Charlotte Divorce Lawyer Blog

It stands to reason that separating and divorcing couples may not want every intimate detail of their marriage, separation and divorce to be a matter of public record.

They will sometimes incorporate confidentiality provisions into their Separation and Property Settlement Agreements. Unfortunately, this may or may not be something that a person involved in a contested issue can control and the Courts may not enforce such provisions. Mecklenburg County Family Court recently addressed this issue in the case of NASCAR chairman Brian France.

The Charlotte Observer and WCNC-TV sought to unseal the France court file. The file was previously sealed by another Mecklenburg County Family Court Judge. The news outlets argued that the file had been wrongly sealed.

This time around, the Court ruled that the file should be unsealed on the basis that there is not a compelling public interest in keeping the file sealed. France has appealed the ruling to the North Carolina Court of Appeals.

As we have discussed here before (In the Battle of the Fit Parents, Breadwinning Moms are Losing Child Custody), more working mothers are losing custody of their children. With these bad economic times, it is reasonable to anticipate that more and more people, moms and dads alike, are falling behind in their child support payments.

The term "Deadbeat Dad" has been in common circulation for years, what about "Deadbeat Mom?"

While the label "Deadbeat" might be fun to throw around about the other parent, especially when a parent is in dire need of the past due child support and is angry, it is my view that most people want to do the right thing and want to take care of their children financially.

It seems that often parents have something bad happen, usually the loss of a job, and they do not take appropriate action to modify their child support obligation. Because of the job loss, it can be easy to get behind on child support. Unfortunately, if the child support obligation is not reduced, it continues to accrue at the usual amount. The more time passes, the more the past due child support piles up.

Check out what Morgan Fogarty on Fox News Charlotte had to say on this topic: