The Michigan Court of Appeals recently issued an interesting decision in a case called In re Robby Lampart about the right of a state agency to go after a claimant’s Social Security disability to enforce a criminal restitution order.  In a tightly written opinion which you can read here, the Michigan appellate judges held that a trial court could not use its power of contempt (i.e., putting a defendant in jail) to coerce that defendant to use Social Security funds to pay his obligations.

Usually, of course, the payment dispute involves child support rather than criminal restitution. My sense is that if other courts adopt the Lampart court’s reasoning in child support cases, custodial parents would not be able to use contempt actions to incarcerate disabled non-custodial parents although they could use contempt actions to find out what other assets that non-custodial parent might have.

Here’s what happened in the Lampart case.

Lampart’s mother, Diana Alexandroni, was ordered to pay criminal restitution of $28,210 at rate of $250 per month. The trial judge ordered Ms. Alexandroni to submit to a wage garnishment of $62.50 per week from her job with the funds payable to the State of Michigan. Continue reading →