Intentional Underemployment In Orlando Divorce Or Child Support Actions
How To Deal With Intentional Underemployment In Divorce Or Child Support Cases.
In Florida divorce and child custody cases an issue that comes up quite often is where one party intentionally loses or causes themselves to lose their income. This is called intentional unemployment and it happens for many reasons; one spouse wants to avoid an alimony payment in a divorce case, a parent wants to get a lower child support payment, or a parent may want to receive a higher support payment. These examples only scratch the surface of the possible reasons a family law litigant may wish to intentionally put a stop to their own income and if proper discovery is not done then the deceitful party could get away with the fraud.
The Florida statutes allow for family law attorneys to address this situation of intentional underemployment in cases where sufficient evidence is presented to the court to show this has taken place. The first thing an attorney will want to show to the court is that the opposing party is capable of earning more than they do currently. The court may wish to hear evidence of a party’s education and work experience in order to determine his or her earning potential. Your lawyer may want to subpoena the other side’s previous employer to obtain employment records. Often this can be telling of whether or not that person lost the job due to their own actions. It does not matter if the case is a divorce or some other type of family law case as the process of showing an intentional underemployment are the same.
If the court determines that the opposing party did not lose their job at no fault of their own then the judge may impute a higher income on that person for calculation of support payments. This means that even though Client A only earns ten thousand dollars a year, the judge can issue an order that child support be calculated as if he earned fifty thousand dollars a year. Of course this is after a showing of sufficient evidence and if the higher income imputation is found to be in the child’s best interests.
If you have a divorce or child support case matter, you should call Orlando-based attorney Sean Smallwood to review your case. The firm offers payment plans for many clients who need them. Call now: 407-347-4738
Sean Smallwood is an Orlando divorce attorney for the law firm Sean Smallwood, Orlando Divorce & Family Law P.A. where he represents clients in all areas of family law and divorce. 100% of the practice is devoted to family law. As an attorney in Orlando, he has helped many families with a wide variety of family law cases including Divorce, Child Custody, Child Support, and many other issues.
