Child Support Discovery Process

Discovery is a formal pretrial investigation to discover facts. There are several types of discovery that can be used to discover important facts regarding your exs financial situation. This is important to you for several reasons. First, child support obligations are based on the income of both parents. Therefore, your exs income plays a large role in determining the amount of child support you are ordered to pay. Here is an example of how your exs income impacts your child support obligation:

Your Income $3000 $3000 $3000 Ex's Income $1500 $3000 $5000 Combined Income $4500 $6000 $8000 Your Percentage 67% 50% 38% Ex's Percentage 33% 50% 62% Total Child Support for 1 Child $771 $875 $975 Your Child Support Order $516 $437 $370

As you can see from the example, even a slight difference in income changes the amount of your support order. Therefore, you need to use all discovery methods applicable to your situation to determine all sources of your exs income. The methods of discovery include depositions, interrogatories, requests for the production and inspection of writings and other materials, and requests for admission of facts. Below is a brief description of what each of these methods entails. The most commonly used in child support hearings is requests for the production and inspection of writings and other materials.

Request to Produce Documents - you can have your ex furnish you with all income, investment, and asset information as it pertains to your case including monthly bank statements, savings account statements, tax returns, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and all other sources of income.

Interrogatories - written questions your ex must answer under oath regarding financial matters pertaining to the case.

Requests for Admission of Facts - you and your ex can agree to specific facts that are not disputed by either party to avoid having to prove those facts during the trial.

Depositions - an oral pretrial examination of your ex in which the answers are given under oath and recorded by a court reporter.