Ocean Springs Divorce Lawyer – What If You Don’t Pay As The Judge Told You To?

This is not smart.

If you are need an Ocean Springs Divorce Lawyer and you hire me and you don’t listen to what the Judge says, you will need to get another lawyer.

I understand that sometimes Judges make mistakes.

I understand that Judges are sometimes even wrong in their decisions.

But, they are the Judge so we have to do what they say, especially when they put it in a written Order.

Ocean Springs Divorce Lawyer – The Betts Case

So, let’s look at an example from the Mississippi Court of Appeals about this.

Belinda and Ronald Betts got divorced on November 17, 2011, which ended their thirty-one year marriage.

But, as happens a lot, they couldn’t leave each other alone.

Belinda files not one, not two, but three different Complaints for contempt of Court against Ronald.

The third complaint for citation of contempt of court claims that Ronald had stopped making his $500 monthly payments to her.

Ronald filed an answer to the third complaint for contempt and a counter-petition to set aside the final decree of divorce.

Ronald argued that the divorce should be set aside because Belinda made a false representation to the court by intentionally filing a substantially false financial statement.

On November 1, 2010, Belinda and her sister received an undivided interest in 74.6 acres of land that previously belonged to her father and mother.

Ronald says fraud occurred when Belinda failed to list this land on
her financial statement.

A hearing is held, and Belinda, Ronald, and Rodney Faver, Belinda’s former attorney, testifies.

Belinda testifies that she did not list the 74.6 acres of land on her financial statement because the land did not belong to her.  She testifies that the land belonged to her mother, that her mother paid for the land, and that her father left the land for her mother when he died.

The court then issues an order, finding Ronald in contempt for his failure to pay $500 monthly to Belinda pursuant to the divorce decree.

The court also found that though Ronald established that Belinda did not disclose the property on her original financial statement, he failed to prove that Belinda knew of her false representation because she did not consider the land her property.

The court then found that Ronald had not come to the court with “clean hands.”

He failed to list the existence of certain mineral rights in his financial statement.

The court held that Belinda’s actions did “not constitute the
intentional filing of a substantially false statement” and did not find her in contempt.

Ronald appeals, claiming that the court erred when it found that Belinda’s failure to list the property on her financial statement did not constitute the intentional filing of a substantially false statement.

On appeal, the Mississippi Court of Appeals explains, Ronald must prove all of this (1) a representation, (2) its falsity, (3) its materiality, (4) the speaker’s knowledge of its falsity or ignorance of its truth, (5) his intent that it should be acted on by the hearer and in the manner reasonably contemplated, (6) the hearer’s ignorance of its falsity, (7) his reliance on its truth, (8) his right to rely thereon, and (9) his consequent and proximate injury.

The Mississippi Court of Appeals said the trial court gets deference because it is in the best position to determine if Belinda committed fraud.

So Ronald loses.

Ocean Springs Divorce Lawyer – Moral?

Moral?

When the Judge puts in writing that you must pay, then you better pay.

I’ll be the outcome might have been different had Ronald been paying the $500 the Judge told him to pay.

And this is what the Judge is thinking even though he or she probably isn’t saying it: