Dedicated Phoenix divorce lawyer explains your rights and options if your spouse is in contempt of court and violating a court mandated order.
Subsequent to divorces, lawyers are often revisited by former clients because the former spouses in the divorce proceedings have violated the court’s order. They’re not paying child support. They’re not paying the required spousal maintenance. We often have clients ask, what are our remedies? What do we do?
You file a petition for contempt or if it’s at the end of the divorce, a petition to enforce the court’s order. That brings the matter before the court, to say that either this person has violated an injunction that the court has issued, or if that’s subsequent to a divorce, that there was an order issued by this court that this party did not abide by, and you want the court’s intervention to force that party to obey the court’s order. That process would proceed through court on the tracks, as appropriate.
Ultimately, if it’s not able to be resolved or the person doesn’t bring themselves into compliance, would be heard before a judge. There could be sanctions set in place. The person could be held in contempt of court. There could be interest added to whatever fees or process. They could be required to pay attorney’s fees. The issue is, is that if the court has issued an order, a preliminary injunction, it should abide by. These are courts of law; they can hold you in contempt of court or hold you in violation of the court order. It doesn’t look good for that party in front of the court.
If you feel like you have some type of concern, where a court order is not being followed, or an injunction has been violated, you should probably contact your attorney immediately, so that they can look into it, find out if, in fact, that order has been violated, or if that injunction has been violated, so that they could either pursue the other person and tell them to come into compliance or get the court involved in making sure that the court orders are followed or the injunction is kept by the order.