Legal Question in Family Law in Washington
Child support
Hello there, I have been dutifully paying child support and healthcare expenses for my daughter which I have absolutely no problem with and I have always followed the court rulings. My wife moved out of state and I paid $3000 for braces (my part of the bill was 75%) The bill was for 100% of the braces expenses, beginning to end. She moved again in the middle of the braces period and went to another dentist who charged her $1500 for dental work. This work was covered by the original dentist for which I paid. Because she moved am I now responsible to pay the second bill. I am hesitant because I already paid for the total services and it was not my choice to move twice.
Thank you for your time and answer.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Child support
On the one hand, if you follow the letter of the court order (according to what you've implied) you would need to pay, however, on the other hand, since services were already paid for you could argue that your duty per the court order has been fulfilled, and assuming that you had joint decision making regarding non-emergency health care, i.e. dental work, you could argue that your ex has violated the letter of the parenting plan, and therefore your ex should be responsible for the cost of changing dentists. Normally, most parenting plans include a dispute resolution process, your issue is one that is ripe for dispute resolution, I suggest that you avail yourself of that process to resolve this issue.
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