A Jefferson City man must make back-child-support payments, a three-judge panel of the state appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The nine-page ruling reversed Cole County Circuit Judge Dan Green's decision last January that Thomas Edward Dillow, now 52, of Jefferson City, didn't have to pay the child support he reportedly owed.
The appeals court listed the reasons Green gave as:
• The child's mother failed to provide some means of contact for Dillow to exercise visitation, or to have any contact with the child.
• Dillow was not aware of the original child support order entered in 1995.
• The state's Family Support Division did not present evidence of the amount, types, and specific recipient of state assistance the state had provided on behalf of the child or the mother.
• Dillow served 2½ years in state prison for his failure to pay support and, therefore, already has been punished for his failure to comply with the order.
The appeals court rejected the prison issue.
"Holding Dillow responsible to pay child support is not an additional punishment for the criminal nonsupport case in which Dillow was incarcerated," Judge James Edward Welsh wrote in the unanimous ruling. "Supporting one's child is not punishment (but) is a responsibility that he has as the child's father.
"The primary purpose of child support is to provide for the child's welfare."
Dillow had a relationship with the mother resulting in pregnancy; she filed a petition for paternity and support in October 1995 in Greene County.
The appeals court decision noted that court found the summons was served to a household member at Dillow's residence, but he didn't appear at the hearing. The Springfield court in February 1996 determined Dillow was the child's father and ordered him to pay $570 a month in child support.
Even though he later rekindled his relationship with the mother "for about six months," Dillow claimed she never told him about the court order and he didn't find out about it until February 2001, when he was arrested for criminal nonsupport.
Eventually, he served parts of a four-year prison sentence.
In January 2014, he filed a motion with the Cole County circuit court because he'd moved to Jefferson City, asking for an order canceling the back debt.
While acknowledging he owed approximately $93,000, he asked for the court abatement order, based on several factors including his serving prison time.
The Family Support Division argued Dillow at least owed the state $8,111.58, to repay the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) benefits paid to the child and its mother.
Last January, Green agreed with Dillow that he owed nothing, and the state appealed.
At the appeals court, the state argued a court may abate child support payments only under two circumstances - when a custodial parent "has voluntarily relinquished custody of a child" to the other parent, or when the custodial parent "without good cause, fail[s] to provide visitation or (partial) custody to the other parent" as required by a court-ordered dissolution or legal separation.
The appeals court agreed neither of those applied, and Green could not cancel the child-support debt without finding at least one of those two factors applied.
The court ruled no evidence supported the judgment and sent the case back to Green to change his original ruling.