Child Support Enforcement - Sarpy County Nebraska

A parent has no right to insist upon the pursuit of fruitless dreams of success. There
comes a time when a parent who is a would-be entrepreneur but is unsuccessful
must simply become employed.
[The noncustodial parent] cannot remain unemployed while he lives in an impressive
style and use that lack of employment as an excuse for not paying child support.
Smeal Fire Apparatus Co. v. Kreikemeier, 279 Neb 661, 782 N.W.2d 848 (2010)
This is not a child support case, but it has enormous impact on the world of civil contempt of court.
Although there is no graceful way of retreating from this court's previous rulings,
some of our troubling contempt cases have created needless difficulties at both the
trial and the appellate levels. An untangling of the snarls was long overdue. Our
decision changes the legal landscape of our present contempt law. We overrule a
long line of cases affecting a trial court's jurisdiction, an appellate court's jurisdiction,
and the standard of proof in civil contempt cases.
we overrule cases that have unnecessarily limited a court's inherent and statutorily
granted contempt powers and cases that have precluded appellate review of final
civil contempt orders. These cases' roots run deep. Correcting our contempt
jurisprudence will require extensive pruning.
We hold that in a civil contempt proceeding, a district court has inherent power to
order compensatory relief when a contemnor has violated its order or judgment. We
further hold that whether a contempt sanction is civil or criminal is relevant only
when a party appeals from an interlocutory order of contempt. An interlocutory
contempt order is an order that a court issues during an ongoing proceeding before
the final judgment in the main action.
Finally, we conclude that for future cases, the standard of proof in civil contempt
proceedings is clear and convincing evidence, unless the Legislature has
mandated another standard.
Civil contempt proceedings are '"instituted to preserve and enforce the rights of
private parties to the suit and to compel obedience to orders and decrees made to
enforce the rights and to administer the remedies to which the court has found them
to be entitled . . . , '" Civil contempt proceedings are remedial and coercive in their
nature.
"[T]he power to punish for contempt of court is a power inherent in all courts of
general jurisdiction, . . . independent of any special or express grant of statute."
Nebraska courts, through their inherent judicial power, have the authority to do all
things reasonably necessary for the proper administration of justice. And this
authority exists apart from any statutory grant of authority.
Because of the court's continuing equity jurisdiction over the [divorce] decree, the
power to provide equitable relief in a contempt proceeding is particularly
appropriate.
a court cannot modify a dissolution decree in a contempt proceeding absent an
application for a modification and notice that a party seeks modification.
if a complainant seeks, or a court is considering, a modification of the underlying
decree as an equitable sanction for contempt of the court's decree, the alleged
contemnor must first have notice that a modification and a finding of contempt will be
at issue. But when the alleged contemnor has notice and an opportunity to be
heard, a court can modify the underlying decree as a remedy for contempt if the
violation cannot be adequately remedied otherwise.
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