{"id":1282,"date":"2014-01-24T12:31:15","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T18:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billmcnamaralaw.com\/?p=1282"},"modified":"2014-01-24T16:28:18","modified_gmt":"2014-01-24T22:28:18","slug":"attorneys-fees-in-child-support-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billmcnamaralaw.com\/home\/2014\/01\/24\/attorneys-fees-in-child-support-cases\/","title":{"rendered":"Attorney&#8217;s Fees in Child Support Cases"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"fb-like\" data-href=\"http:\/\/www.billmcnamaralaw.com\/2014\/01\/24\/attorneys-fees-in-child-support-cases\/\" data-layout=\"standard\" data-action=\"like\" data-show-faces=\"true\" data-share=\"true\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\n(function(d, s, id) {\n  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\n  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\n  js.src = \"\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\";\n  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><br \/>\nIn <a href=\"http:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar_case?q=Tucker+v.+Thomas++2013&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=4,44&amp;case=2628086110549947366&amp;scilh=0\">Tucker v. Thomas<\/a>, 12-0183, 2013 WL 6509931 (Tex. Dec. 13, 2013), the Texas Supreme Court settled a disagreement among appellate courts as to whether attorney&#8217;s fees could be awarded as additional child support in non-enforcement modification suits. The majority of appellate courts that addressed this issue held that a trial court could not order a parent to pay attorney&#8217;s fees as additional child support in non-enforcement modification suits.<\/p>\n<p>Here, the Supreme Court sided with the majority of appellate courts. The Court reasoned that trial courts have no inherent authority to characterize attorney&#8217;s fees as additional child support without express statutory authorization. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us\/Docs\/FA\/htm\/FA.157.htm\">\u00a7157.167(a)<\/a> <em>does<\/em> authorize trial courts to characterize\u00a0attorney&#8217;s fees as additional child support in <em>enforcement<\/em> modification suits. \u00a7157.167(a) (providing that an award of attorney&#8217;s fees may be enforced by the same means available for the enforcement of child support). On the other hand, the section addressing attorney&#8217;s fees in <em>non-enforcement<\/em> modification suits, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us\/Docs\/FA\/htm\/FA.106.htm\">\u00a7106.002<\/a>, <em>does not<\/em> authorize trial courts to characterize attorney&#8217;s fees in this way. Rather, \u00a7106.002 only permits attorneys to collect fees through the &#8220;means\u00a0available for the enforcement of a judgment for debt.&#8221; Thus, the Court concluded that the Legislature did not give trial courts this power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Tucker v. Thomas, 12-0183, 2013 WL 6509931 (Tex. Dec. 13, 2013), the Texas Supreme Court settled a disagreement among appellate courts as to whether attorney&#8217;s fees could be awarded as additional child support in non-enforcement modification suits. The majority of appellate courts that addressed this issue held that a trial court could not order [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[30],"tags":[157,31,158,159,160],"class_list":{"0":"post-1282","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-children","7":"tag-attorneys-fees","8":"tag-child-support","9":"tag-non-enforcement-modification-suit","10":"tag-texas-supreme-court","11":"tag-tucker-v-thomas","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2efoE-kG","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billmcnamaralaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billmcnamaralaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billmcnamaralaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billmcnamaralaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billmcnamaralaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1282"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.billmcnamaralaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1293,"href":"https:\/\/www.billmcnamaralaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282\/revisions\/1293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billmcnamaralaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billmcnamaralaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billmcnamaralaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}