Child Support Enforcement - Sarpy County Nebraska

[A] petition to modify alimony will be denied if the change in financial condition is due
to the fault or voluntary wastage or dissipation of one‘s talents or assets.
We do not consider … (personal differences with her employer, which precipitated
the CP quitting her job)…. To be a material and substantial change of circumstances.
[E]vidence of [the NCPs] increased income does not constitute, in and of itself, a
material and substantial change in circumstances, without a proven increase in [the
CPs] living expenses.
Statute of Limitations
Finnern v. Bruner, 167 Neb. 281, 92 N.W.2d 785 (1958)
A decree awarding alimony and child support in an action for divorce does not
become dormant by lapse of time and the defense of the statute of limitations is not
available to defeat recovery of delinquent payments.
Don’t confuse with the issue of child support liens, as set forth in Section §42-371
(R.R.S. 1998)
….
(2) Child support and spousal support judgments shall cease to be liens on real or
registered personal property ten years from the date (a) the youngest child becomes
of age or dies or (b) the most recent execution was issued to collect the judgment,
whichever is later, and such lien shall not be reinstated;
(3) Alimony and property settlement award judgments, if not covered by subdivision (2)
of this section, shall cease to be a lien on real or registered personal property ten
years from the date (a) the judgment was entered, (b) the most recent payment was
made, or (c) the most recent execution was issued to collect the judgment,
whichever is latest, and such lien shall not be reinstated;
Freis v. Harvey, 5 Neb. App. 679, 563 N.W.2d 363 (1997)
The language of §42-371(2) and its predecessors is plain and unambiguous. ….it in
no way altered the rule that child support judgments are not judgments under §25-
1515 and thereby are not rendered dormant. Such judgments are likewise not
rendered dormant by §42-371(2).
But see: §43-290
…
The juvenile court shall retain jurisdiction over a parent ordered to pay support for the purpose
of enforcing such support order for so long as such support remains unpaid but not to exceed ten years
from the nineteenth birthday of the youngest child for whom support was ordered.
Statutory Construction/ Interpretation
Groseth v. Groseth, 257 Neb. 525, 600 N.W.2d 159 (1999)
Courts engaged in an exercise of statutory construction must presume that the
Legislature intended a sensible, rather than an absurd, result.
Courts must look to a statute‘s purpose and give to the statute a reasonable
construction which best achieves that purpose, rather than a construction that would
defeat it.
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