Gary Matthews Jr. stole home yesterday. As evidenced by the photo to the right, he's also adept at robbing people of home runs. He's not going to be able to rip off the mother of the child he had back in 2004 anymore, however:
An Arizona woman is entitled to the level of child support she would receive if she had lived with the father, pro baseball player Gary Matthews Jr., an Arizona appeals court ruled. The trial court ordered Matthews to pay Jamie Hunt $1,561 for the child they had in 2004. Matthews' salary is $10 million per year. He also had to pay for the child's medical, day care and private school expenses.
Hunt sought a higher amount on appeal, and Judge Hall agreed.
Dude makes $10 million and he is forcing the mother of his child to mount an extended court battle to raise child support above $1,500 a month? Interesting choice on his part. A better choice, however, would have been for Matthews to step up and come to an agreement with the mother that would have corresponded with the law's requirement that child support be based upon the combined income of the parents.
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What a disgrace. As the child of a pro baseball player, he should be receiving more than what the typical person contributes. It does not have to be millions....but c'mon how about 5k a month? geez!
Money hungry women always win in the end.
In Texas, it's apparent that there's no reference to combined income, only the paying parent's income. Mother makes a million a month, father makes 2000 a month, and the father pays the mother 400 a month (that's 20%). And don't even think about mentioning it going the other way, because unless the mother is a known crack whore or worse, SHE gets custody.....
Wow. I wasn't going to comment because I simply agree with Craig's assessment (it's really startling that he didn't come to a reasonable agreement just out of PR shrewdness, even if he isn't decent enought to want to look out for his kid). But the hostility of the previous two comments is something else. If the law in Texas doesn't make sense (many states have child support guidelines based on what Craig suggests, and it works out pretty reasonably), then work to fix it. Being hostile toward women who will bear the brunt of the responsibility for raising the child doesn't make sense and doesn't make anything better for anybody. And if you think all women are money hungry -- or even just the ones who sleep with ballplayers -- then I just have simple advice for all men and all ballplayers: wrap your shmekel.
But it sounds like Richard's example is pretty equitable, really. I mean, if the amount of child support is based on combined income, and the mother (who has custody) earns considerably more than the father, then you're in a situation where the father is required to pay more than his income. Which, obviously, is dumb.
And in the Matthews situation, he makes the crapload of money and doesn't have custody of the kid ... so he should be paying based on his own extremely high income. Which should be a lot more than the quoted $1500/month.
MATTHEWS earns $10,000,000/year, the outed miss does not. He should be paying CHILD support, and I think the problem many have is that CHILD support from rich parents often goes to fund a lavish lifestyle for the child's CARETAKER rather than just the child. I bet if Matthews thought the child would get all the money and not the mother, he'd pay a much more reasonable amount voluntarily. He does, however, have a reasonable concern based on what I've seen from other support cases. Then again, all of this applies only if he's concerned about this issue at all.
after pondering it, I really didn't have a problem with the example in Richard's post -- it's a chunk of change, but it isn't completely unreasonable.
the combined income equation usually involves some equitable math, too, though. Generally (and really, really roughly) they put the two incomes together and determine what percentage each parent's income represents of that total. then, each is expected to come up with that representative percentage in a calculation of costs for the child at that (combined) income level. obviously, the person with custody doesn't cut a check (since they would be cutting a check to themselves).