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In Murphy v. Murphy, a recent Superior Court decision, the father appealed a support order entered in absentia because he claimed that he never received notice of the June 2008 support hearing. The father argued that the notice mailed to him was too late (less than 20 days before the hearing, contrary to Rule 1910.6) and was not adequately proven to have been mailed at all, since the only evidence […]

In the recent Superior Court decision, Castadi v. Castaldi, the Domestic Relations Section mailed notices to the child’s mother inquiring whether child support should terminate in January 2007, when the child would be eighteen years old. Mother did not respond to the inquiries, and the Domestic Relations Section terminated child support. Unbeknownst to the DRS, the child had not yet completed 12th grade. In the summer in 2007, the mother […]

For each of the past four years, I have been privileged to teach lawyers about the latest developments in child support as one of the hosts of Family Law Update, a satellite broadcast presentation sponsored by the Pennsyvlania Bar Institute. Since I joined the panel in 2005, several important decisions have influenced the direction of Pennsylvania child support law. Here is my summary of the six most important cases (and […]

A new Guideline amount resulting from new or revised support guidelines may constitute a material and substantial change in circumstances.

The Pennsylvania child support guidelines have been extended upward to $30,000 per month combined net income, and the Melzer formula has been eliminated in high-income cases.

In Mackay v. Mackay (2009), a parent attempted to enforce a casual conversation about college plans for their young children as a “verbal agreement” to pay college expenses.