CSE failures

North Carolina Divorce Law Divorce and Separation Answers
1

My husband recently had a court date for failure to comply with a court order. It was found that CSE failed to notify his employer of the court ordered wage withholding of child support, despite his notifying CSE of the change in employment and ending up missing 2 payments. It still isn’t electronically deducted as court ordered (failure #1) but we are sending in the checks so it’s being paid. CSE admitted it was a clerical error and has noted my husbands numerous attempts to rectify their mistake in the case notes. He was told that as of the beginning of October the case was dropped and he didn’t have to report for court because the case worker was going there to dismiss the case personally, them being the experts in this kind of thing we took their advice and didn’t make plans to be there. Apparently the case worker never showed up to court, she has never returned any of his calls prior to court and didn’t notify him of her intention to not show up, he has been called a dead beat by his case worker and has gotten nowhere when dealing with supervisors as they all say his case worker is doing her job and working in the best interest of the children. Because of her “excellent” work ethic and obvious straight and narrow moral compass, a warrant was issued for his arrest for failure to appear. Luckily we live 900 miles away and because it’s not a felony NC will probably not extradite. I’d like to know how CSE can say this is in the best interest of the children for their father to be served with a warrant for a CSE clerical error and how the CSE case worker can get away with such a grossly negligent attitude? We called Raleigh’s central CSE office and got the same answers and attitude. My question is what can we do to make sure this type of negligence and harassment doesn’t happen to my husband again?

Thank you

2

The best advice I can give you is to ensure the support is paid each and every month and to check behind CSE to ensure they are doing their job.

3

He has checked once a week to make sure he was all set in going to court, however he was still screwed by the state. All he ever gets for an answer from CSE is “We’ve noted it in the case notes” but if no one is reading the case notes or bothers to show up to present the case to the judge can we write to the judge personally to present what CSE has not presented on his behalf? He was told Friday CSE would be contacting the judge to have the warrant withdrawn but that probably entails his case worker doing her job, which she obviously isn’t capable of doing and as of this morning on his CSE website it has not been withdrawn. How long would a typical wait be for CSE to rectify yet another one of their mistakes? Also, his ex-wife was in court that day, could she have said to drop the case because she was receiving her money and the issue had been resolved or is this out of her hands and strictly dependent on CSE to pursue? I wouldn’t be upset by this if it were an isolated incident but he continues to follow the court order to the letter and do everything right but is continually screwed by his ex-wife and the system depending on the phase of the moon and it is getting quite old. There has to be some sort of checks and balances for the system! Thank you for your help and advice in all of my postings and for facilitating such a wonderful resource.

4

I really can’t speak on behalf of CSE with respect to how long it takes to rectify their mistakes. As a private firm we do not work directly with CSE. I wish you and your husband all the best, and am truly sorry you are having to deal with these issues.