s claim in its entirety. The court held the wife had established she was entitled to a judgment of divorce, the stipulation of settlement was valid and enforceable and therefore granted her summary judgment motion for a divorce.

father's rights advocateConclusion

The husband made a good try at setting aside the agreement but unfortunately his argument was weak and not substantiated by statutes or caselaw.

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Court Rejects Business Expenses Allegedly Incurred by Husband

March 27, 2014 By

father's rights attorneysJustice Duffy sitting in a Supreme Court Part in Westchester County recently ruled a man had to pay his ex-wife more than $282,000 in back child support and spousal maintenance payments. Judge Duffy determined the man had improperly taken personal expenditures including, but not limited to, a mountain climbing trip to Mount Everest as a business expense. Judge Duffy ruled the man had been artificially reducing his income from the years 2007 to 2012 to avoid paying the appropriate amount of child support and spousal maintenance to his ex-wife.

The expenses written off by the man included a 2010 three week trip to train to climb Mount Everest. The man had claimed this was related to his work concerning marketing mountain climbing gear. The judge found the husband’s explanation for the trip to be “not plausible.” She took into consideration, with regard to his writing off this trip, he was the only shareholder, only board member, and only officer of the company, which he created in 2007, that wrote off the expenses. Judge Duffy also found the husband had written off expenses related to a trip to Israel in 2007. This trip coincided with his son’s Bar Mitzvah in Israel. The man claimed during the trip to Israel he had met with representatives of an Israeli clothing company.

Corporate Funds Used to Pay Husband’s Lawyers’ Fees

The man had admitted to the use of corporate funds to pay his lawyer’s fees to litigate this post divorce legal action. The husband testified the entire amount of his lawyer’s fees in the case, which was $20,000, was paid for by corporate funds.

Husband Must Pay Child Support and Spousal Maintenance

Judge Duffy held the ex-wife was correct in alleging her former husband must pay child support and spousal maintenance payments pursuant to the divorce formula in her 2005 divorce agreement which included the expenses the husband wrote off.

The man tried to receive a credit of $7,000 he paid from corporate funds in 2010 to his sons who were aged, at that time, 19, 15, and 10. He claimed those funds were related to business related positions maintained by his children. With regard to this issue, Judge Duffy held “a non-custodial parent is not entitled to offset any voluntary payments made for the benefit of the children against the support he is required to pay to the custodial parent.”

Conclusion

protecting fathersBusiness expenses should be real business expenses and not be created to hide income thereby reducing a party’s support obligations.

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Father Entitled to Credit for Overpayments of Child Support

January 9, 2014 By

father's rights attorneyThe general rule concerning child support payments, in New York State, is if you overpay your child support, you are not entitled to a refund or credit for the overpayments. However, if you underpay your child support, legal action can be taken against you to force you to pay the correct amount of child support. In a recent case, a father over paid child support by $29,000. This was due to an error made by a support magistrate. In this case, even though there is a public policy in New York that prevents restitution of overpayments in child support cases, an upstate appeals court has made a ruling giving the father credit for the $29,000 in overpayments in child support.

Appeals Court Gives Father a $29,000 Credit

The case took place in Albany County. Judge W. Dennis Duggan had increased the man’s child support payments by $1,000 per month. An appeals court reversed the judge’s ruling. The appeals court stated it would be unjust to deny the father a credit for the overpayment.

Judge Duggan stated that if the father had underpaid child support he would have had to have made up the difference. Judge Duggan went on to state “the law can not contenance a situation where the father is liable for up to $29,000 in excess child support when Family Court gets it wrong but he would get a credit for up to $29,000 when Family Court gets it right.”

The original child support payment was $1500 per month pursuant to a judgment of divorce. A support magistrate had granted an order raising it to $2500 per month based on a change in circumstances. The appellate court reversed the support magistrate’s ruling.

Conclusion

Denying a father the appropriate credit for overpayments punishes the father for following a court order that is later reversed. This would be fundamentally unfair. Fathers should be entitled to credits for overpayments of child support. These credits should be utilized with regard to future child support payments the father is obligated to make.

help in handling child support issues Elliot S. Schlissel is a father’s rights attorney who has represented fathers throughout the Metropolitan New York area for more than 45 years in divorce cases and Family Court proceedings.

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Disabled Father Gets Child Support Arrears Reduced

January 7, 2014 By

father's rights attorneysSection 451 of the New York Family Court Act states arrears on child support will only be modified from the date the petition to reduce them is filed. This means in the event you have a heart attack and/or are sick in the hospital for six months, and thereafter you file a downward modification for child support, you only get the downward modification from the date you filed the petition, not as of the time six months ago when you were hospitalized with a heart attack. This makes no sense!

A lawsuit was brought on behalf of a father to cap his child support arrears at $500. The father had suffered a heart attack. He was rendered disabled. He couldn’t work. Eventually his income fell below the poverty level. It took him months to become healthy enough to file a petition in the Family Court for the reduction of his child support arrears. Upon taking this action, the Family Court denied his application and said pay up.

Appeal to the Appellate Division

An appeal was brought to the Appellate Division of the Second Department (an appeals court). The Appellate Division held since the petitioner was impoverished before petitioning for relief “the prohibition against reduction of accrued arrears contained in Family Court Act section 451 is not triggered because there was no accrued arrears in excess of $500 to reduce.”

This decision helped establish that disabled parents who cannot work, and cannot initially petition for the reduction of their child support obligations are still entitled to the reduction as of the date of their disability, not the date they bring the petition. Child support payments should not be allowed to have an unfair impact on disabled and/or indigent parents.

child support assistance for fathersThe writer has been helping fathers with child support problems for more than 45 years.

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Joint Custody Does Not Relieve Both Parents From Paying Child Support

November 15, 2013 By

father's rights lawyerWhere the parents have joint or shared custody, involving each of the parents having equal time with the children, both parents are not relieved of their obligation to pay child support. Most parenting plans designate one parent as the primary residential custodial parent. This is necessary especially in Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island. School districts will look to parenting plans and divorce settlement agreements to establish the primary residential location of the child. The reason for this is that school district want to know who will be responsible for providing schooling for the child or children.

Parent With Greater Income Pays Child Support

In the case of Bast v. Rostoff, the New York State Court of Appeals in 1998, dealt with the issue of an equally shared custody arrangement and obligations to pay child support. In this case both parents requested the court to have the other parent pay them child support. The Court of Appeals (the highest Court in New York State) ruled in shared custody situations, the parent with the greater earned income is by the very nature of earning more money than the other parent deemed to be the non-custodial parent for child support purposes. This causes the parent with the greater income to pay child support payments to the parent with the lesser income. This is an example of the expression “no good deed goes unpunished.” Work hard, get educated, get a good job, earn more money than your spouse, and even if you have 50% of the visitation you still have to pay child support!

custody and child support advocates for fathersThe father’s rights lawyers at the Law Office of Elliot S. Schlissel, represent fathers throughout the metropolitan New York area with regard to issues involving child support, custody and divorce.

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Child Support: Are You Paying Too Much?

November 1, 2013 By

father's rights lawyerIn the State of New York, the non-residential custodial parent must pay child support to the residential custodial parent. There are specific requirements in New York concerning how much child support the non-residential custodial parent must pay. Generally speaking, the non-residential custodial parent must pay the residential custodial parent 17% of gross wages, less FICA, for one child, 25% for two children, 29% for three children, 31% for four children and 35% for five children or more.

The parent paying the child support is entitled to deductions for the amount he is paying in spousal maintenance (alimony) or child support for another child. In addition to paying these prescribed child support amounts pursuant to the Child Support Standards Act (a federal law enacted in all 50 states), the parent must additionally make contributions towards child care expenses and health care expenses.

Change in Financial Circumstances

Your child support expenses do not change if you lose your job, get downsized, become too ill to work, or retire before the child reaches the age of majority. To reduce your child support expenses, you either have to enter into an agreement with the other parent and have that agreement So Ordered by a judge or you have to bring a petition in either the Family Court or the Supreme Court (if you were divorced or a matrimonial action is pending) to reduce your child support obligations. The court can only award a reduction of child support starting on the date you brought your initial petition to the court. The child support reductions will not be retroactive to the time that you had the change in your financial circumstances which caused you to bring the application to court to reduce your child support expenses.

Child Support and Father’s Rights

Many fathers who have dealt with the Family Courts in the State of New York have come to the conclusion when the mother seeks custody of the children, the Courts tend to favor the mothers. Fathers need to be very aggressive when bringing an application to reduce child support payments. The best manner for a father to handle these matters is to hire an experienced dedicated father’s rights lawyer to represent him in these proceedings. There are a variety of technical aspects to downward modifications of child support a father must satisfy to convince a judge to reduce his child support obligations.

Father Loses His Job

Just because a father loses his job does not automatically entitle him to a downward modification of child support. The father must prove in court the loss of the job was not because he had done something wrong and also show the court through documentary evidence he has used due diligence to obtain other employment.

Is There Fairness in Child Support Orders?

I have been practicing law for more than 35 years. There are numerous times each month where I am presented with a case where the standard rules concerning child support may be unfair to a father paying child support. Since each case has its own unique circumstances, my office provides a roadmap as to what is necessary for the client to be successful in a proceeding for the downward modification of child support. We help gather the evidence and prepare the client for the necessary court appearances. If the case is properly prepared and properly presented a court will usually grant the downward modification of child support.child support attorneys

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Wealthy Father Doesn’t Have To Pay Child Support

August 5, 2013 By

father's rights attorneyIn a recent decision an Appellate Court in New York State held a father who has custody of his son during the majority of the year has no obligation to pay child support to the child’s mother even though the father has in excess of $20 million in assets and the mother had no income!

In the case of Rubin vs. Della Salla 350047/09, the Appellate Division (an appeals court) of the First Department held Anthony Della Salla who has custody of his son 56% of the year is the child’s custodial parent. Since he was the child’s custodial parent, he cannot be ordered to pay child support even though the mother is penniless and he has $20 million in assets.

History Of The Case

The couple was never married. The child was born in 2003. The couple broke up in 2007. The boy lived with his father most of the time. During the 2008-2009 calendar year, the parties reached an agreement wherein Della Salla took the boy to school most school days and had custody of him most weekends and holidays.

In the year 2009, Ms. Rubin filed an action against Della Salla seeking sole custody and requesting he pay child support. Rubin had been unemployed since 2001 and had no income. Della Salla had voluntarily been providing her with money. However, he reduced the amount of money he had been giving her in 2008 to force her to obtain employment.

Initial Pendent Lite Support Order

Supreme Court Justice Ellen Gesmer had originally granted the application brought on by an application for Pendente Lite Child Support (temporary child support motion). She ordered Della Salla to pay $5,000 a month in child support. He had complied with this order.

A trial was held and Judge Gesmer awarded Della Salla residential custody of the child during the school year with Rubin having custody on alternate weekends and Thursday nights. Rubin also had legal custody concerning educational and medical decisions. In the summer, the schedule was reversed. Della Salla would have custody on Thursday nights and alternate weekends and Rubin would have custody the rest of the time. All vacations were evenly split.

Della Salla made an application to the court to dismiss Rubin’s claim for child support. He argued if he was the custodial parent he could not be compelled to pay child support. Justice Gesmer denied the motion. Both of the parties appealed. The Appellate Division in the First Department affirmed the custody finding. They found Judge Gesmer was mistaken in granting Della Salla’s application for child support. Since the son spent 56% of his time with his father and 44% of his time with his mother, the father was the de facto custodial parent. The court stated under the CSSA’s (Child Support Standards Act) plain language, “only the non-custodial parent can be directed to pay child support.”

Victory For Father’s Rights

The Appellate court made the right decision. Child support should only be paid by the non-custodial parent to the custodial parent. In this case, the mother sought to punish the father for his success. The purposes of child support is not to subsidize a mother’s life. Child support should only be used to help support the child while he or she is living with the custodial parent. This case is a significant victory for father’s rights.advocates for fathers

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Interstate Child Support Laws

August 1, 2013 By

fathers rights lawyersMany questions arise when parents live in different states and one parent has to pay child support. There is a statute called the Interstate Family Support Act. The purpose of this statute is to simplify the laws impacting on child support payments made by a parent living in one state to a parent living in another state.

The Interstate Family Support Act is designed to let courts in different states work with each other concerning issues involving child support. Prior to the enactment of this statute, courts in different states could order different child support payments which created a great deal of confusion.

Handling Interstate Child Support Issues

Pursuant to this law, if the state the child and the custodial parent reside in issues an order concerning child support, another state cannot change the order. Another state can only modify a prior states’ child support orders if neither of the parents or the child live in the original issuing state or where both parents now live in another state and the child support application is brought in that state. The passing of the Interstate Family Support Act was a watershed moment for family law attorneys. It brought order to a system that had previously been chaotic for parents of children living in different states.

About The Author

advocate for father's rights and child custody Elliot S. Schlissel, Esq. is a father’s rights attorney with more than 45 years of experience. Elliot and his staff of attorneys aggressively litigate issues concerning child support, spousal maintenance, custody and visitation issues.

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