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Showing posts from May, 2013

Supreme Court Rules that lump sum worker's comp award = lump sum child support award.

      The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled in a recent case that child support is due from a lump sum worker’s compensation award in the amount equal to the percentage due for the number of minor children supported (20% for one, 28% for two, etc.). Thus a lump sum worker's comp award = lump sum child support award.       In this case, four years after a divorce the former husband was injured at work and received a $240,000 settlement of his worker’s compensation claim. Somehow he spent all of that without first telling his ex-wife of the claim or the settlement. She caught up with him a year later and filed a petition to modify support payments to try and get a piece of the settlement for child support.       The divorce laws of Illinois provide guidelines to help courts determine the minimum amount of child support. These guidelines do not always have to be followed and the court can “deviate” from them as long as the court explains its reasons for the deviation but that for

Father’s/Parent’s Rights Championed by the Court

Father’s  Parent’s Rights Championed by the Court OK, first off I am NOT a “father rights” attorney. I am a client’s rights attorney. And in my humble opinion any lawyer who sells themselves to you only as a “father’s right’s attorney” is a scam artist. These lawyers prey on unwary fathers who are in need of help and counsel, not snake oil. Anyway, that’s for another discussion. In a recent appellate case* a trial court took a very bold stance when it awarded a father sole custody of a child who had previously been living with the mother after the parties divorced. It was a bold move because the judge gave sole custody to the father even though he did not even request it and he even suggested that the mother get sole custody. The reason the court took this drastic move was because the mother had gone so far in interfering with the father’s parenting time and in alienating the daughter from the father that the court on its own removed joint parenting and granted sole custody to