Modifying Child Support: Lessons from Ex-NBA Player Jason Caffey
The most important thing to remember when you are paying court ordered child support is that it is much better to get it reduced before you are tens of thousands of dollars behind in payments. In the case of Jason Caffey, he earned as much as $5 million a season as an NBA player. He also has approximately eight children. Many of these children’s mothers got large child support orders against Mr. Caffey while he was playing professional basketball. Unfortunately, when Mr. Caffey left the NBA and was no longer making millions of dollars a year, he did not modify his child support payments. Now he is in arrears for tens of thousands of dollars, and was recently jailed as a result of being behind in his child support payments. What Mr. Caffey should have done immediately after leaving the NBA and experiencing a reduction in salary is file a motion for modification of child support to have the court modify his payments to reflect his new, lower, salary.
To get a reduction in child support in Georgia, you need to show a substantial change in circumstance. Such a change in circumstance certainly includes a reduction in salary, whether it be from $5 million a year to nothing or from $250,000 a year to $150,000 a year. Another example of a substantial change would be having another child to support, another basis Mr. Caffey could have used to go back to court. The courts realize that economic circumstances change and that such changes are a fact of life, and not always in the control of the wage earner. However, it is much better to address the change in circumstance before creating an arrearage that puts you thousands of dollars behind before you even get in front of the judge.