Nevada Focus: Disabled woman told to repay $35,000 in child support

Thursday, June 25, 1998 | 1:38 a.m.

But after a Washoe County court master's decision last month, Campbell is having a hard time making her case.

Family Court Master Lee DelGrande ruled in May that the child support Campbell's ex-husband paid over the last eight years wasn't a legal arrangement. And now Campbell could be faced with paying back nearly $35,000 - out of the $800 she gets each month in disability payments.

"Are you telling me that this is in the best interest of the daughter, to put her mother in the hole?" Campbell said.

Campbell and Ryan live in a mobile home on a small lot behind her mother's home near Lake Lahontan. She bought the home for about $6,000 with a settlement from an accident that left her disabled.

Campbell said she slipped on concrete steps at an apartment complex and fell, herniating two discs in her back. Since 1990, she has been on Social Security disability payments of $543 for her and $274 for her daughter.

Finances have been tight, but Campbell says she and her daughter have been able to get by.

"Do you know what it is like when the ice cream truck is going by and you don't have the money to buy your child ice cream?" she adds.

Campbell said she was unable to afford an attorney for a court hearing that preceded DelGrande's ruling on the support payments.

"I sat up there with no representation through this whole ordeal," she said. "I couldn't even speak with the DA that was handling this case. Everything is done as, 'Is this OK for you, Mr. Campbell? Is this OK for you, Ms. District Attorney?' No one said, 'Is this OK for you, Mrs. Campbell?"'

The court decision, released May 27, was made under the federal Full Faith and Credit for Child Support Orders Act, said Susan Hallahan, Washoe County's chief deputy district attorney of the child support division.

Hallahan said the recently enacted federal law was designed to keep parents owing child support from moving into different jurisdictions and changing the amount they owed.

For example, a state such as Montana may only require a parent to pay $200 while Nevada would assess $500. The law sets the original jurisdiction of the divorce decree and mandates when and how child support payments can be changed.

Hallahan adds that Campbell "got a bad ruling. That's why I am appealing on her behalf."

When the Campbells divorced in 1982 in Washoe County, Robert Campbell was disabled and the court set his child support amount at $25.

The payments were reviewed in 1990 in the San Diego area, and a judge there ruled that Campbell should be paying $375 a month in child support.

And when DelGrande looked over the case last January, he agreed to increase the amount of child support to $500 per month, because Robert Campbell now owns a plumbing business and earns $8,600 a month.

However, he also found that the San Diego court hadn't properly ruled in the 1990 case - and Paula Campbell should have been paid only $25 a month. That leaves her owing nearly $35,000 in payments and interest dating to 1990.

"The Washoe County divorce decree was never registered in San Diego and the language of the California order does not specifically modify the Washoe County decree," DelGrande wrote.

Robert Campbell said he didn't instigate the court case and he has not asked his ex-wife to pay back any money.

"I have never had a problem with paying child support," he said.

Campbell said he wants the best for his daughter and he is continuing to pay the $375 to the California system - which may end up increasing the amount his ex-wife owes.

"It just so happens that I got caught in the middle of a court case where California is saying one thing and Nevada is saying another," he said.