Suspension For Failure To Honor Child Support Obligations
A Colorado Hearing Board has ordered a suspension for failure to pay court ordered child support
From March 2023 to August 2024, Respondent did not voluntarily pay any court-ordered child support or maintenance. He was jailed for contempt. When he was released, he fell behind on payments again. Even so, he did not object to or seek to modify his support obligations until December 2024. Respondent thereby violated Colo. RPC 3.4(c), which forbids lawyers from knowingly disobeying an obligation under the rules of a tribunal, except for an open refusal based on an assertion that no valid obligation exists. Respondent’s misconduct warrants his suspension for one year and one day.
Summary judgement as to misconduct
On summary judgment, the PDJ concluded as a matter of law that Respondent violated Colo. RPC 3.4(c), which forbids lawyers from knowingly disobeying an obligation under the rules of a tribunal except for an open refusal based on an assertion that no valid obligation exists.
The PDJ found that Respondent knowingly violated the district court’s permanent orders dated March 3, 2023, reasoning that as of the hearing on February 14, 2024, Respondent had amassed $15,005.77 in child support arrearages and was behind $7,822.28 in spousal maintenance. The PDJ also pointed to Respondent’s own report in his February 2024 attorney registration statement that he was not in compliance with his court-ordered child support payments. Further, the PDJ determined that Respondent continued to knowingly violate the permanent orders after the hearing on February 14, 2024. The undisputed material facts showed that before August 2024, Respondent made no voluntary payments toward his support obligations. The PDJ also found that although Respondent’s federal and state tax returns were seized in March and April 2024, respectively, his arrearages were not thereby erased, as the combined returns were insufficient to cover his ongoing child support obligations. As such, the PDJ concluded, the undisputed facts established as a matter of law that Respondent knowingly violated the permanent orders for at least the period between March 2023 and August 2024.
Next, the PDJ determined that even though Respondent violated the permanent orders in his domestic relations case from at least March 2023 to August 2024, he did not seek to challenge those orders until December 6, 2024, when he moved to modify the amounts he paid in support. As a result, the PDJ held, Respondent flouted his child support and maintenance orders, without openly contesting them, from March 2023 until at least August 2024. The PDJ found that Respondent’s conduct per se violated Colo. RPC 3.4(c).
Sanction
The Hearing Board finds that a fully served suspension of one year and one day is the only appropriate sanction here. We contemplated whether to follow Green by offering Respondent an opportunity to reinstate early if he paid his support arrearages or negotiated a payment plan, which the Green court described as a “practical and meaningful way to encourage a lawyer who is in arrears on child support to make a good-faith effort to satisfy those obligations.” But we do not believe that such an arrangement would account for Respondent’s chronic disregard of court orders, whether those orders were issued in his domestic relations case or here, in his lawyer discipline case. He has, on the whole, already rebuffed several opportunities to make good-faith efforts to satisfy his support obligations. Further, in our view, offering such an arrangement would be inconsistent with our mandate to ensure Respondent understands that as a lawyer he is duty-bound to obey court orders and honor the legal process. His actions convey that he does not appreciate either responsibility and has little commitment to reforming his conduct. To best protect the public, the profession, and the legal system, we conclude that Respondent should be required to petition for reinstatement of his law license, where he must demonstrate that he apprehends the wrongfulness of his behavior and prove by clear and convincing evidence that he has changed in ways that reduce the likelihood he again defies court orders or his support obligations.