Question:
My son is currently deployed in Afghanistan. He is being sued for backpay child support on a child who has never been proven to be his. No DNA test ever done, he did not sign birth certificate. He's telling me that the Army is making him pay anyway. How do we approach this?
Jim's Reply:
I have to question if he's telling you the entire story? It wouldn't be like the military to make deductions from a soldier's pay without some sort of evidence or paternity. If he was taken to court and lost or even worse, if there was a suit filed and he didn't appear as he should have, the court would probably defaulted against him and he's now got a child support order on him. Deployment never releases us from our responsibilities as citizens, it only makes things harder to resolve if we don't take care of our business way ahead of time. I have even money that says he skipped an appearance (that he could have made by phone) and now he has a default judgment on him. He'll have to petition that court to be heard again before any of this will change if I'm right. Until he does that we will have to assume the Army is acting on a legit court order.