When a person willfully disobeys a prior court order, including a child custody order, a court can hold the offender in contempt.(1) The finding of contempt can be either “civil” or “criminal,” depending on the action taken by the court to deal with the contempt. Criminal contempt “imposes unconditi...
Practitioners in the area of family law frequently represent ex-spouses and parents in proceedings claiming contempt of a prior divorce decree or child custody order. Typically, those proceedings commence with the filing of a “petition” in an action assigned its own new case number. The petitioner’s...
In two prior articles, we addressed which provisions of a divorce decree could be modified after its entry and also covered a court’s ability to clarify a divorce decree in a contempt proceeding. This article delves into a court’s contempt powers with respect to a specific component of a divorce...
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A basic rule in Georgia states that a trial court cannot modify the terms of a prior divorce decree in a contempt proceeding.(1) The court can, however, interpret or clarify a divorce decree in the course of resolving contempt issues placed before it.(2) But what constitutes mere clarification of a...