Enforcement of Texas Family Court Orders
You’ve gone to court and obtained your ruling. Or, perhaps you were able to avoid court and reach an agreement with the opposing side. Either way, you end with a court order that outlines various things such as: parental rights and duties, possession schedule, child support, division of assets, perhaps even payment of spousal maintenance. However, what happens after you get your court order if the other person fails to comply with it? For example, what if your ex just stops paying child support. Or, what if your co-parent refuses to surrender possession of the children when it’s your court-ordered period of possession? That’s where a Motion for Enforcement can come into play.
What is a Motion for Enforcement?
A Motion for Enforcement is a legal filing used to address a party’s failure or refusal to comply with an order of the court.
What Things Can Be Enforced?
In Family Law, there are many matters that the court has the ability to enforce: child support, possession and access, and division of property are very commonly addressed in a Motion to Enforce. However, things such as failure to adhere to a drug/alcohol testing schedule, failure to pay spousal maintenance/alimony, and failure to pay household bills are all matters that can be addressed in a Motion to Enforce.
How Does the Court Enforce an Order?
Depending on the situation, if a person has violated an order of the court, the judge can hold that person in contempt of court and assess punishments such as: paying a fine, ordering the person to pay past due child, medical, or spousal support by a date certain, ordering payment of attorney’s fees incurred due to the enforcement action, and even jail time.
Will the Court Actually Sentence Someone to Jail?
The short answer is yes, a judge absolutely has the right to punish someone with jail time if that person is found in contempt of court for failing to comply with a court order. However, just because a judge can put someone in jail does not always mean that will happen. For example, during the Covid pandemic, many people fell behind on child support due to not being able to work. Judges were more likely to understand that someone who failed to pay child support due to job loss from Covid was different than a person just refusing to pay because he or she didn’t feel like paying. Therefore, judges could decide to not punish a person with jail time due to the situation, but still render orders that help the obligee (the party entitled to receive child support) get the child support funds that were due.
Sometimes judges will hold a party in contempt and assess jail time, but then suspend the jail time as long as the party complies with the order(s) of the court. This is called a Suspension of Commitment (aka – suspending someone’s commit to jail). Think of it as a quasi-probation. A judge may find a person in contempt for failing to pay child support, order jail time, but then suspend the jail time as long as that party starts paying child support on time each month. Although there is not a formal probation officer that a person must report to, that person is required to follow the order of the court to stay out of jail. If that person fails to follow the court order after the Suspension of Commitment, a Motion to Revoke Suspension of Commitment can be filed, wherein a party informs the court that the other party was given a chance to comply but has failed to do so, and therefore that person should now have to serve the jail sentence that was previously ordered by the court.
Additionally, it’s important to know that a person cannot be punished with jail time for failure to pay a debt. Texas does not have a debtor’s prison. Otherwise, someone who failed to pay a credit card debt could actually go to jail. However, things like payment of child support and medical support (i.e. – payment of medical insurance premiums for a child, payment of out of pocket medical expenses for a child) are not considered to be a debt in this context. That means a judge can punish a person by putting them in jail if he or she fails to pay the support that was court ordered. The possibility of jail time is often a great motivator to get someone to pay child support!
In Summation
Texas law does have a mechanism in place to help ensure parties follow the orders of the Family Courts. There are important nuances and details that go into analyzing each situation as they are very fact specific. For example, there are deadlines and limitations on when you can file an enforcement action, which you can read more about in this article. Therefore, if you have questions about a potential Motion for Enforcement, please contact us so we can help you better understand your rights and options.
