## Facts

- A Florida dissolution judgment awarded the mother custody and ordered the father to pay $1,473 per month in child support.
- The father failed to pay, and a Florida court found him in contempt, imposing a 170-day jail sentence with a purge condition requiring $7,500 to be paid within 20 days.
- The father moved to Indiana without paying the purge amount.
- The mother registered in Indiana both the Florida support order and the Florida contempt/jail order under UIFSA.
- The Indiana trial court registered the orders and stayed the Florida jail sentence on different terms, requiring a reduced upfront payment and a lower monthly payment schedule.
- After the father fell behind on the Indiana schedule, the Indiana court again stayed incarceration on conditions tied to employment and wage withholding of $150 per week.
- The mother sought an Indiana contempt finding based on nonpayment of the Florida-ordered $1,473 monthly amount; the Indiana trial court found the father not in contempt.
- The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed, treating the Indiana orders as permissible enforcement rather than a modification of the Florida support obligation.

## Issues

1. Whether Indiana’s orders setting reduced purge terms and payment schedules impermissibly modified the Florida child-support order under FFCCSOA and UIFSA.
2. Whether the trial court erred by refusing to hold the father in contempt when he did not pay the amount required by the controlling Florida support order.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Indiana held that Indiana did not modify the Florida child-support order; the Florida order remained the controlling support order and arrears continued to accrue under its terms.
- The Court held that an enforcing state may employ its own enforcement tools, including contempt remedies and purge conditions, without changing the underlying support obligation.
- The Court reversed the contempt determination and remanded because the trial court treated compliance with Indiana’s reduced enforcement schedule as a basis to avoid contempt without properly evaluating noncompliance with the controlling Florida support order.

## Legal Principles

- Under FFCCSOA and UIFSA, only one child-support order is controlling at a time; other states must recognize and enforce that order unless a valid statutory basis for modification exists.
- An enforcing tribunal may craft enforcement mechanisms (including payment schedules and purge conditions) that differ from the issuing state’s payment timetable, so long as it does not alter the amount of the support obligation or replace the controlling order.
- Contempt for nonpayment must be assessed against the controlling support order; partial compliance with an enforcement accommodation does not, by itself, resolve whether the obligor willfully disobeyed the controlling order.
- In contempt proceedings for child-support nonpayment, the court must consider willfulness and the obligor’s ability to pay while using the controlling order as the measure of compliance.

## Conclusion

Indiana could enforce the registered Florida support order using locally fashioned purge terms without modifying the Florida obligation, but the contempt analysis had to be reconsidered using the Florida support order as the governing benchmark for compliance and willful nonpayment.


Hamilton v. Hamilton, 914 N.E.2d 747 (Ind. 2009)