BILL ANALYSIS |
C.S.H.B. 847 |
By: Lucio III |
Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence |
Committee Report (Substituted) |
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Though a court is currently authorized to hold a child support obligor in contempt if the obligor fails to pay the amount of support ordered by a court, an obligor may not be held in contempt for nonpayment if the obligor appears at the hearing and shows proof that the obligor has become current in paying child support. There are concerns that this allows many obligors to repeatedly fall behind with payments, only to pay the child support just before a hearing. While a court has the authority to award a petitioner attorney's fees and costs in such situations, the parties note that the court is left with no other recourse and an obligee may be forced to repeatedly seek enforcement of child support through the courts. C.S.H.B. 847 seeks to prevent certain child support obligors from manipulating the court system by giving a court broader authority to enforce certain orders in a suit affecting the parent-child relationship.
|
||||||||||
RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.
|
||||||||||
ANALYSIS
C.S.H.B. 847 amends the Family Code to establish that a finding that the respondent to a motion for enforcement of an order in a suit affecting the parent-child relationship is not in contempt does not preclude the court from awarding the petitioner court costs and reasonable attorney's fees, in addition to ordering any other enforcement remedy, including rendering a money judgment, posting a bond or other security, or withholding income.
C.S.H.B. 847 repeals a provision relating to prohibiting a court from finding such a respondent in contempt of court for failure to pay child support if the respondent appears at the hearing for the motion with satisfactory evidence that the respondent is current in the payment of court-ordered child support. The bill repeals a provision relating to authorizing the court to award the petitioner court costs and reasonable attorney's fees if the court finds that the respondent was not current in the payment of court-ordered child support on the date the motion for enforcement was filed and the respondent made the payments after the respondent was served notice of the motion or otherwise discovered that the motion had been filed.
C.S.H.B. 847 repeals Sections 157.162(d) and (e), Family Code.
|
||||||||||
EFFECTIVE DATE
On passage, or, if the bill does not receive the necessary vote, September 1, 2013.
|
||||||||||
COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE
While C.S.H.B. 847 may differ from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following comparison is organized and highlighted in a manner that indicates the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.
|
||||||||||
|