Divorce Lawyers Dallas

The doctrine of laches would not be applied where there was no injury or prejudice to the adverse party and where there was no change in the situation of the parties dues to the delay to the detriment of the adverse party, and the defendant would not be prejudiced or injured by merely requiring him to pay child support that he had owed for a number of years.

The court did not abuse its discretion in making an increase in child support retroactive to the date the petition was filed, notwithstanding the assertion that the petitioner’s delay in responding to discovery slowed the proceedings, where the respondent did not explain how this prejudiced him and did not contend that he did not receive notice of the petition within a short time after it was filed.
With regard to the notice date for purposes of calculating the support amount subject to retroactive abatement, the husband’s voluntary dismissal of his first motion to modify was not properly vacated and, therefore, the date of the husband’s second motion to modify was the date to which his support obligation could be retroactively abated.
The circuit court erred in requiring the respondent to pay retroactive child support and interest between the date of the judgment of dissolution and when the petition for modification was filed.
Under the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act, retroactive modification of child support orders is not permitted.
Although subsection (a) prohibits retroactive modification of an existing order of support, where the trial court determined that no order directing any payment was in existence at the time of the court’s finding because the original agreement had expired, no order was in existence to be modified by the trial court and no violation of subsection (a) occurred upon the court’s order for retroactive child support.
Any modification allowed by the court of a child support agreement will only act prospectively.
The question of whether modification should be retroactive is within the sound discretion of the trial court.
There was no basis on which to conclude the trial court abused its discretion when it denied retroactive support where husband caused no delays in the court’s hearing wife’s petition to modify child support, and the court did hear that petition in a timely fashion, and where wife had petitioned the court in 1987 and 1988 for an increase in support based on the same allegations in her 1989 petition, but failed to pursue those claims.
There was no breach of discretion in the order of the trial court refusing to make a modification order retroactive.
Whether a modification is to be retroactive to the date of the filing of the petition, or any time after, is a matter within the trial court’s discretion.
Where under the original divorce decree wife was responsible for all medical expenses, and a 1964 modification of the divorce decree requiring the husband to pay medical bills applied only to medical expenses which would be incurred in the future, the trial court erred in assessing husband for one-half of a 1963 medical bill.